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Have you ever wondered how goal-setting works in your brain? Setting goals helps you achieve tasks. In fact, goal-setting can be one of your most powerful tools to change your habits and shape your life. They motivate you to go after the things you want, help you overcome obstacles you find difficult, and even make things you thought were out of reach become attainable.

But goals do more than help make things happen. They shift your perspective on what you believe is possible. Goals restructure your brain by creating new neural pathways that allow it to work more efficiently. This helps you focus your energy into making new behaviors habits.

Here’s how goal-setting works in your brain:

A Deeper Look at the Brain

Just as your skin will heal from a cut or a scrape, your brain has the power to heal and restructure itself through neuroplasticity. This incredible process means your brain not only reorganizes synaptic pathways after a brain injury, such as a stroke, but it can also adapt and change your behavior in response to new information.

Your brain loves direction. That’s why this process is incredibly effective for goal setting. Goals give it a purpose and it will actively seek information in your environment to help you achieve your goals. This creates new neural pathways, which helps change your behaviors towards your goals.

In a study of multiple sclerosis patients at the University of Texas, researchers found patients who set aggressive goals regarding their health and wellness had fewer and less severe symptoms. Focusing on their goals healed their brain. That’s the power of neuroplasticity.

The Importance of Meaning

Setting a goal is only one piece of the process. Research shows that the more a goal means to you, the more likely you are to reach it.

Your brain routes information through the amygdala. It evaluates and determines the level of emotional significance to events. It then loops to the frontal lobe for higher-level cognitive processing. Having goals rooted in meaning will always get a boost in importance.

It’s easy to understand the process in terms of your own experiences. For example, saving money so you can go on the vacation of your dreams is a lot easier than paying off debt. Though debt can be stressful, imagining yourself on vacation can have a much larger emotional significance tied to it, giving it higher priority in your brain. This helps your brain filter out everything that will stand in the way while alerting your attention to the situations, information, and behaviors that will help you achieve the goal.

You might set goals because you have to, not because you want to, and that can hinder your ability to reach them. In order to attach to emotional significance, you need to find a solid emotional reason for wanting to complete that goal. Getting a good annual review at work might be something you want logically, but if you don’t attach emotion to it, this long-term goal is difficult to focus on and prioritize. However, if you decide that getting an excellent review leads to a raise, and that will help you buy your dream home, the emotional significance of that goal is now elevated.

Every time you have to fill out a report or complete a mundane task, you can envision that house and your motivation will increase. The more emotion you attach to a goal, the more your brain work to minimize obstacles and difficulties. In short, the more it means to you, the more likely you’ll achieve it, no matter what.

How the Brain Works on Achieving the Set Goal

Goal-setting in your brain comes down to the amygdala and the frontal lobe. It’s combining logic with heart that creates the powerful drive known as motivation. But the third aspect of your brain that guarantees goal-setting success is your reward system.

Your brain reinforces behavior by releasing the neurochemical dopamine whenever you engage in activities that keep you alive. Eating food, drinking water, even falling in love, as you’re more likely to survive when you build relationships. Your brain ties the reward system and learning together. When you learn something new, your brain rewards you with a dopamine surge that boosts your mood and makes you feel happy. Because dopamine is so potent, your brain craves more of it, creating motivation for you to seek more.

This process is the reward loop, and you can use it to create habits. Once you’ve attached emotional significance to your goal, you can use the reward system to break them down into smaller goals. Your frontal lobe evaluates and assesses the logistical breakdown of your goals, which allows you to visualize and plan each minor goal within your larger one. Each step should have a defined measure for success and a specific way that you want to celebrate that success. These external rewards will activate your internal reward system, giving you even more motivation to continue to the next step.

Conclusion

No matter what your goals are, your brain is hard-wired to help you achieve them. By understanding the power of neuroplasticity, connecting emotion to logic, and creating a system of external and internal rewards, you can overcome any obstacles for whatever goal you strive towards.

Watch this video for more on how to reach your goals:

How important is a positive mindset? For many, the New Year is a definitive marker to signal a time for change. But without the right mindset, these goals can feel overwhelming and too easily slip to the wayside. Before you launch full speed into going after your resolutions, take some time to reflect on 2022 to strengthen your mindset and achieve everything you want in 2023 and beyond.

1- Outline your accomplishments and successes

When you think about what you want in the new year, it’s common to focus on the things you didn’t do or achieve in the previous year. You might find yourself saying things like, this is the year you get that promotion or learn that hobby or lose that weight. It may not seem like focusing on the things you want is starting in a negative mindset, but when you think about what the new year can bring that the current one didn’t, you’re actually focusing on failure instead of success.

Instead, take time to focus on every single accomplishment and success you’ve had throughout the year. No success is too small for this list. Write down personal accomplishments and professional achievements. Did you help your neighbor shovel their driveway? Write it down. Did you lead your team in a project at work? Write it down. If you find that it’s hard to remember the success, this might be a good time to start a journal and list your wins at the end of every day so you can flip back to celebrate not just on New Year’s Eve, but throughout the year.

By focusing on your successes, you are reminding yourself of every positive event you achieved. This triggers the reward system in your brain, triggering the release of feel-good hormones. Success is addicting for exactly this reason. A positive mindset helps you embrace optimism and joy of the previous year and is paramount for continued success.

2- Internalize lessons learned

While you’re riding the joy of success, this is the time to reflect on what didn’t work. This may seem like following your positive thought process with a negative one, but you don’t want to simply list your failures. Instead, you want to think about what didn’t work and why.

Emily Fletcher from Ziva Meditation encourages you to change the question, “Why is this happening to me?” to “Why is this happening for me?”. It’s changing one word, but that word changes your mindset from a negative to a positive. It isn’t the event that matters, but what lessons you can learn from it.

Your brain doesn’t like an open loop. If you ask yourself why things happen to you, it will seek out examples of how you were wronged. So by changing the question, your brain then starts to seek out examples of what you can learn and gain from each event. It’s a small distinction that makes a huge difference in how you process events in your lives. There’s always a lesson in every event, both the good and the bad. By focusing on those instead of the events themselves, you can change into a positive mindset by always seeking opportunities instead of focusing on the downside.

3- Write down the possibilities

This is where you welcome your dreams and put them on paper. Write down everything you want to accomplish. Again, this list isn’t limited to things you think are possible or realistic. This is a list of every single thing you want for the year. Focusing on a long list of potential events and achievements may feel overwhelming, but if you open yourself to exploring what you want without limit, you may end up being surprised what lands on that list.

Often, you choose goals that you think are achievable or that you think others want you to achieve. These aren’t bad goals, but they may not be the right goals for you. A goal should make you nervous. It should make you a little afraid because that’s when your brain goes out of the comfortable habit loop and becomes active. When you write down all of your possibilities, you will know what stands out, what makes you nervous. What you really want shines through like a beacon and those are the goals you should focus on for the new year.

4- Make a plan

It’s normal to think of setting a goal as a finite thing. If you want to lose weight, you go on a diet and go to the gym every day. If you want to learn a foreign language, you buy a program and practice every day while you commute. If you want to write a book, you sit down and write 1,000 words every day. Sound familiar?

Knowing what you want and what you need to do to get there is only part of making a plan. The other part is planning for everything else. What happens when you have a bad day, or even a bad week? What do you do when you feel stuck or unmotivated? How will you work through any obstacles that come up? Can you think of what those might be?

Making a plan for success is trying to answer as many questions as you can about the reality of executing your goal. You should have small goals to mark success, a list of people you can turn to for advice or motivation when things get hard, an understanding of what tools and resources you will need as you make progress, and an idea of what you think is going to happen as you work towards your goal. Having a plan is vital to maintaining a positive mindset where you believe success is possible.

5- Be flexible

Part of getting in the right mindset is also knowing that things will go wrong. No matter how well you plan, or how achievable your goals may seem, things will go wrong. You will hit roadblocks and obstacles. There will be tough days and rough weeks where you doubt and question if you can reach your goal. But if you know that this is normal, you can prepare for these hard times in advance.

Flexibility also means being aware that your goal may shift or change as you progress. Maybe the thing you set out to do isn’t feasible anymore in terms of getting you to your longer-term goals. Or perhaps a new opportunity arises that makes more sense. Knowing that goals shift and change happens helps you adjust your mindset well in advance.

Conclusion

Setting a goal or resolution isn’t a set it and forget it process. It requires getting into the right mindset by adjusting how you look at difficulties and obstacles while preparing rock-solid plans to achieve your goals.

Watch this video for more on the power of mindset:

Depending on your day, it can be hard to focus on happiness, sometimes. By definition, happiness is a state of well-being, joy, or contentment. It can be a sense of satisfaction after completing a job or a task. Or the positive feeling you get after helping others. Because happiness means different things to different people, it often feels like an elusive emotion that is difficult to attain.

Neurologically, happiness is the release of chemicals in your brain. Specifically, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins all contribute to the feelings associated as happiness. This means there are things you can do every day to help increase the release of these chemicals. In turn, this will elevate your overall feeling of happiness.

1: Engage in physical activities

The fact is, physical activities—aerobic or anaerobic—have multiple positive effects on the brain. It improves blood flow, and a well-oxygenated brain functions better. Exercise also helps the brain produce endorphins, a neurochemical that not only helps elevate mood but helps decrease pain as well. In addition, not only does exercise release dopamine, regular exercise can increase the amount of dopamine receptors in your brain.

Over time, exercise changes the brain’s structure by growing new neurons, specifically in the hippocampus. This is the region of the brain associated with emotions, learning, and memory. Restructuring the hippocampus helps stabilize your moods and leave you feeling emotionally balanced throughout the day. When you feel better, it’s easier to focus on happiness.

The good news is that you can gain these benefits by doing as little as ten minutes of exercise a day. If getting exercise is a new habit, start small. Doing things like taking the stairs whenever possible or parking at the end of a parking lot instead of upfront are great examples of starting small. Maybe walk around the block or in the park during your breaks or after work. Of course, if it’s too cold or you prefer to stay indoors, you can jump rope, do jumping jacks, practice yoga, do push-ups, or any other activities that elevate the heart rate while you move around.

2: Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is when you center yourself in the present moment, so that you can assess your actions and thoughts without judgment. This sounds more complicated than it is. You can meditate, do deep-breathing exercises, say affirmations, focus on your body, and avoid multitasking for short, deliberate periods of time either daily or weekly.

When you engage in mindfulness for at least five minutes a day, it helps rewire your brain. Meditation in particular helps shrink the amygdala, the region of the brain that is tied directly with your sympathetic nervous system and triggers your fight-or-flight response. Stress increases the amygdala which makes you more susceptible to reacting to situations with fear or anxiety. By shrinking the amygdala, you become more open to reacting to the same situations with a calmer outlook.

Practicing mindfulness also reduces the levels of cortisol in your brain. Cortisol is the stress hormone that can disrupt your sleep patterns, cause your moods to become volatile, and decrease your productivity. Mindfulness increases dopamine and serotonin, which lower cortisol levels. It also increases your brain’s production of melatonin, which stabilizes your sleep schedule.

3: Sleep better

Getting seven to eight hours of sleep daily helps keep the brain functioning effectively. If you don’t get enough quality sleep, it can lead to sleep deprivation, and a sleep-deprived brain affects your cognitive functionality, making it difficult to pay attention, make decisions, and think critically. This then works to diminish your focus and eradicate your productivity.

To sleep better and enjoy the benefits of a good night’s sleep, avoid using phones or other devices in bed. Screens emit blue light, which is the same wavelength as sunlight. This sends a signal to your brain that it’s still daytime, raising cortisol and inhibiting the production of melatonin. Without melatonin, it’s difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep, and your overall sleep-wake cycle will be disrupted leaving you groggy and tired in the morning.

Other ways to help ensure you’re getting the right amount of quality sleep, is by setting up your bedroom to be sleep-friendly. Keeping your bedroom clutter-free helps your brain relax so you can fall asleep faster. You can put up curtains to keep light out or use a sleep mask to help block light that could wake you up. To alleviate noise, you can listen to calming sounds or use ear buds. All of these are small ways that can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and get more deep sleep to rejuvenate your body and brain.

4: Practice gratitude

Gratitude helps you appreciate the value and importance of the people in your lives and the things you have. When you reflect on these things, it helps raise your feeling of satisfaction. This is more than simply being thankful. Gratitude is also engaging in behaviors of giving and generosity.

When you feel gratitude, your brain activates your ventral and dorsal prefrontal cortex. These areas are responsible for your emotional responses, and enhance things like bonding and morality. It also is a key element in your reward system, helping to strengthen your habits. Every time you’re grateful, your reward system is activated, which motivates you to engage in this behavior again.

You can actively practice gratitude in multiple ways. Keeping a gratitude journal, where you write down what you’re grateful for every day keeps you focused on the more positive aspects of your lives. You can also make more of an effort to express gratitude to people in your life on a regular basis. Making the commitment to say thank you or otherwise show your appreciation to one person a day is an easy way to practice gratitude daily.

5: Build and embrace self-love

Self-love is when you not only believe in yourself, it’s also when you make your well-being a top priority. And it goes beyond simply saying you have confidence in yourself or believing in yourself. Building self-love means you take actions to support your physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual growth.

One of the most important things you can do is practice self-care. This means taking time to nurture yourself throughout the week. Doing things like taking a relaxing bath, getting a massage, practicing meditation, or engaging in creative endeavors or hobbies can help relax and restore your well-being.

Other ways to build self-love is to create boundaries and uphold them. These can be to maintain your work-life balance and protect your emotional well-being in all relationships. You can remind yourself of your value, pay attention to what you’re afraid of, and work on overcoming those obstacles, stop comparing yourself to others, and allow yourself to make mistakes. By taking the time to take care of yourself, you’re giving your brain the rest and resources it needs to be emotionally balanced and physically rejuvenated.

Conclusion

The path to happiness is attainable for everyone. By creating daily habits that promote neurochemical responses in your brain you can help promote your emotional well-being every day. A healthy brain is a happy brain, and that allows you to reach your truly limitless potential in the New Year and beyond.

For more on how to focus on happiness, watch this episode: