Written by: Heather J. Crider, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Imagine your last great success, your last great achievement. Was it a promotion? Was it buying your dream car? Was it buying your first home? Whatever it was, it was probably a while ago, and the joy of that success has faded away. What did you do to relish that last great success? For most, whatever the answer is, it likely was not enough. Typically victories are 'celebrated' by moving on and focusing on the next thing you have yet to achieve. That is not a bad habit per se; however, there is a better balance between relishing what was just achieved and envisioning the next achievement.
These goals were only achievable with direction and focus. Just imagine the absurdity of attempting to attain a level of success with no approach or goals whatsoever. What kind of chaos would that be? Most people have learned that creating a goal and planning how to get there is one of the foundations to achieving success.
However, most people get too singularly focused on looking forward to the next thing and what is the next goal they must complete. Then when a goal is complete, the instant and only thought is one of relief that it is done, and then you're off to the next task. When you rush too quickly to the next goal, your brain gets confused about whether what you just experienced was a positive experience that can and needs to be repeated.
It's kind of like washing your car before the paint has thoroughly dried.
Because you're so focused on moving forward, you forget another vital component to prime your brain for achieving your desired goals: remaining present
When you remain in the present long enough, you can celebrate and soak up the positive feelings of accomplishment. Not only does it feel good to celebrate your successes, but you're priming your brain to achieve more success.
Whether it's the success of landing your dream job or brewing a great cup of coffee, neurologically, it’s the same experience. Your brain releases certain neurochemicals, such as endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine when you experience different levels of joy and success. This release is the chemical cocktail that helps allow you to feel good. But if you're so trained to immediately move on to the next success, you don't fully experience all the positives this feel-good chemical cocktail can release.
Over time, you slow down this process to the point of almost stopping it from happening altogether. Therefore, in your brain, you fail to realize the complete victory of success because you are always looking for future success.
How do you reignite this chemical cocktail in your brain to enjoy your successes even more and to achieve more?
You don't need to throw a giant party for every minor achievement; you simply need to recognize and honor every achievement in some way.
It's about savoring things in the moment in order to reignite this chemical cocktail. As Phil Jackson (the legendary NBA coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers) said in his book "Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success", "The soul of success is surrendering to what is."
When you brew that great cup of coffee, just stop for 30 seconds and be mindful of how you feel. Notice the flavors, the temperature, and the way the coffee smells and feels in your body when you take a sip.
When you finish a project you've been working on for a month, stop and think about your accomplishment. Feel the enjoyment of completion and what it feels like to have it done. Find some way to honor that completion. Go out to eat, or go outside and feel the fresh air and sunshine on your face while you relish your completed project.
If you don't do this, you are essentially training your brain not to reward itself and not to release these chemicals. Success happens in the now, not the future.
Think of the mind as a movie. If you're not paying attention to each part, you can miss some impactful moments, and the movie may no longer make sense. Just as in life, when you miss really great moments, you are not creating enough neurochemicals to produce other great moments. Then you may feel you haven't achieved anything and feel you are a failure because you've trained your brain to no longer feel or see success. It can be a cycle that leads to stress rather than success.
The second critical component to prime your brain for success flows naturally from the first
Simply reflecting on prior achievements.
Recall a success while visualizing and reconnecting to the feelings you experienced.
Visualization is a process where you actively and thoughtfully envision a future scenario and enter into an almost dreamlike state allowing your mind to soak up as many nuances in the visualization as possible as if what you are focusing on is in the present time. This visualization technique is quite valuable for creating future goals. Athletes and performers often use it to envision a future outcome successfully. Visualization helps create neuroplasticity, which is the brain's growth of new neural pathways. Neuroplasticity is a positive aspect in the creation of our success as it helps rewire our habits and negative tendencies.
The challenge with visualization is that many people need to work on embracing the full spectrum of feelings during the visualization. Resistance usually comes from biases, beliefs, and fears around the ability to achieve a goal, which can block real feelings from surfacing and reduce the feel-good chemicals from occurring. This means that visualization doesn't work as effectively if you don't fully embrace what it feels like to be within that visualization.
To use visualization to your advantage, recall a memory of a particular success or achievement, then fully immerse yourself in the experience allowing yourself to relive the feelings and subtleties of that experience.
Doing so will reignite endorphins and dopamine and allow you and your brain to relive that experience with all the feel-good chemicals as if it were happening in the present. As stated earlier, we must fully savor accomplishments before jumping from task to task. It's just as effective to reflect on prior accomplishments through reliving and visualizing the positive aspects of the event. Doing so will also activate a part of your brain's motivation network, which will inject you with more courage to achieve future success, reminding you and your brain what accomplishment feels like.
To prime your brain for more success, the next time you achieve a task or an accomplishment (which is every day), try the 3R Method to help fire up the feel-good neurotransmitters. Review, Reflect, Reward: Review what you accomplished. Reflect on how the accomplishment feels and savor as many positive feelings and emotions as possible as your Reward!
Maybe you don't think your brain is primed for success or that you struggle with the positive aspects of recalling past successes; take my "Mind Makeover Quiz" to analyze your struggles so that you can learn how to achieve more success while enjoying and savoring the successes you’ve already had!
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Heather J. Crider, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Heather J. Crider is a high-performance neuro coach on a mission to eradicate self-doubt, fuel resilience, and create limitless freedom. After experiencing several significant emotional experiences, she knew there had to be a better way to live without stress and struggle. She has dedicated her life to helping others (re)discover greatness by fueling passion and applying practical strategies to 'filter the funk' to retrain and optimize the brain for success. A keynote speaker, host of the Go Reflect Yourself Podcast, and creator of numerous brain-based transformational programs, her mission is to help make the world a more compassionate & mindful place, starting with one thought & one mind at a time.
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