Huberman: Why People Quit

Huberman: Why You Quit

Hey, are you working on a goal for this year and it’s not going as planned? Maybe you wanted to get fit, grow your business, or make cool friends. But things took a turn and now you think it’s impossible. You’re kind of demoralized.

How can you keep pushing?

Well, here’s what Huberman said in an interview. Imagine he’s narrating 👨‍🔬:

“Last year there was a paper published that asked why any human or animal quits. If we're talking about running or long bouts of work, the question is, why do we quit? Like, what is that?

It turns out that every time we exert effort, a certain amount of noradrenaline is released, And if enough noradrenaline is released, it shuts down cognitive and deliberate control over the motor circuitry, and we quit, that's it.

But we can restore those levels and get more gas if we use dopamine.

You see this in the team that wins the Super Bowl. Both teams were at max effort the entire game. But look at the team that wins, they have extra energy and are jumping all over the place. So it can't be physical energy. It can't be glycogen-related. It's nothing in the body.

It's dopamine's ability to take that extra level of norepinephrine [that makes us quit] and smack it back down.

So when you get to a portion where you're just feeling lousy or you're injured, or you feel like you're hurt, you can reframe it mentally and think I'm actually still on the ladder. I'm still holding onto something.

And the lift that we get is not some psychological pump-up, it's a neurochemical thing.”

Dopamine fills you with force and energy to continue. So tell yourself things like:

• It’s not over yet

• I’m on the right track

• I can push a little more

These delay or eliminate your quitting (by raising dopamine). So keep them in mind while reading, working, or working out.

Use dopamine to refuel your energy tank.

Good job !

p.s. don’t quit today, you got some more left in the tank 😉