Why Dopamine is like an Investor (and how to fool the investor)

To get from where you are to where you want to be, you have to spend effort. But how do you know whether it is worth it?

Dopamine has for a long time been considered a ‘pleasure chemical’. It is released when you get a reward. It makes you feel good. It is a very simple idea. But it also seems to be false. Most neuroscientists now reject it. What they propose instead is much more interesting.

Their idea is that dopamine tells you whether your effort is paying off. Like a shrewd investor, it keeps tabs on how much you are spending and how much you are getting back. If you gain more than you lose, dopamine neurons fire you up, filling you with motivation. If you lose more than you gain, these same neurons turn against you, cutting your supply of motivation. They do more than this, however. They do everything they can to minimize your losses.

Have you ever wondered what building a skill was all about? Maybe you haven’t paid it much mind. We get better at stuff. It’s just the way things are. What if I told you dopamine is the key to to all of it? By optimizing behavior, dopamine makes you perform at minimal cost. Why? So you will get the same amount of value at a lower cost. It outsources your behavior to the basal ganglia buried deep inside your brain. Here, behavior that was once conscious is performed automatically. All this time you thought you were the one riding your bike. Well, at first you were. But now it’s the basal ganglia.

So how can you trick your dopamine system? By learning the rules of its game, and exploiting them.

The trick is to make the dopamine system cut your costs without cutting off its supply of motivation. And this is actually not hard. It may be the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

Let’s say you want to develop a habit of running. If you just get out there and run until you feel like hell, your dopamine system isn’t going appreciate it. You’ve spent a heck of a lot of energy, and what have you got to show for it? It will respond by decreasing your “running motivation”. And you will feel its sting every time you take a glance at your running shoes. But if you make a mini-investment, your dopamine system will have no reason to reduce your motivation. If you take a 2-minute run on day 1, you will have invested very little energy. And instead of the dreadful motivation zap, your dopamine system will quietly inform the basal ganglia that it should be optimizing “running”. Why? Because it noticed a small loss — and it responds by minimizing future losses. On day 2, it will take slightly less effort to run for two minutes. So run for a little bit more. And this is the key to it all: keep going just for a small amount longer each time. Dopamine — the shrewd investor — will keep cutting losses. And suddenly, on day 30, you will find yourself running for an hour. And it will feel just as easy as that first 2-minute run.

Of course, this applies not only to running. The same principle holds for everything. Want to develop a habit of writing? Follow the procedure. Lifting weights? Follow the procedure. Meditating? You guessed it — follow the procedure.

At first you might feel silly. It feels weird building skills this way. We’re not accustomed to it. We’ve been taught that we have to push ourselves and that discipline is the key to success. But that may not be true. In reality, motivation may be the product of a clever — but not infallible — investor.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it. If you want something more to read, check out the Top 3 Willpower Myths.