Think Mastery with Dr. Yishai

How to Make Success Effortless with Laser Focus | 318

• Dr. Yishai • Season 7 • Episode 318

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“Our brains are built to put our attention and effort wherever we think it’s the most rewarding. Change that, and you can change how motivated or effortless it feels to do just about anything.” 

Today, Dr. Yishai uncovers the secret to harnessing your focus to turn dreams into reality. He also reveals a powerful tactic, showing how to direct your focus to achieve effortless expertise and continuous growth in both business and life. 
Welcome to Think Mastery with Dr Yishai. Hosted by Doctor of Psychology, entrepreneur, and executive coach Dr. Yishai Barkhordari. On this podcast, you'll hear real talk about life and business. Plus, how to use psychology to create more mastery and success in both.

Feel free to learn more about Dr. Yishai at www.DrYishai.com/

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dryishai/

Disclaimer: The information contained in this publication is for general informational purposes only and shall not be relied on or construed as coaching advice or therapy. 
© 2024 Yishai Barkhordari, Psychologist, PLLC. All rights reserved.

Speaker 1:

Our brains are built to put our attention and effort wherever we think. It's the most rewarding Change that and you can change how motivated or effortless it feels to do just about anything. Welcome to Think Mastery with Dr Yishai, where we focus on becoming limitless by leveling up in business and life. I'm your host, dr Yishai Barkadari, doctor of psychology, entrepreneur and executive performance coach and speaker. If you're new to the podcast, I want you to know. I believe you're closer than you think to overcoming your biggest obstacle. Today. The key is how we think about the game that we're playing, and I obsess over it Using your mind and psychology to scale every part of business and life. Buckle up for high leverage, talk to level up your thinking and launch yourself into new levels of mastery. Into new levels of mastery.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk harnessing your focus to help make your biggest dreams into reality. Focus isn't just about discipline or being in it at work or with your family. It's how your brain keeps your effort and attention lined up with your goals and dreams. Today, I'll help you understand how to harness your focus to achieve your goals and make your dreams come true, with clear steps and motivation. Imagine this. Imagine this Someone dreams of being on a beach in Hawaii, relaxing with a drink in hand, or being married and just as in love 50 years later as the day they met, or owning or leading a fortune 500 company, but without focusing on the steps to get there, it stays just a dream. The average person does just that dreams about lots of things, but their brain focuses on all the wrong things to experience what matters most to them. In a way, it's almost like their brain's focus betrays them. But the top percentile of people whether it's in athletics, in relationships, in leadership, you name it all think and approach it completely differently. So why do we sometimes focus in all the wrong places and get nowhere, and what can we do to make our dreams a reality? To answer those questions, we need to talk about motivation, reward and focus, starting with how your brain works. This is absolutely critical. Where you focus, you put effort. Action follows your attention. Let's come back to the person who dreams of being on a beach in Hawaii. They spend lots of time and brain power to visualize, imagine and feel the joy of lying on the beach with a drink in hand, but they spend almost zero time, energy or focus on what it will take to get there, so they don't plan out and put it into action and they don't set up the steps that will ensure that they end up where they want to end up. What's interesting is how our brains and psychology work differently based on what we focus on.

Speaker 1:

When someone focuses only on external reward, their motivation is called extrinsic. It's all about the prize they get for doing something. In other words, life in the world is all about bargaining, exchanging units of time or effort for payment. The focus is all on the payment, the result, what it is that we get. The thing is that kind of motivation will dry up much faster when the rewards don't feel great, whether because there's less reward or because we've got used to it. The extrinsic brain is always asking if the juice is worth the squeeze and it has to keep tasting it to know. The opposite is called intrinsic motivation when the reward is how we feel and experience, being in the moment, what we're doing and what we think, feel and say to ourselves as we're doing it.

Speaker 1:

Two people can be on skis speeding down a mountain. One is racing to the bottom because there's a pot of gold or a gold medal down there. The other is having the time of their lives just being there. Which one will go right back to the top again after they get down. Well, the second one, of course.

Speaker 1:

Intrinsic motivation, is all about the experience being rewarding itself. As it turns out, research shows that the more people feel rewarded internally, the more they keep going. Look at the Wright brothers who invented the first airplane, or Oprah's journey to being a media mogul, or Richard Branson and Virgin's 400 plus companies, or Steve Jobs with Apple. It's unlikely they would have accomplished everything they did only because of extrinsic motivation, only because they wanted some reward or payment for what they were doing. It's more likely that their internal drive kept them motivated and going even when things got tough and the rewards were missing.

Speaker 1:

Let's unpack that even further. Why do some people naturally seem to be internally driven and others extrinsically focused? Here's one way to look at it. Our brains are built to put our attention and effort wherever we think it's the most rewarding. So when my brain thinks the external result, the outcome, matters most, it's going to dwell and put all of its mental eggs in that basket, which can explain why some people get so caught up on the rewards that their brain will daydream and fantasize for hours and hours and hours at the cost of actually breaking down and doing the things they need to do to make it happen.

Speaker 1:

It's almost like the mirror of Erised in Harry Potter, which is a mirror that shows somebody being in the moment or experiencing what they desire most. And the warning that Professor Dumbledore shares with Harry Potter is that lots of people can waste away their whole lives holding on to the fantasy, the image, and not actually taking the steps, doing the things that may help them get closer to it. And the people who are most happy, who are most satisfied, would look at that mirror and just see themselves because whatever they are doing in that moment, they feel so intrinsically rewarded, they feel internally just so happy with. But being extrinsically oriented is even more costly than you might think. But being extrinsically oriented is even more costly than you might think. There's a danger to being that results oriented. When we only focus on results, we might miss the learning and growth that happen along the way.

Speaker 1:

Carol Dweck's research on growth and fixed mindsets show this really clearly. What's a growth mindset and what's a fixed mindset? A growth mindset is when a person focuses on learning and growth, and people with a growth mindset have four defining characteristics. Number one they believe abilities can improve with effort. Number two they often take on challenges. Number three they focus on learning from mistakes. And number four they tend to stick with tough tasks. And it's not just that you either have a growth mindset or you don't. It's actually more likely to be the case that in some ways, to some extent, you have elements of a growth mindset, or more elements of a growth mindset around certain things than others on.

Speaker 1:

On the other hand, a fixed mindset is when a person focuses only on the result, which includes these four traits. One they believe abilities are fixed. They don't improve or improve very little. Number two they tend to avoid challenges because it might mean they lack talent or the ability if they're unable to do it. In fact, a challenge may even be risky because they could uncover that what they thought they had as an ability or a talent they don't actually have or don't have as much as they want to. Number three they don't see effort as important, because they assume effort is less important than natural talent and ability, because they believe it's basically set kind of like genetic and doesn't improve very much even with effort. And number four they tend to give up more easily because their brain assumes there's no point in continuing if they can't do it already. It's similar to a story from Atomic Habits that James Clear shares.

Speaker 1:

Jerry Ulsman, professor of photography, decided to divide his class into two and grade them differently. As an experiment, one group was graded based on the total number of photos that they took and the other group was graded only based on one photo which they could submit until the end of the semester. In other words, one group was told to focus on the process of taking photos, while the other group was told to focus on only one end result. And I bet you can guess which group had better photos at the end of the semester the group that took many photos because they kept practicing, trying new things and improving with each shot.

Speaker 1:

There are real costs to results-oriented thinking, and here are three of them that I think are really key. Number one stress and burnout. Focusing only on results can make you feel really stressed and tired, can force you to push yourself really hard and ignore things that are really important, which can then cause more stress and burnout. Number two fear of failure. You might avoid challenges because you're scared of not getting the result you want and what it might mean, especially with that fixed mindset. And number three less learning. You might miss out on learning and getting better because you don't focus on the process and improvement, only on the end result.

Speaker 1:

But, as it turns out, there are also benefits to being result-oriented, and we want to leverage those too. So here are three important benefits that are really key to leverage in being results-oriented. Number one clear goals. Having a specific outcome can really help you set clear and measurable goals. Number two motivation. Focusing on results can provide motivation and a sense of purpose, and it can be really rewarding when you set that result and accomplish that result and set the next one and the next one and anticipate you're going to keep hitting that result. Number three efficiency. Being results-oriented encourages finding the quickest and most effective way to achieve goals, and those are some powerful upsides which we don't want to miss out by just throwing out all of the results-oriented approaches. In fact, using them the right way is how you can get your brain to focus on the right things and move the needle towards your goals and dreams even faster.

Speaker 1:

But before we get there, let's look at the benefits of process-oriented thinking. Hey, everyone digging the insights? Here's what you can do to spread them to more people. Leave a rating for the podcast right now. It's a tiny act and takes only a couple of seconds, but it's a huge help in sharing the best insights with more people, which means the world to me, because all I want to do is help more people overcome challenges faster, unlock their potential and feel more fulfilled in work, relationships and life. It could make all the difference to the next person who finds the podcast the difference to the next person who finds the podcast.

Speaker 1:

There are three core upsides to process-oriented thinking. Number one continuous improvement. You keep getting better by practicing and learning from mistakes. Number two less pressure. Focusing on the process takes away some pressure because you're not just thinking about the end result. You're being more focused on what you're doing in the meantime and how you're getting better at doing it. Number three more enjoyment. You can enjoy what you're doing more when you focus on the steps, not just the end result or the outcome. Notice that these three line up with a growth mindset and intrinsic motivation. It's exactly the process to tap into and to create momentum that makes the process really rewarding. And remember our brains are built to put our attention and effort wherever we think it's the most rewarding Change that and you can change how motivated or effortless it feels to do just about anything. So when our brains see the process as rewarding less pressure, getting dopamine hits for hitting benchmarks and feeling continuous improvement, it can be a huge motivator. We often enjoy the process and then it starts feeling effortless and even exciting to do.

Speaker 1:

On the other hand, there are also costs to process-oriented thinking, and here are the top three costs to process-oriented thinking that I see fairly often. Number one it's time-consuming. Focusing on the process might take longer, especially to see initial results. Number two there's a risk of overthinking. You might spend too much time perfecting each step and actually lose sight of the bigger picture along the way. And number three lack of urgency. If you don't have clear end goals, there might be less urgency to complete tasks.

Speaker 1:

If it's just about improving some process by a little bit, the key is not trying to avoid all results-oriented thinking or over-index on process-oriented thinking, but to use the upsides of both to accomplish big goals. And how do you do that? Here's what I see and my favorite way to approach it Break big goals down. When I have a big dream, I break it down into smaller and smaller chunks so I can set myself up to leverage the benefits of results-oriented thinking. In other words, I try to use results-oriented thinking to set myself up, to use those small chunks to create continuous improvement, to keep the pressure low and to set myself up to enjoy the growth along the way. I try really hard not to get caught up in the big stress or pressure, the fear of failure and, in that process, missing out on the learning which will help me build a set of skills that are compounding and will help essentially create a flywheel or snowball effect over time. And so I find that it's really useful to find your own Goldilocks zone for learning without wasting too much time, while avoiding overthinking and making sure that you keep an eye on clear end goals, which is exactly how the best athletes, couples and companies approach it.

Speaker 1:

So, by all means, dream big and treat your dream like your north star. It's not what you look at all day. It's what you use to make sure you're headed in the right direction. During the day, your goal or dream takes a back seat. Instead, what you're focused on in the day-to-day and in the moment is the current or next action. What will move you forward in the plan. What will help you make the improvements? Learn the skills that will create that flywheel, create that momentum and build towards the results that you're really looking for. Keep your mind on small increments, taking individual actions, and do everything you can to see and recognize how important they are. You can even make it fun setting personal goals, tracking and beating your personal record, for whatever the action is that you're focused on, watch yourself learn, revel in it and see your motivation snowball as you build momentum to your big goals and dreams. Inch by inch, you move forward. Before you know it, you pick your head up and you've accomplished more than most people dream of.

Speaker 1:

Here's an exercise I walk my clients through to help them, and it's a seven-step exercise. Number one I have them imagine every aspect of their dream life, whether that's five, 15, or 25 years from now. Number two we break that down into the greatest hits, making a mental montage of their most beloved accomplishments and experiences over the next 5, 15, or 25 years. And then, number three we really sit with the vision and all of the things that they do and have done to get to those exact moments Not just the sweet results, but the doing that got them there Every bit of effort, hard-earned lessons, learning and growth. Envision it like real life, because it's going to be real, and that's the point of the exercise. And that's the point of the exercise Number four then we repeat the process in smaller and smaller slices that make up the bigger pie that is their ideal life Ten years, five years, three years, one year and down to four quarters that make up each year. And sometimes we even break it down to what their weekly or even daily calendar looks like and what they're doing in those moments and what they're experiencing as they are doing it. Number five I have them think about their strategy, which I'm going to talk more about next time, but the short version of it is what game they're going to play and how they plan to win at that game so that they can make those experiences happen. And then, number six, I have them line up the actions and activities that are going to ensure that they hit their goals. And finally, number seven, I have them write it all down, block their time and get to it.

Speaker 1:

You don't need to put pressure to have a perfect vision, because a year, three years and five years from now that may change, but learning how to envision and use your vision to create clarity, alignment and motivation for yourself is key, and to create an experience where it's also intrinsic motivation, not just about the big carrot at the end of the race, not just about the big carrot at the end of the race. It's one of the most coveted skills among the world's most successful business owners and leaders this visioning, envisioning process and really embodying it. Why? Because when we envision something, our brains treat it like reality. In fact, one research study showed that it can be between 60 to 70% as impactful as actually having the experience and doing it in real life. Now, visioning isn't the whole picture, but it can help our brains shift perspective From struggling to believing it could happen, to something that feels normal and real.

Speaker 1:

And here's a mini mental exercise as a bonus that may keep you motivated along the way. Every evening, think about all the tasks you've done, all the actions and effort you've put in. Then look at your north star, your dream, and link each one of your actions to your dream, even the mundane, especially the tedious. What if, right now, all the things you're doing are part of what it takes to move towards your dreams? Now, just in the process of doing that exercise, it may become obvious quickly what you're doing that's moving you forward and what may need some adjusting. You might even see some things you're doing that might be really holding you back. You'd be shocked at how much change can happen when you get that much clarity, when you measure every moment of your day against your deep anchored, clear dream.

Speaker 1:

You might think achieving your goals is all about having a perfect plan and focusing only on the results, but really success comes from both having a clear result you want and focusing on the process that will get you there, which includes breaking down a big dream into smaller goals, setting benchmarks and building momentum, and then growing through, enjoying the process of practicing, learning from mistakes and gradually improving. So if you just break down your big goals into smaller, manageable steps and focus on continuous improvement, with milestones and mini results along the way, then you'll not only achieve your dreams but also enjoy the journey, enjoy the learning and continue growing as you reach towards those dreams. Success isn't just about reaching the destination, but also about the growth and learning that happen along the way and how you experience the whole process. So dream big, plan your steps and take action with the process and results in mind. Break down your big goals into smaller steps, focus on learning and improving, and you might just find yourself achieving your dreams while enjoying the journey. And on that note, I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening. Thanks to Purple Planet for their music and PodTech for editing and producing the podcast. Just a quick disclaimer Dr Yishai is a psychologist, but not your psychologist. We're not doing any diagnosis or therapy here. The info I'm sharing is for general use and isn't coaching, advice or therapy, so please do your own research before using anything from the podcast. Thanks again for listening. I hope today's episode fulfilled my mission to help you think and live with more mastery in your business and life.

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Dr. Yishai Barkhordari

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