Dr. K discusses the shift from relying on motivation to discipline, habits, and stoicism in the pursuit of goals. He emphasizes the importance of understanding motivation's biological basis and the role of perception in shaping behaviors. By altering perceptions, such as changing phone settings or adopting a growth mindset, individuals can boost motivation and productivity. Coaching programs offer personalized support to help individuals set and achieve goals effectively. Perception, linked to ego and self-worth, significantly influences motivation and outcomes. Dr. K highlights the impact of perception on motivation and behavior, underlining the need to shape perceptions positively for improved motivation and success.
Transcription
6379 Words, 34899 Characters
Hey chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer GG podcast. I'm Dr. Olo Kanoja, but you can call
me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist gamer and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore
mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better
understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in.
So I don't know if y'all have noticed, but we seem to have given up on motivation. Nowadays,
everyone is into discipline because you can't rely on motivation, right? Like motivation
comes and goes, but if you're disciplined, you're going to do something every day. It's
not just discipline. We've also fallen in love with habits because when we are mentally
checked out, we want the autopilot programming in our body to move us in the direction that
we want to go. And my favorite new version of giving up on motivation is broicism. We
want to be stoic. We want to be impervious to the internal tides of emotion and motivation.
And if we can sort of build these three things, discipline, habit and being a really good
stoic, then we don't need motivation. But this is the problem is that if you sort of
look at it biologically, neuroscientifically, the most powerful way to engage in a behavior
is to be motivated towards it. And the reason we've given up on motivation is because we
don't know how to turn it on, right? We can't seem to cultivate it in the right way. And
the reason we don't know how to do that is because we don't even understand what motivation
is. We don't understand where it comes from. Motivation has its roots in perception. But
the one thing that I never hear anyone talking about is how to level up or craft your perception
in the right way. Now, if y'all are thinking, hold on a second, motivation is not perception.
These are two different things. Perception is what I perceive and motivation is what
happens within me. But let me give y'all a couple of very simple examples. The first
is that everyone is struggling to cut down on their technology usage. We're spending
too much time on iPads, on computers, on cell phones. Maybe that's where you're watching
this. And there's one really simple trick that you can do to reduce the average cell
phone use every day by 37 minutes. Really simple thing is to change your phone to grayscale.
So let's think about that for a second, right? All I'm doing is changing my perceptual input
and this reduces my cell phone usage automatically with no effort, no discipline, no habits necessary,
don't need to be a stoic at all. If I simply change my phone to grayscale, I'll reduce
my average cell phone use by 37 minutes. For some people, their cell phone usage drops
by even 30 to 50% on the upper end. All we're doing is changing a perception and then our
natural inclination to use the cell phone goes down. And there's even a better example.
So I don't know what middle school or high school was like for y'all, but for me, there
was a lot of like people having crushes on other people. So let's say you've got a crush
on someone in middle school. So what determines whether you ask your crush out? What determines
your motivation to ask them out? I like this person. The desires there, the nucleus accumbens
wants this. My emotional centers are attracted to this person, right? So these parts of the
brain are active. I want to be in a relationship with this person. But am I motivated to pursue
that relationship? Absolutely not. I am terrified to pursue that relationship until I ask my
friend, "Hey, can you go ask this girl's friend if she's interested in me? Can you go find
out? Does she like me too? Is she crushing on me too?" And even though your desire for
this person remains constant over time, the moment that you get the information that this
person likes me to, suddenly it becomes way easier to ask them out. What we perceive about
how this person will respond to us determines our motivation to ask them out. So I want
you all to just sit on this for a second, okay? So in this scenario, the desire is there.
The desire's always been there. But what triggers a motivation of never asking them out or asking
them out is your perception of how they feel about you. So we see two really interesting
examples of how perception leads to an increase or decrease in motivation. Now the problem
with these two examples is that we don't have very simple things that we can do for the
other motivational areas of our life, right? There isn't just some simple setting you can
change when you wake up in the morning that will reduce your, I don't know, your motivation
to spend time on your computer. We can't just grayscale our whole life and we may not even
want to. So then the question becomes, how do we understand, so even if it's true in
these two cases, what is the general principle, is there a general principle that we can apply
to basically any dimension of our life? And the answer is there is absolutely a principle
like that and we're going to teach it to you. When people hear about our coaching program,
their first response is usually, why would I work with another human being when I can
watch YouTube videos all on my own? Working with a coach is about amplifying your time
and effort. We're great at wanting things and even making some progress, but we usually
struggle with follow through or have some kind of setback. And that's exactly where
working with a coach can help. Coaches provide personalized support to help you set appropriate
goals, make progress, and even work through setbacks. Just let us know what your goals
are, what kind of support you're looking for, and we'll match you with the best coach for
your unique needs. Check out the link in the description below to see if coaching is right
for you. Let's start by understanding a little bit about how the motivational circuitry in
the brain works. So over here, we have our nucleus accumbens. This is our center for
dopamine and dopamine gives us three things. It gives us pleasure. It gives us cravings
and it gives us behavioral reinforcement. So a lot of times when we think about motivation
and even neuroscientists will sort of say this, they'll say that our motivation comes
from our nucleus accumbens. It comes from the part of us that like literally like craving
is a motivation, right? But it's actually a little bit more complicated than that. We
also know that over here, we have our amygdala and our limbic system. And these are the emotional
centers of the brain. And if we sort of think about powerful motivators, emotions are incredibly
powerful motivators. When someone makes me feel ashamed about myself, my motivation to
spend time with them drops incredibly drastically, right? If I feel angry at someone, I'm highly
motivated to do something about it. So we can see that motivation comes from here and motivation
comes from here. And then the other place that maybe motivation comes from is if we
look at the higher order centers of our brain, our frontal lobes, our cortices, this is where
a lot of like planning and calculation come from, right? So like if we calculate that
things are have a high likelihood of success, then we are more likely to be motivated to
do them. So you may look at this and you may say, Oh, well, Dr. K, this is simple. This
is why motivation is so complicated because motivation comes from here, it comes from
here and it comes from here. So sometimes what happens, you may notice is that there's
a conflict between these areas. Emotionally, I feel like doing one thing. I feel ashamed
of myself, but I'm craving something else. Intellectually, I may calculate or analyze
that it is a good idea for me to study today, but I'm craving something else. And this is
why we've given up on motivation, because all of these circuits of the brain are fighting
with each other. Well, it turns out that there's one part of the brain called the thalamus,
which feeds and controls all three of these other parts of the brain. This is the master
control circuit. And there are even studies that show that the thalamus is the seat of
consciousness within the brain. So if we sort of think about where are human beings conscious,
where does consciousness arise? There's like a really interesting, you know, paper that
suggests that it comes from the thalamus. This may sound kind of weird because you're
saying, okay, Dr. K, so this thalamus, like this, the sensory circuit of my brain is sort
of the, the source of my motivation. Like how does that work? So now what we're going
to do is go through, let's say a couple of very, very common productivity hacks, methods
to increase your productivity. And what we're going to do is see how perception factors
into these things that people do. So the first thing that we're going to talk about is mindset.
So Carol Dweck did this awesome research about 15, 20 years ago on mindset, and she sort
of discovered that there are two kinds of people. Some people have something called a
performance mindset, and other people have something called a growth mindset. So performance
mindset oriented people try to achieve a particular thing. So their focus is on getting straight
A's, getting good grades. They're focused on a particular outcome. And people who are
growth mindset oriented are not interested in getting A's or what's more important to
them is learning the material. I'm here to learn and to grow and to improve, not to achieve.
So the really interesting thing about mindset is that, you know, if two people with these
different mindsets are faced with the same situation, let's say I studied really hard
to get an A on a test, and I end up getting a B, the way that these two people respond
to the same reality is different. Someone who has a performance mindset, if they study
really hard and they get a B, they will feel really disappointed in themselves. They will
feel like, Oh my God, I did all of this work and I have nothing to show for it. When they
have a setback in life, they're more likely to give up than to double down and increase
their effort. On the flip side, people who have a growth mindset, when they end up getting
a B, they approach the situation, they say, hold on a second, I thought I was going to
get an A. I thought I learned this stuff really well, but it turns out I didn't. So I need
to study twice as hard. There's something that I'm missing here. There's something that
I'm not quite learning. I need to improve my learning. So even though the actual situation
is the same between these two people, the way that they perceive the situation determines
whether they try twice as hard or give up. The second thing that we're going to talk
about is something like the Pomodoro technique or something that involves chunking up big
tasks. So there's a great, you know, there's a ton of evidence that if you have a very
large task, if I have like, you know, if I have to, let's say, write a thesis, breaking
the large chat task into chunks is very, very effective at motivating me to complete the
task. So let's understand why this works. So let's say I'm working on a thesis that requires
a thousand hours of effort. So if I work 40 hours a week for like 25 weeks, that's oftentimes
how long a thesis takes, maybe even longer, right? So I have a thousand hours of effort
that I need to put into this thesis, maybe even way more than that. Now, I want y'all
to think about from the brain's perspective, when I have a thousand hours of work to do
and I complete one hour, I've invested all of this effort, right? So I've worked really
hard for one hour, let's say I've worked really hard for 10 hours, I spent the whole day,
I've been grinding all day. And when my brain looks at this, how much progress have we,
we made almost nothing, right? We're maybe 1% of the way there, not even 1% of the way
there. So your brain feels the exhaustion from a 10 hour day. And it sees the lack of
progress you've made. It looks at this one day and you have to ask yourself, am I doing
this? Do I have to do this a thousand more times? How many times do I have to do this?
I'm so exhausted. And we see this all the time. I see all these posts on the internet
about people being exhausted and burnt out. What do you mean? Life is supposed to be,
I'm supposed to go to work, I'm supposed to commute for 40 years, I'm supposed to be
in this grind and then I get to have fun. You guys notice the similarity between these
two situations? If you are burnt out about life, if you are looking at life and you're
saying I'm exhausted, I don't have the energy to do this for another 10 years, 15 years,
I just can't date anymore. I've spent so much time and energy trying to do this thing and
I'm nowhere near the goal. And then you feel like giving up. So instead of thinking about
writing your thesis, set a goal for the day. So today I'm going to do, I have to get through
three chapters of stuff and I want to write three pages of notes that will eventually
go into my thesis. So I'm chunking up the task. So instead of doing a thousand hours
of work, at the end of the day, I need to do six hours of work. And if I complete those
six hours of work, then I feel like I've accomplished something and it's like good job. I did what
I was supposed to do today. I can do it again tomorrow. So I want you all to really appreciate
this for a second. Okay. What are we actually changing? So when we sort of chunk things
up into six hour increments, let's say if we were writing a thesis, you can get to 100%
of your goal. So your brain looks at this and says, this is the amount of work that I have
to do. And I completed all of it. I am done. I can take the rest of the day off. Oh my
God, I had such a productive morning. I started hitting the books at 8am. It's 2pm. I skipped
lunch, but I'm finished. I did everything. Awesome. I can go. I can go to the gym and
I can play video games for the rest of the day. I'm going to hit it up tomorrow. So in
both of these situations, the literal situation is exactly the same. In both of these situations,
arguably the same amount of work has been done. Right? We said six hours, 10 hours, whatever.
The situation is the same. But in these two situations, the way that our brain responds
to it, the change in our motivation is drastically different. And what's the common element between
these two things? The way that we perceive it. Now the third area that I'm going to talk
about, this is one of my favorites, is ego. So here on the channel, we talk a lot about
ego. So what is ego? Technically, what is it? It is your perception of yourself. Right?
So if I'm egotistical, I think I am the greatest person on the planet. There's even something
called in Sanskrit, the negative ahamkar, which is a really powerful perception of self,
but in the negative direction. So I'm the biggest loser on the planet. I'm worthless.
I'm an incel. Call it whatever you want. In both of these cases, when you have someone
who's really narcissistic or really insecure, if you gauge, I don't know if this makes sense,
if you quantify how powerful and how rigid their perception of themselves is, you will
see a very, very high perception of the self. You'll see like, okay, I am this. I'm definitely
this. I'm the best thing on the planet. I'm the worst thing on the planet. Do you guys
see how both of those things are kind of the same in terms of your perception of the ego
is very rigid? Okay. And then some of y'all may be saying, but hold on a second, Dr. K,
I have no idea who I am. I don't even know who I am. That's not correct. You have an
ego of being someone who is clueless about who you are. I don't know. Everyone else in
the world knows who I am. I'm the one person. I'm 100% sure that I don't know who I am.
So your ego is of someone who is clueless about what they are. It is still ego. And
ego is such a powerful perception, right? So it shapes all of our calculations. When
we go back to the frontal lobes, that's making all of these calculations about what will
work and what won't work. It factors in who we are. Now, this is why when I work with
patients who have low self-worth, they make a huge mistake when they try to date because
they try to date other broken people. So they perceive themselves as broken. They end up,
you know, interacting with and having a positive interaction with someone who's decent, who's
whole, who's a good person. And they think to themselves, this person would never want
to date me. And so instead, what they do is they go hunting for people who are equally
broken because if I'm broken, I can end up dating someone. This person will accept me
because they're screwed up. And this is a recipe for disaster because now you're broken,
they're broken, and then the likelihood of the relationship succeeding goes way down.
What we know from studies of attachment theory is the healthiest thing for someone with avoidant
or anxious attachment to do is to date someone with secure attachment. And someone with secure
attachment doesn't think lower of you because they're securely attached. They like you
for who you are. I know it's really foreign, but this is actually how it works. And this
isn't the only case of this. So this was really hilarious. When I graduated from college
I had a 2.5 GPA spent five and a half years doing my undergrad. And so I applied for a
bunch of like entry level research positions. So I applied for over 100 entry level research
positions. I got one interview because here's the crazy thing. Entry level positions are
very competitive, especially when they're asking for like four years of experience and
a master's degree or even a PhD. And then I applied for a job at Harvard Medical School.
And I got it as a research assistant. Why did I get it? The job at Harvard Medical School
with a 2.5 GPA, when I applied to jobs at like UT El Paso and didn't even get an interview,
because I was the only candidate who applied. And it turns out that this perception of what
we are capable of is actually what hamstrings us the most. And remember, we're not even
talking about success in today's video. We're talking about motivation in today's video.
How motivated is the average student with a 3.2 GPA to apply to Harvard Medical School?
Very low. How motivated are they to apply to UT El Paso? Very high. So what ends up happening
is we have a glut of mediocrity. We have everyone who's trying to be in this like lower middle
tier because they think that that's what's going to be easy for them. So our motivation
is heavily influenced by our perception of ourselves. And you may wonder like, you know,
how can narcissists live like this? How can this narcissistic person hurt me so much?
The reason they can hurt you so much is because they don't perceive your emotions, right?
They just don't process that this is hurtful to you. They can't see it. And it 100% explains
their motivation. It's not just narcissism. If we look at any mental illness, what we
see is a common root for literally every mental illness is a perceptual problem in anxiety.
We see an over amplification of our perception of danger. Everything is dangerous. Everything
is going to go wrong in social anxiety. We see a hyper amplified perception of negative
social cues. This person didn't really laugh at my joke. That means that they didn't like
me. We also know that in depression, we have a very strong cognitive bias against positive
emotional input. And we amplify negative input, literally the psychotherapy treatments for
narcissism, mood disorders like depression, social anxiety, you know, generalized anxiety,
all of these involve shaping our perceptions. So if we take a step back and we sort of say,
okay, Dr. K, that's fine. So you're saying that perception leads to motivation fair enough.
The question still remains. How do I fix my perception? Right? So we understand that,
okay, if I want to get physically stronger, I should lift weights. If I want to improve
my focus or my attention, I should meditate more. But how do I literally level up my perception?
And this is where we turn to yoga because there's a beautiful technique that they understand
in yoga and they understand the nature of the mind in a way that in the West, we sort
of don't understand it in the same way. So in the West, we understand that there's cognitive
bias and we understand that there are certain methods that you can do to reduce cognitive
bias, but those usually involve working with a therapist. So in the West, our model involves
another human being doing something to you to fix your perception. So if you're struggling
with a mental illness by all means, go see a therapist. The problem is that the methodologies
that we develop using the scientific method in sort of Western psychology are designed
to be done by a psychiatrist to you. The question is, what can you do on your own? And this
is where yoga comes in because yogis didn't work with a therapist, right? The whole point
of yogis is that they're going to sit by themselves and DIY it. You actually don't need someone
else. And the main thing that they discovered is something called glishta. So glishta means
coloring. Okay. So what they sort of noticed is that anytime we exist in the world, there's
the real input, right? There's the direct observation of reality. And then what the human
mind does is adds color to it. It adds something additional. It creates some kind of association
to the reality of the input. And the more that we can remove the glishta, the more that
we can remove the coloring that we add to the equation, the better perceivers of reality
we will become. And the better perceivers of reality we become, the more naturally our
motivation will flow in the right direction. So let's go through a couple of examples.
Okay. So let's say that I text a friend and then they don't text me back. What is the reality
of the situation? The reality of the situation is that it's been four hours and someone hasn't
texted me back. That's it. There is an absence of a text that is all there is. Now, is that
how people respond to it? Not at all. This means something, right? There's this whole
system of texting theory now where instead of looking at the actual words, we are sort
of adapting, we're infusing all kinds of meaning. So if someone doesn't text me back, that means
they don't like me. If someone doesn't text me back, that means they don't respect me.
If someone doesn't text me back, that means they don't value me. They're disrespecting
me. People will attach all kinds of meanings to benign things. This means this person thinks
they're better than I am. Well, maybe the person just forgot their phone at home. Maybe
the person loaned their phone. Maybe the phone is dead. There are all kinds of reasons why
someone could not text you back. That's not what our mind does. Our mind jumps to associations
with reality, right? That's what we really perceive. So why does the mind do that? It's
because in many scenarios, it actually helps us quite a bit for the purpose of survival.
We don't have 100% of the information all the time. So sometimes what our brains have
to do is infer. They have to read between the lines. The problem is that when it comes
to the modern day and the perceptual inputs that we get, they are so unnatural that they
cripple our motivation. And if you're someone who has big dreams but doesn't know how to
motivate yourself towards them, you must focus on perception. Another really common thing
that I deal with all the time is things like performance reviews in jobs. So when your
boss comes in and says you're doing a great job, the performance review last 30 minutes,
they spend the first 10 minutes talking about three things that you're doing great and they
spend the last 20 minutes, the second half more than half the performance review, talking
about this one thing that you're doing very poorly. Now when someone walks out of that
performance review and they come into my office and I ask them, hey, how are you doing today?
They say, I'm doing terrible. I'm about to get fired. My performance review was terrible.
And I said, okay, so tell me about it. And then we tunnel down into it and then we realize
that this person is interpreting this as I'm doing a terrible job because I got all those
negative feedback for 20 minutes. My boss told me I did this wrong, this wrong, this
wrong, this wrong, this wrong. They're about to fire me. And what they don't realize is
that the boss in the first 10 minutes, they said, hey, you're doing a great job. You're
doing these three things great. And the reason that I'm spending 20 minutes focusing on your
weakness is because I think you're an awesome employee. I think you really have the potential
to reach the next level. I think you are doing such a great job. I want to help you fix this
one thing that you're doing poorly because you're doing great and everything else, but
that's not how we see it. Okay, fine, Dr. K, you're saying that we have perceptual problems.
And I want you all to think for a second about how that person's motivation would be different,
right? So if you actually saw what your boss was trying to do, how would that motivate you?
And if you think that your boss is trying to get you fired, how would that motivate you?
The motivation towards your job changes so quickly, depending on your perception. So
now the question becomes, how do we remove Glishta? Okay, so the way we remove Glishta,
it's really, really simple. And this is where a lot of people get kind of caught up. Okay,
the way we remove Glishta is to literally, literally notice what the reality is and notice
what the Glishta is. For any situation in your life, what is the reality of the situation,
and what is the associations that your mind creates? Literally, that is it. So you can take
any situation that you're in right now, and you can ask yourself, what is the reality? So
column number one, what is the reality of the situation? What is the implication? What is the
association? What is the meaning? Now, this is where a lot of people get tripped up, because what
they'll do is they'll start arguing logically for why their meaning is correct. Okay, so here is
the reality, here is the association. So the reality is this thing happened. And the association is
this means this, this and this. And then they'll start doing logic over here for why this is true,
justifying their beliefs. You'll get that. So it's really natural. So if you like,
argue with an incel or anyone else, like a narcissist, it doesn't matter. If you argue with
them about what associations they have, what the mind automatically does is tries to justify the
association, starts to logic out. Yeah, Dr. K, you're saying this, but this doesn't apply to me.
All of this stuff about perception and motivation may work for other people, but it doesn't work for
me. And here all of the reasons Dr. K, while you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. Oh, so
interesting. So you're such a special snowflake that this this thalamus and nucleus accumbens and
frontal lobes and all this stuff, Pomodoro technique, chunking tasks, growth mindset and
performance mindset, it applies to everybody else, but it doesn't apply to you. Oh my goodness,
you're such a special person. You're so unique with such unique circumstances. Oh my God,
I must be wrong. All of this is missing the point. This is why no one levels up perception,
because perception is not about over here. Perception is about over here. You'll understand
the difference. I don't care whether the associations are correct or not correct. That's not where
motivation truly comes from. Motivation comes from being able to separate out, from the reality
of the situation. And the reason that everyone in the world is stuck today is because they're
operating over here. Liberals believe this, this and this. Here's their logic. And conservatives
believe this, this and this. And here's their logic. Everyone is operating within this box. This
is not how you perceive the world correctly. This is how you justify your associations.
But leveling up perception is not about justifying your associations. It is literally about leveling
up your perceptual capability. Are you capable of seeing the world as it really is? And the
way to do that is simply to notice what is the reality of the situation? What does my
mind add to the equation? The more that you do this exercise, the more your perception
will improve. And the more that your perception improves, the more easy it will be to be motivated
in the right direction. Now, why do I say right direction? Because then your motivation
is responding to the reality of the situation. The problem with most people's lives is that
their motivation is directed towards their projection of the world, right? All the conservatives
hate the liberals, all the liberals hate the conservatives because all of them are living
in their own projection of the world. Even if we look at things like relationships where
if you, if you have very low self-worth, if you have a strong ego that says that you're
a pathetic person, you are not living based on reality. You are living based on the projections
of your mind. And the projections that your mind creates are going to be modifications
of reality. So you can't motivate yourself in the right direction. Very practically what
I found, so I'm not a disciplined person. I don't have great habits. I don't need them.
Right? So what I did was go to India, learn some of these yoga concepts, and it has helped
me immensely. I try to respond to the world as cleanly as possible. And so a lot of things
that people struggle with, I'm not saying that, you know, I'm better than anyone else.
I think the whole point of this video is that if you learn this technique, you can do this
too. But I'll give you all one last example. So when I was in medical school, there was
a surgeon who got mad at me. And generally speaking, surgeons can be assholes, right?
So surgery is a very high intensity profession. Medical students get pimped all the time in
the OR, which means they get asked all kinds of questions. And so when other, like, there
was a particular surgeon that, you know, when they, when students would scrub in on a case
with them, like 30% of students would come out crying because the surgeon was so mean
to them. And the surgeon would just ask one question over and over and over again. If
you didn't know the answer, they just kept asking you the question for like a 90 minute
case. Okay. That's what they would do. They'd ask, what is a foramen or something like that?
And if you get it wrong, they just ask again, like 60 seconds later, what is a foramen?
What they just make you feel stupid. If you're in that situation and they ask the same question
over and over and over again, what is the reality of the situation? What is your, what
do you perceive? You perceive, oh my God, I can't get this thing right. This person is
trying to make me feel small. I feel so small. I feel so pathetic. That's not what I did.
I was like, what is, this is a fucking waste of time. That's my response to it, right?
So if this person's job is to instruct me, are they doing a good job? Like, I don't know.
Maybe this is a way for me to learn. Like, I have no idea. Like on the one hand, I thought
it was a terrible way to teach, right? Because if like, if I don't know the answer, the first
literally 60 times you ask me the question, I don't know if I'm going to figure it out
on the 61st answer. And so part of it was like, maybe they're teaching because as I get
it wrong, time number 30, time number 40, time number 50, like maybe the way that I'm thinking
about it, they're training me to think in a critical way or something like that. I have
no idea what the reality that like, I don't know what was actually going on. I just knew
that this person is asking me the same question over and over and over again. Is it good? Is
it bad? I have no clue. So when I walked out of the, the OR, did I get the question wrong
like 90 times? Absolutely. Did I feel bad about it? Well, I'm certainly going to go
home and study it. And if this person's, if the surgeon's goal was to get me to study
this one thing, I personally would have said, Hey, make sure you go home and read the definition
of a foramen. That's what I would have done. Is it right? Is it wrong? I don't care. Doesn't
really matter. The key thing is that the reality of the situation is one thing. And the way
that you respond to it, I walked out of that thinking this surgeon is like, not a very
good teacher. That was my perception. And people were, you know, thinking to themselves,
Oh my God, this person is like, I'm getting this question wrong. I'm going to fail. I'm
going to fail. I'm going to fail. I'd see that 30% of my colleagues were crying after
coming out of the OR. 30% of people definitely aren't failing surgery. So I was like, I
thought like, I'm okay, right? So as long as I'm, I don't know the answer to this question
if they want to fail me because of that, that's okay. But I don't think that's going to happen.
I don't know if this kind of makes sense. But when we get caught up with our Glishta,
we stop perceiving the world as it really is. And as we stop perceiving the world as
it really is, our motivation doesn't respond to the world. We don't know what to do. Or
we feel motivated toward to run away towards other things, because we don't know how to
appropriately respond to the world. The number one reason we lack motivation is because we
don't know where to put our motivation. So as you practice Glishta, as you practice
seeing the world as it is, and separating out all of the crap that your mind attaches
to it, motivation will naturally rise. And you don't need discipline, you don't need habits,
you will just naturally that's the whole point. Motivation is a natural indication,
inclination to act. And that will start to come on its own. If y'all want more info on these kinds
of yoga concepts, check out our, we have a lecture on Glishta on the membership side,
where we go into it in more detail. You can also check out our lecture on Vasana,
which I think is really, really transformative for this kind of stuff about how to see the world.
Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life.
If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves
and each other.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Motivation is often replaced with discipline, habits, and stoicism, but the biological root of behavior lies in motivation.
Perception plays a crucial role in motivation, influencing behaviors and decisions.
Coaching programs can provide personalized support to enhance motivation and goal achievement.
Summary:
Dr. K discusses the shift from relying on motivation to discipline, habits, and stoicism in the pursuit of goals. He emphasizes the importance of understanding motivation's biological basis and the role of perception in shaping behaviors.
By altering perceptions, such as changing phone settings or adopting a growth mindset, individuals can boost motivation and productivity. Coaching programs offer personalized support to help individuals set and achieve goals effectively. Perception, linked to ego and self-worth, significantly influences motivation and outcomes.
Dr. K highlights the impact of perception on motivation and behavior, underlining the need to shape perceptions positively for improved motivation and success.
FAQs
People have shifted towards discipline and habits because motivation can be unreliable and fleeting.
Discipline, habits, and stoicism are seen as alternatives to motivation, but they may not be sufficient as motivation is rooted in perception.
Simple changes in perception, like grayscale phone display or gauging someone's interest, can significantly impact motivation without relying solely on discipline or habits.
Conflicts between emotional, intellectual, and sensory perceptions in the brain often lead to a lack of motivation.
Coaches offer personalized support to help individuals set goals, make progress, and overcome setbacks, enhancing motivation and follow-through.
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