Kwik Team

You already know setting goals helps you move forward in your life to achieve more. In fact, goal-setting can be one of the most powerful tools you have when it comes to changing habits and shaping your life. They can help you focus on what’s important, find motivation to do the hard things, help you overcome obstacles and difficulties, and even make things you once thought out of reach become attainable.

But goals do more than help you make things happen. They help shift your perspective on what you believe is possible. That happens because goals can actually restructure your brain, creating new neural pathways that allow it to work more efficiently. Those changes focus your energy on reaching your goal, which then turns these new behaviors into habits. Here’s a closer look at the neurology of goal-setting and how you can use it to work for you.

A Deeper Look at the Brain

In the same way your skin heals from cuts or scrapes, your brain has the power to restructure itself. This process is called neuroplasticity. It allows your brain to reorganize synaptic pathways after a brain injury, such as a stroke. But it also helps your brain adapt and change your behavior in response to new information.

This process is incredibly effective when it comes to goal setting because your brain loves direction. Goals give your brain a purpose. Once it knows you have a focus, it will actively seek out information in your environment to support that focus. This in turn creates new neural pathways as you change your behaviors in order to achieve your goals.

You can see the power of neuroplasticity in a study of multiple sclerosis patients done at the University of Texas. Researchers found that patients who set aggressive goals regarding their health and wellness, had fewer and less severe symptoms. Focusing on their goals healed their brain.

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 achieve it. This is because your brain routes a lot of information through your amygdala. There it evaluates and determines the level of emotional significance to events. It then loops that information to your frontal lobes for higher-level cognitive processing. That means having goals rooted in meaning will always get a boost in importance.

It might feel like some goals are set because we have to, not because we want to. You can see the motivation difference in terms of similar goals. Saving money to pay off debt can feel far different than saving for a dream vacation. Though debt is stressful, imagining yourself on vacation has a much larger emotional significance attached. That alone gives it much higher priority in your brain.

The trick is to attach emotional significance to your goal. Paying off debt may not be as motivating as a vacation, but if you pay off your debt so you can go on vacation, you’ve elevated the emotional attachment. Every time you make a payment, say no to the add-ons while shopping, or otherwise restrict your spending, you can picture yourself debt-free AND on vacation. Your motivation will naturally increase. But more importantly, your brain will also work harder to minimize obstacles and difficulties. The more your goal means to you, the more likely you’ll find ways to achieve it.

Finding the Rewards

As mentioned above, a lot of goal-setting comes down to the amygdala and the frontal lobe. It’s combining logic—SMART goals—with emotion—HEART goals. That creates to powerful driver known as motivation. But there is a third aspect of your brain that guarantees goal success: your rewards system.

Your brain is designed to reinforce 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. But this reward system is also tied to learning. 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 known as 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 steps. Your frontal lobe is designed to evaluate and assess the logistical breakdown of your goals, which will allow 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 we 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 hardwired to help you achieve them. By understanding the power of neuroplasticity, finding a way to connect emotion to logic, and creating a system of external and internal rewards, you can overcome any and all obstacles for whatever goal we strive towards.

If you want to learn more about how the reward system drives your behavior, watch this video:

Setting goals can be overwhelming. Your to-do, to-be, to-study lists are miles long, and everything feels like an urgent priority. And while it’s important to find your purpose, map out your SMART goals, and give them HEART, there’s one final tool you need to help you find your true North to achieve your goals: your compass.

When it comes to making day-to-day progress, it can be easy to get lost. You get busy, last minute tasks are dumped on your plate, and stress in general can drain your energy and motivation. But when you have a compass, it’s easier to stay on track. Whenever you feel stuck or need to figure out how to move forward, you can use these reminders as a framework to stay on your path and find your True NORTH.

N— Nourish

The first step to staying on track is ensuring you feed you body and brain. This isn’t just about good nutrition, though that is important. It’s also about making sure you take time to refill your cup so you have the mental energy and cognitive resources to achieve your goals.

For physical nourishment, you want to focus on eating a brain-healthy diet, staying hydrated, and getting plenty of exercise. Wherever possible, try to get plenty of natural sunlight by spending some time outdoors. Nature is a great place to recenter yourself and find spiritual nourishment at the same time.

In addition to taking care of your physical self, schedule time for rest and recovery. Part of this is working on getting quality sleep every night, but this is also about finding downtime during the day. Journaling, meditation, deep breathing, and spending time doing the things you truly love with the people you love are all essential to maintaining your path and finding the momentum to move forward.

O — Ownership

It might seem like setting a goal and working towards it is already taking ownership of your destiny, but this is a mindset that takes focus and practice. Every day you want to sit down and review your day. Look at what you succeeded at, but if you didn’t make as much progress as you wanted, it’s important to not just look at why, but own it.

Maybe you didn’t work on a project because traffic was bad or a call took too long. It can be easy to blame those things, but taking ownership means finding ways to accept personal responsibility for those obstacles. You can’t control traffic, but you can control when you leave for an appointment or how much time you gave yourself for that particular task when you sat down to plan your day.

Being realistic with your time will ensure that you’re able to realistically plan your tasks so that you aren’t overwhelmed, or worse, fall behind and end up frustrated that you’re not making progress on your scheduled timeline. Whenever possible, take ownership of your setbacks, obstacles, and failures because it’s only in looking at the things you can control that you will be able to find your clear path forward.

R — Resilience

Speaking of obstacles and setbacks, you have to know that they’re going to happen. No matter how much you plan or how hard you work, you’re going to hit roadblocks, challenges, and sometimes, even failures. But embracing that adversity will actually help you move past them faster and stronger.

One way to build resiliency is to change your mindset around progress and momentum. There is no one right way to succeed, and a failure in one area might lead to opportunities somewhere else. But you can only see those opportunities if you embrace the unknown and are able to bounce back from curveballs.

You can practice resilience by evaluating your challenges through the lens of finding a path forward. Never look your goals as a straight line. You’re going to need to be aware of possible detours, closed roads, and u-turns. Sometimes you’re going to have to build a bridge or backtrack to find a different way, but all of that is progress and momentum. Remember, it doesn’t matter how twisty or obscured your road gets because you have a compass to guide you through.

T — Thoughtfulness

The last thing you want when looking at a map is to find it cluttered with too many possible routes, icons, or pitstops. You want a clear guide so you can spot trouble spots and plan accordingly without getting distracted. That requires mental clarity and focus.

Thoughtfulness is another way to think about mindfulness. And mindfulness is the practice of being present and in the moment, without letting your thoughts run the show. Your brain has an average of 60,000 thoughts per day. That’s a lot of noise that can take you off task, raise doubt, trigger anxiety, and have you running around trying to accomplish task after task after task.

The difference between letting your thoughts drive your actions is that you end up being busy, but not productive. And only one of those leads to momentum in achieving your goals. Take time to practice clearing those unnecessary, and often unwanted, thoughts every day. Make sure you’re writing your goal down every day with focused action steps that you want to achieve every day. When you find yourself drifting off task or overwhelmed with busy-work, spend a few minutes clearing the noise in your head to find peace and clarity. This will help you follow your compass down your true path forward.

H — Habits

When it comes to goals, habits create consistency. And consistency is your superpower. There are a lot of ways you can create habits, but one of the most effective is to make them tiny and celebrate those small wins. This is the strategy presented in our latest book club book, Tiny Habits by Dr. B.J. Fogg.

If your goal is to run a marathon, your tiny habit would be putting on your running shoes. Every time you do that, you celebrate, which makes you feel successful. A marathon—and any goal, for that matter—is hard. To do the hard things, feeling good is not just important, it’s essential. It might not seem like just putting on your running shoes creates the daily habit of running, but when you do that, you set yourself up for success and are more likely to take a step outside of your home, leading to another and another.

This tiny action also helps cement the importance of running daily, even on the days you don’t feel good or can’t actually run. You never lose track of your goal because you engage in one small step every single day. It keeps it front of mind, helps you feel good (celebration) every time you think about your goal, and prompts you to continue engaging in that habit day after day.

Good habits keep your map open and your compass primed, ensuring that your journey is always a priority in your mind. Not only does that help you take steps every day to achieve your goal, but it makes your goal not just something you’re working towards, but something you are.

Conclusion

Remember, you have the power to shape your destiny, and science has your back. Follow these steps to keep your compass in your pocket to ensure you are constantly and consistently aligned with your true North. Your goals are within reach, and you’ve got what it takes to reach them. Keep feeding your mind with knowledge, embracing challenges, and building positive habits, and success will become your reality. 

To learn more about how to start tiny when it comes to habits, watch this video:

At this point in the goal-setting process, you’ve found your why and made your steps SMART. Your why is laying your foundation and the SMART steps are the fundamental tactics that you’re going to take. So far, this has been more of a nuts-and-bolts approach to setting a goal. And even though asking yourself why you want to achieve your goal is tapping into your purpose, this last step really goes deep into making sure you tap into that core feeling for sustained motivation. Essentially, you’re finding the HEART of your goal. Tactics are important, but to succeed, your goals need HEART.

H — Healthy

One of the most important elements when planning any goal is making sure it encompasses all aspects of your health and well-being. That means looking out for yourself in the long-term. Some of this should have come to light when you were doing your SMART goals. Particularly, when making sure your goal is realistic and time-based. This is the moment to double check and make sure that you have taken into account any physical, mental, or emotional obstacles that you need to include in your tactical steps.

There can be a tendency to only think about physical health, but not all goals have a physical element. And even if it does, there are other stressors to consider. You want to have goals that you have to work hard at and push yourself towards. But you don’t want to success to come at the expense of your health. As you’re creating your action steps be sure to take your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health into account.

E — Enduring

Finding your why is so important because it ensures that it’s strong enough to keep you inspired—even when it’s difficult. That’s why it’s considered laying the foundation for success. Another way to look at the E is through Emotion because this is the feeling your goal should create.

It might seem like finding the purpose of your goal within your why should be enough to sustain your motivation. And it’s a good start. But every goal, not matter what it encompasses, is going to be really difficult at some point. It’s going to make you question yourself, your commitment, and your capabilities. That’s completely normal. Tapping into a deeper emotional pull can help push you forward during these times. You want to not only understand your purpose, but attaching strong emotions to your goal helps you endure the hard times so you can make it to the end.

A — Alluring

Hopefully, every goal you create is alluring to you in some way. But it’s okay if they’re not. It’s normal to have less than glamorous goals, but luckily, that’s not what we mean here. When we say alluring goals, we’re talking about a level of irresistibility.

No matter what your focus is, reaching your goals will be hard. They will make you work. And while emotion is important in terms of motivation, you need to have something that excites you. Something that really makes you want to go after it. This helps pull you towards your goal, so make sure you find aspects to build inside your action steps and celebrations that are exciting, enticing, and engaging.

R — Relevant

This might seem like a no-brainer. Obviously your goal will always be relevant to your life in some way, but we want you to go a little deeper in this step. Wanting to learn how to speak Spanish just because you’ve always wanted to is a fine goal. But if you can make it relevant to your life in a way that truly impacts you, you’ll find it easier to tap into the purpose and emotion you might need to carry you all the way through.

Think about why you’re setting the goal and how it will improve your life when you achieve it. Feeling good about leveling up your skills is fantastic. Knowing you can plan a trip abroad at the end might be a little more motivating. Even if a trip isn’t in the card, perhaps knowing someone in your life who speaks Spanish that you can now communicate with can be the relevance.

You can think about challenges you want to overcome and how the goal will do that. Maybe it ties into your life purpose or a core value. It might be a bucket list item or turning a dream into a reality. The stronger you can connect your goal with something relevant and impactful to your life today, the more motivation you’ll discover as you pursue it.

T — Truth

The final aspect of giving your SMART goals HEART is truth. That means being honest with yourself—brutally honest. Who are you really setting this goal for? Is it your boss? Your spouse? Do you want to impress the neighbors or catch someone’s eye. It’s okay if it is, but being brutally honest with that truth will help you shape your goals in a far more realistic mindset.

When you aren’t honest with yourself, you can become lost in your goal. Those tough times that we’re trying to get ahead of can drag you down and keep you there. When you’re honest with yourself, you can reevaluate your goal and shape it to meet more of your true intentions which makes it much more likely that you’ll be able to succeed. Be true to yourself, and there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.

Conclusion

Setting goals is more than simply stating an outcome you want to work towards. When you take the time to analyze your motivations and plan your action steps, you can build bigger and better goals, where you’re far more likely to succeed. Making sure your goals start in the foundation of why, are SMART, and have HEART, makes them more than simple goals. It makes them part of your lifestyle, where you develop healthy habits that create more momentum as you strive to constantly and consistently improve, leading to a truly Limitless life.

If you want to learn more about how HEART helps your goals, watch this video: