Hedonic Circuitry

The hedonic circuit, responsible for enjoyment, and the dopaminergic circuit, responsible for desire, can sometimes become disconnected. This leads to situations where we enjoy an activity but don’t feel motivated to do it again in the future.
Hedonic Circuit, Dopaminergic Circuit, Liking vs. Wanting

So let’s run through a couple of examples that oftentimes confused people. The first is that I can have a task that I’m not motivated towards, or I think I won’t enjoy it very much which is why I’m not motivated towards it, right? Oh, I don’t want to eat that because I’m not gonna like it or I don’t want to go out and see my friends because it’s going to be boring. But when I actually try that food when I actually go out with my friends when I actually go to the gym, because when I’m thinking about exercising, I’m like, oh my god, I’m going to feel so bad. But then when I go to the gym, and I exercise, I feel vibrant and alive and stuff afterward, that there’s a discrepancy between what I wanted to do and how much I enjoy it.

• Think of an activity you enjoy doing but often struggle to motivate yourself to start. How does the concept of liking vs. wanting help explain this experience?
• How can you reframe your understanding of motivation based on the potential disconnect between enjoyment and desire?

The brain’s capacity to predict rewards, known as prediction reward error processing, can be inaccurate when the hedonic and dopaminergic circuits are disconnected. This leads to a failure to learn from positive experiences and anticipate future enjoyment.
Prediction Reward Error, Learning from Experience, Anticipating Enjoyment

So despite the fact that exercise feels good, every single time I do it, it’s it doesn’t I don’t wake up the next day and be like, Man, I can’t wait to go to the gym, right? Even though I feel really good when I go to bed at night. Oh my god, I got that. Sort of good, tired, right where you feel kind of exhausted, but you feel accomplished. You feel great, you feel confident, and you go to bed and you’re like, Yeah, I’m gonna do that tomorrow. And then the next morning rolls around. It’s like yeah, I don’t feel like going to the gym today.

• Reflect on a time when you struggled to learn from a positive experience and anticipate future enjoyment. How did this impact your motivation?
• What strategies can you use to overcome prediction reward error processing and better align your expectations with your actual experiences?

For most of our lives, what we like and what we want tend to be closely aligned. The discrepancy between enjoyment and desire is relatively rare, which can make it confusing and frustrating when it does occur.
Liking-Wanting Alignment, Rare Discrepancies, Confusion and Frustration

So so much of our life, we assume that Hedonics and dopaminergic are kind of the same, that wanting something and liking something go hand in hand. And this is what’s so hard with motivation is if there is this kind of error, those two things no longer go hand in hand.

• How has the usual alignment of liking and wanting shaped your expectations about motivation and enjoyment?
• What insights can you gain from recognizing that discrepancies between liking and wanting, while rare, are a normal part of human experience?

When faced with a disconnect between enjoyment and motivation, people often resort to psychological interpretations, such as social anxiety or cognitive biases. This can lead to feelings of being fundamentally flawed or broken compared to others.
Psychological Interpretations, Self-Judgment, Feeling Flawed

So we start to get into the psychology a little bit here because what people assume is like almost a psychological interpretation, which is that there’s something fundamentally off with me, whereas like other humans, when they go to the gym, and they have fun and they feel better about themselves, they’re able to go tomorrow. But there’s almost this almost the psychological impact of you feeling like you just can’t motivate yourself and you’re lazy or undisciplined or busted in some way, whereas all of the other humans are doing a good job.

• Have you ever judged yourself harshly for struggling to motivate yourself to do something you enjoy? How did this impact your well-being and self-image?
• How can understanding the neuroscience of liking vs. wanting help you challenge negative self-judgments and develop greater self-compassion?

When motivation is lacking due to a liking-wanting disconnect, people often seek external sources of motivation, such as supplements, social support, or productivity hacks. However, if the underlying neural circuits remain disconnected, these efforts are unlikely to create lasting motivation.
External Motivation, Supplements and Hacks, Lasting Motivation

So people will start doing things like you know, they’ll take some supplements, oh, here’s a cognitive enhancer that will improve your focus and motivation. Okay, let me take that bill. They’ll sometimes even recruit friends to help them get motivated because I don’t feel like doing it. But if I have a gym, buddy, like maybe they’ll force me to go to the gym. So we start to do all of these different things where we’re looking to create motivation. We want more motivation, and we’ll do whatever we can to make ourselves motivated. Whereas the basic issue here first of all, is you have to understand this happening within your brain.

• Reflect on times when you’ve sought external motivation to compensate for a lack of intrinsic desire. How effective were these efforts in the long run?
• How can you shift your focus from seeking external motivation to understanding and working with your brain’s natural circuitry?

Rather than endlessly searching for motivation, it may be more effective to accept the disconnect between liking and wanting and take action despite the lack of desire. This acceptance can paradoxically make it easier to engage in the desired behavior.
Accepting the Disconnect, Taking Action, Paradoxical Ease

The tricky thing there is is you may be kind of like scratching your head and saying well if the answer is just like ignore motivation and just do it anyway. Like that’s hard, right? The tricky thing here is that if you accept that, it’s not ideal by any means, but at least you’ll stop looking for motivation and having your brain kind of disconnect anyway, right? So if I go looking for motivation externally, then I can look and look and look and I’ll never find it versus what some people are actually able to do is recognize that the hedonic circuit and the dopamine circuit are actually kind of like disconnected. And I’m never going to be able to find the motivation to do it. I’m never going to wake up and want to go to the gym, which if you talk to people who started going to the gym, that’s what they’ll always tell you, right? You just have to wake up and do it.

• Think of an activity you enjoy but struggle to motivate yourself to do. How might accepting the liking-wanting disconnect change your approach to engaging in that activity?
• What mantras or reminders can you use to help you take action despite a lack of motivation, knowing that you will likely enjoy the activity once you start?

Recognizing that the disconnect between liking and wanting is a natural part of brain function, rather than a personal flaw, can be empowering. By understanding and working with your brain’s wiring, you can develop strategies to engage in desired behaviors even when motivation is lacking.
Brain Wiring, Natural Disconnect, Empowerment

And the last thing to remember is that when a lot of people experienced this right when they experienced that, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. That’s what they think. Because I do this thing and I enjoy it. I love it every time I go out with my friends. What the hell is wrong with me that I never want to. And there’s actually nothing wrong with you. This is just the way that the brain is is wired. And that kind of psychological impact read that psychological interpretation of it that you think there’s something wrong with you on the inside? No, this is just different circuits of the brain and sometimes these different circuits of the brain don’t work in concert the way that they’re supposed to. And oddly enough, even the realization that my mind is never going to want to do this, that my mind is never going to quite learn from them. What my experiences it’s never going to learn from having a good time after I go out. So tomorrow, don’t expect my mind to want to go out or my brain to want to go out right? Once you sort of accept that once you become aware that despite the fact that something is good for you, you’re not going to want it tomorrow. Interestingly enough, it makes it easier to do.

• How does understanding the natural disconnect between liking and wanting change your perspective on your own struggles with motivation?
• What strategies can you develop to work with your brain’s wiring and engage in desired behaviors even when motivation is lacking?

By recognizing the potential disconnect between the hedonic and dopaminergic circuits, we can develop a more nuanced understanding of motivation and enjoyment. Rather than endlessly seeking external motivation or judging ourselves harshly, we can learn to accept the natural limitations of our brain’s reward processing and develop strategies to take action despite a lack of desire. By working with our brain’s wiring, we can cultivate a more empowered and effective approach to engaging in the activities that bring us fulfillment and growth.