What does Purpose Driven mean??? It means you are focusing on the path and plan to attain your goal. It means you line up a deliberate and specific path towards achieving a goal. It means working towards that goal (purpose) every day, which releases something called DOPAMINE!
Dopamine* is your pleasure hormone! It is released while you are working towards your goal, not when you attain it. Both subjective and deliberate thought can control your ability to regulate and release dopamine. How does it work? Inherently, you release dopamine every time you are working towards your goal, your purpose! Dopamine is released during each step taken and completed. This action wires brain circuits together to become stronger triggering neuroplasticity*** of the mind, which actually trains/changes the brain to choose a specific path!
One of the most important tasks of dopamine is its ability to buffer adrenaline and epinephrine**. As the levels of epinephrine increases, during an effort task, it makes you feel burnt out, tired and will even force you to quit. Dopamine pushes back on epinephrine to give you the feeling of “I can” and/or “I want” to continue and finish through!
Think of it this way… Imagine you are at the end of a long game, a tough game, when you are exhausted but need to finish out the last few minutes. Your full intentions are focused on the desire of getting the win (your goal) but epinephrine is building up thus countering that feeling. Dopamine releases more and more to buffer epinephrine, as long as possible, to ensure that you reach your goal!
Dopamine is about reward, motivation, and focus in pursuit of one’s goal… Adrenaline and epinephrine are about effort!!! These responses, similar to cortisol, are hormonal responses that are a result of an environmental change that requires the body and mind to adjust to handle a situation. During depression and “the wrong path,” dopamine can even be released to tell you not to repeat those actions… Drugs, such as Cocaine and Meth, can release high amounts of dopamine, which is why they are highly addictive.
With all that said, now that you understand what dopamine is and how it can work for you, here are some action items you should be focused on:
1. Have a GOAL… you need a goal that provides you with a STRONG desire to back it up. This means, you want it so bad, that you create an emotional response every time you think about achieving your goal!
2. Create an Action Plan… you need to have a definite plan that lays out specific line items to achieve this goal. The more specific your ‘action plan’ is, the better!
3. Write it Down… the very action of writing out your specific plan, and goal, is how you project your desire to the universe (GOD) thus allowing for the law of attraction to work for you. If you don’t write it down you may never achieve it!
4. Read it Daily… evidence shows that reading your goal and action plan, at the book ends of your day (morning / night), is the best way to train your subconscious mind to believe that it will, in fact, happen.
5. Work at it every day… there are 3 tricks to this that I have found to be the most important. First, keep a to do list and create a ranking system for their level of importance. Second, list them in order and work on them one at a time, until they are complete. If your goal requires more than one at a time, which is fine, you can vary slightly but you MUST still list them out in priority. Third, cross each item off as you complete it! It is best to do this by hand and not through a computer-generated list.
Life is what you make it, so why not make it amazing? Create a goal and action plan today…
VOCABULARY
*Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter. Your body makes it, and your nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. That's why it's sometimes called a chemical messenger. Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure. It's a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan. It helps us strive, focus, and find things interesting.
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-dopamine
**Epinephrine… A hormone secreted by the adrenal medulla that is released into the bloodstream in response to physical or mental stress, as from fear or injury. It initiates many bodily responses, including the stimulation of heart action and an increase in blood pressure, metabolic rate, and blood glucose concentration.
***Neuroplasticity… The ability of the brain to change in structure or function in response to experience. The state or quality of being neuroplastic, of having a brain that adapts to experience.
Thank you for READING!!!
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