Ep. 38 Unlocking the Brains Secrets Proven Solutions to Overcome Brain Paralysis and Boost Motivation

Are you experiencing a lack of motivation and struggling to maintain your New Year's resolutions and goals? Don't worry; you're not alone. In this episode, we'll explore the reward system in our brains and understand why our motivation often fades away. Our goal is not only to identify the problem but also to provide practical solutions to overcome it.

Our brain releases dopamine, a feel-good chemical, whenever we achieve a goal. In this episode, we'll discuss ways to use this chemical to keep ourselves motivated for the long term. We can keep our drive alive by setting small goals and celebrating our achievements. Additionally, we will share a daily exercise, meditation, and journaling routine, which can help sharpen our focus and boost our energy levels.

Our conversation will not be limited to theories and knowledge; instead, we'll focus on putting our insights into action. We aim to become the best version of ourselves by taking practical steps. So, let's come together and embark on this transformative journey. Please tune in to this episode, and let's take the first step together.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and should not substitute for therapy. We recommend you seek help from a trained professional for your specific situation.

Q&A: What are Your Thoughts on This Episode? Please message us at contact@smilieempowerment.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hola Boschica. Welcome to the Smiley Empowerment Podcast. This is where we celebrate the strength, resilience and determination of Latina women and all women who are constantly on the go, pushing through challenges and achieving their goals. I like to call these women Boschica, like me. If you're a busy woman ready to be uplifted, inspired, empowered to take charge of your healing journey and be a Boschica, you've come to the right place. We can all agree, life can be hectic and overwhelming, but anything is possible with the right mindset, attitude, tools and support. Let me introduce myself. My name is Smiley Filomenos Rodriguez and I am a Latina Life Empowerment coach and a social worker.

Speaker 1: 0:53

I started this podcast because I know what feeling alone and overwhelmed with past wounds and challenges feel like. I want to help you with self-discovery, self-love and self-empowerment so you can grow and thrive. Do you sometimes feel alone? De siente sola? Well, you're not alone. No está sola. You have me, your coach, smiley. In each episode, I'll share personal stories of resilience, healing tips, practical advice, strategies for managing your time and priorities for improving your relationship with yourself and others, and insights on cultivating a positive and fulfilling joyful life. So grab your earbuds and tea or coffee, take a deep breath and get ready to be inspired and encouraged. Let's begin this journey together and empower each other to become the best versions of our lives. Let's get started. You got this. Welcome back, mi boss Chica and my fellow listeners.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Did you know that researchers have shared that 80% of people will stop working on their goals mid-January? And that's where we're at right now. As I'm recording this, we are in January 15, 2024. I cannot believe. Two weeks in this is when researchers say that we drop working on our goals. So at the end of the year, 80% of us will complete our goals for 2024, while 20% of us will not. Now, the question is which group are you in right now and which group will you be in at the end of 2024? Now, this can be very overwhelming. Right? The statistics show this. Memberships in the gym start to decline after mid-January, right?

Speaker 1: 3:05

I want you to know that there are secrets in our brain that proves that we can overcome brain paralysis. Yes, brain paralysis. Now, many of you may say what the heck is that Brain paralysis? Well, you may feel like, wow, I do feel my brain paralyzes, but what is that and how does that affect me? Overcoming this lethargic feeling of not wanting to pursue the visions and goals that I set out for myself in the first two weeks of January, right? So it's so important to look at our brain health and I've been doing a lot of that. I've been for some time now studying more, researching more, reading articles, all on brain health, really getting the neuroscientists information that they have, and it's all fascinating, very, very fascinating.

Speaker 1: 4:03

So if you have been experiencing lately, in these last I would say, possibly few days, if you've been experiencing brain paralysis, a resistance to change, a lack of motivation, not interested, not feeling as excited about the goals that you wrote, you are not alone. You are definitely not alone. There's a high percentage of people that are experiencing this collectively. So understand that you're not alone. Understand that this is not the time for you to beat yourself up. I have some great information that's going to help you. It's going to help you, it's going to help me. It's really going to help us to get back connected and feeling motivated, excited about our goals.

Speaker 1: 4:54

Our new year resolutions, our goals Remember, our new year's resolutions are just overarching statements that we made, that we said I'm deciding to go to the gym, I am deciding to eat healthier. However, you need to have the goals right, the goals with the plan of action. So if you have not done so already and mastered out and put out your plan in action, this is a great time to pick right up and do it again. If you need to readjust those goals that you had, this is a great time to do that as well. But I want to talk a little bit more about what neuroscientists say about brain paralysis.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Okay, they say that brain paralysis refers to the inability to take action toward achieving our goal. Sounds familiar. It's related to our brain's reward system, which I was blown away to know that. We have a built-in reward system in our brain and that gives us instant gratification. So if you have set ambitious goals for yourself right at the beginning of the year, that's when you felt what Excited. So neuroscientist says this is when we feel very excited and it triggers the release of dopamine, a neural transfer associated with motivation and pleasure. Sounds familiar, right? So that's when you're excited about your goals, about where you're heading, and many of us feel this January 1st, right, we're so excited and we release dopamine. So this is our feel good neural transmitter, right, we feel motivated, we feel so good.

Speaker 1: 6:39

However, this is where the decline happens and where we go into being part of that 80% of people that drop working on the goals right. So as time goes by, neuroscientists explain very simply that as time goes by, our brain reward system starts to struggle a bit to maintain that excitement right and that unfortunately really leads to a decrease in our motivation, in the excitement we feel, and it begins the onset of what is called brain paralysis. So If you have been feeling demotivated, not as excited, here is an explanation that you can better understand your brain and how it functions. So this is not that you're lazy, this is not that you're not committed. This is what happens to our brain. But it doesn't mean that we are victims to the brain paralysis. It just means we have to understand it and then have the tools and the right approach to really overcome the brain paralysis and boost our motivation. So this is why I am so happy that you stuck around and you are listening to this important episode, because we want to overcome the brain paralysis right and we want to become part of the 20% that finishes right, strong and that accomplishes what we set ourselves to do at the end of 2024. But before we get to the end of the year. We're going to work in small increments, right, week by week, month by month, right? So we're not so overwhelmed. Does this sound good to you? Because it sure does sound good to me. I have a better understanding now how my brain works when I am writing down these goals and starting to get traction, and all of a sudden I have a decline, right, and there's specific things that I possibly, or and you have done that actually gives the gateway to our brain paralysis.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Okay, so why brain paralysis? Why does this occur to us? Right? So it's really the initial big surge of dopamine that diminishes and that dopamine declines, making it for us very challenging to sustain motivation. And when I mean us, the challenge is to our brain. Our brain loses, it loses that momentum, and it's a challenge because the brain then starts declining, the dopamine hits and that declines our motivation. It's hard to sustain the motivation over an extended period of time, right? So when brain paralysis hits, it just means that our dopamine declines and now our brain is struggling, having a challenge to sustain that motivation, and that's how it starts manifesting in the way we feel. Does that make sense? Does this sound familiar to you, right?

Speaker 1: 9:54

Another reason brain paralysis occurs, according to neuroscientists, it's the overwhelming task besides the dopamine decline. So if you are someone who had very large, big, vague goals, you then have possibly overwhelmed your brain. When we overwhelmed our brain, it triggers the stress responses, right. And then that's when it's when you begin to feel this brain paralysis. It hinders our ability to make decisions, so decision making becomes a little bit more challenging.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Now, when I was doing this research, I was like, wow, now I have a better understanding of my brain health and now I understand why, why this brain paralysis happens. And I did a little more research. I did more research to know, okay, how do we combat this, how do we overcome this? And you are just in luck because I am going to be unpacking with you some simple, scientifically proven methods to overcome brain paralysis and boost your motivation. Does that sound good? I know that it has to sound good to you because, whether you are part of the 80% or the 20% who doesn't need a bit of boost and support as you are trying to achieve your goals, because you know what your goals are yours, they're not mine. They're not the neighbors, your best friend, your mom. These are things that are important to you, and you did say that you wanted to have change.

Speaker 1: 11:39

There are things that you are working on, but maybe you started feeling this brain paralysis and you stopped working on really going after the goals that you had set for yourself. And that could have been in the area of finances right, it could have been in the area of your mental health and wellness. It could be that. It could be that you have some goals around health and fitness right. You may have some career goals, some moves that you want to make. You also may have some goals in your relationships right, platonic and romantic. Maybe you want to improve.

Speaker 1: 12:14

Whatever your goals are, it's important to understand that if you are not as motivated, if you are experiencing this brain paralysis and you just don't do anything about it, guess what you are going to end up at the end of 2024 just realizing you know what, I didn't do anything that I set out to do, and it feels really crummy because you start feeling that you are disappointed in yourself, you didn't keep your own promises right, and it doesn't feel good. It just simply does not feel good. But I want to offer you this tool of these proven methods that really can help you to overcome your brain paralysis and boost your motivation. And we are just in time so you're not late. We're in the mid-January when you're listening to this episode. If you are mid-January, in the middle of the year, towards the end of the year, whenever you're listening to this episode, it's just the right time for you. I don't want you to feel that you're late to the game. I don't want you to feel overwhelmed and boggled down by you judging and being critical of yourself.

Speaker 1: 13:27

Understand that your brain works in a certain way and it's always there to defend us and protect us from sometimes even ourselves. But we do have built in a brain rewarding system which is so fascinating. I don't know about you, but I am like, wow, this is great that within my brain, I do have what I need to tap into to get me going. So it's so important for us to learn more about our brain health. I want to encourage you to learn a little bit more about your brain health, because it's so amazing that we have built in a motivational engine and that's the brain's reward system, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a few minutes.

Speaker 1: 14:19

But I want you to really focus right now on how you've been feeling lately. Is some of this resonating with you? Are you having an aha moment, like, oh, that's what, what I've been feeling? Right, that lack of motivation, it's not just you're lazy. Okay, so we want to get in there and get some more release of dopamine, right, those neurotransmitter right. That's associated with our pleasure, our feeling good, our motivation. I want you to have more of those dopamine hits, okay, because that's going to help you to really get you out of the brain paralysis and get you back on track working on your goals. Now, if you have been doing great and you've been hitting your small goals and your task and you're like, you know what, I'm very focused right now, I'm on a roll. I want you to celebrate that and I want you to continue and use this episode just to reinforce what you're already doing. Well, however, if you are not, you find yourself that you're part of the 80% that, at this point midway in January, has dropped working on your goals because of lack of motivation, lack of interest, enthusiasm. You feel overwhelmed. Then definitely continue listening to this episode, okay, it really will help you to get yourself moving and getting back on track.

Speaker 1: 15:45

All right, so, as I mentioned before, in our brain we do have our brain reward system right and that is a built-in motivational engine. The brain is really triggered by chemical, the chemical messenger, as we mentioned, the dopamine. So whenever you and I accomplish a goal or do something that brings us joy, dopamine is released and that's amazing. That feels so good. And this dopamine generates a feeling of us feeling satisfied right, feeling satisfaction, feeling happiness. This is a positive sensation which motivates us to repeat those actions. So when we're feeling happy and satisfied right, and we got that dopamine release, that positive sensation, it helps us to want to repeat the actions again, which in turn reinforces the behavior that leads to us being more productive and successful right. It leads to our happiness.

Speaker 1: 16:54

Now, I understand that many of us don't get that dopamine hit because we're not hitting the tasks right, so we're not experiencing something that our brain picks up as a reward right. So that's why it's so important for us to set a goal and work towards it and be certain that we accomplish tasks, so that we can not only reach our goal, but for our brain to release more of the dose of dopamine right, and this doesn't only make you feel good at the moment, but it really encourages you and motivates you to continue pursuing those activities. Are you following now what I mean when we are increasing our dopamine and this section in our brain, the reward system? Right, when the brain is triggered to release this dopamine, it really helps us to pursue the activities that we find, that we find joy in, the activities that really will get us to our goal. Now, remember, you don't have to do things that you like in order to still get the goal. So what by that I mean is if you don't like going to the gym but you still show up and go to the gym because you're thinking of the outcome, of what you want to optimally do, even though you don't like the gym. But once you do get to the gym, I want you to focus on how do you feel after? Right, because dopamine is increased. Why? Because you achieve the task of going to the gym. So you can check it off and say I went to the gym, whether I liked it or not, I did. And guess what? Boom, a dopamine hits Right and it's like a biological way that your brain encourages you to seek out these positive experiences and help you to want to repeat these behaviors that really contribute to your overall wellness, your mental health, wellness right, your brain health. It really has a significant positive impact. Isn't that exciting and great to know that we do have control, for the most part, on how to manipulate those dopamine hits right.

Speaker 1: 19:22

And I want to go into a few of the scientifically proven methods and solutions for you, my boss Chica, and my fellow listener, to overcome brain paralysis and boost your motivation, for you to continue to feel interested, happy, excited about your goals and doing the activities and the task to reach the ultimate goal that you have for yourself. Does that sound good? So here we go. If you're taking notes, this is a great time to start taking some notes, because I'm gonna go through a few methods to help you overcome the brain paralysis and ultimately boost your motivation. Number one you have to set smaller milestones, right. So this means that whatever the goals have been for you, I want you to break them down into smaller achievable tasks, because each of the tasks that are with that gold assigned will release dopamine and it's gonna help you to really set your accomplishments. And I even want to go as far get a checklist I'm always talking about checklists where you can check off literally check off the task. It's been scientifically proven due to right our brain reward system, that when we check off a task, we get a hit of dopamine. It just feels good. So get a checklist for yourself for the task. It's not about if you hit the whole week going to the gym, if that was your goal. It's not about that. It's about each time that you did a small task to contribute to the larger goal, you check it off. That's gonna help you and it's gonna help you release dopamine. Okay, so setting smaller milestones can really help you to get more dopamine hits. And getting a checklist is great.

Speaker 1: 21:24

You can use your calendar, your desktop. If you're in an office, you can use your desktop calendar. You can use a calendar in your home, right? I say because it's great. You can have the days that if, for example, it's going to the gym three times a week and maybe you're gonna go Monday, thursdays and Saturdays, let's just say then you can check off the days that you went and you're gonna get hits of dopamine and that's just gonna tell your brain and your reward system. You know what. I want to do more of this because you're increasing the release of dopamine, which feels good, right?

Speaker 1: 22:01

Number two visualization to success. Right, visualization to success. So I want you to regularly visualize yourself working through, working on those tasks and focusing on the positive outcomes associated with you achieving your goals. This as well activates the brain's reward system and it helps you to maintain that motivation. So when you are regularly having visualization and some of you have used are using a vision board so from time to time, coming to that vision board, looking and visualizing, meditating, visualize yourself doing the work, not just at the outcome, but doing the work in a positive way. Right, doing the work to achieve your goals, doing those specific tasks right. This activates our brain reward system and once that brain reward system is activated, we feel that motivation, that surge of energy that we want to continue to work on our goals. We get excited.

Speaker 1: 23:14

Number three I want you to celebrate your efforts and progress. Celebrate your efforts and progress. Why do I say this? Because when you acknowledge your effort and your progress, that helps you to feel again more connected and motivated. Right. So acknowledge and celebrate your small wins, your big wins, your effort right. And you recognizing these achievements will continue to reinforce this positive neural pathways in our brain, which will then help us to foster a continuous motivation, what they call loop right. So you notice how these small tasks us celebrating our small tasks and efforts, checking them off all releases dopamine for us and it really regulates and help us in activating our brain's reward system, and that's where the motivation is maintained. Okay, does that make sense for you guys? I hope that this is really helping you to be more clear about your mental health, about your brain health, and how it's all connected to you still going forward in working on your goals, because that's what's most important. You want to make sure that you are motivated and being consistent with the work that you need to do to accomplish what you set out yourself to accomplish and to keep that promise. To keep that promise that you promised yourself that for 2024, you were going to do things differently. I hope that these methods help you to continue your motivation, continue working and doing the hard work, because it's work, regardless of how many goals you have, what they mean to you, it's work that you have to do Now.

Speaker 1: 25:23

Number four is seems simple, but it's so important for us to be very consistent in what we call established routine. Make sure that you create a routine that is around the goals that you set out for yourself right, and the related activities that go with that goal. And, most importantly keyword here consistency. Because when you are consistent in taking action to your habitual behavior, you then reduce the cognitive load of the brain you follow. So it's so important to be consistent, okay. So you can really help yourself and your brain to get into the habit of that behavior and not feel as overloaded, not feel as overwhelmed. So routines really help you to keep yourself consistent, taking the actions with your habit right, and it becomes a habitual behavior. Once you do it consistently, it becomes your lifestyle, it becomes your habit, right? It reduces the overwhelming feeling to the brain, right? So it's so important for you to establish those routines. Okay, and the last two are very important as well.

Speaker 1: 26:56

Number five get an accountability buddy. Get an accountability buddy, someone that you can share your goals, somebody that you can share with them what these goals are, and for them to be an accountability partner for you and hold you accountable. And at the same time it serves as a social connection which also stimulates our oxytoxins release. So when we have these social connections, it also stimulates our oxytoxin release and it's a great way of us to promote this sense of support being in community, feeling motivated and ready to continue working on our goals together and we can share with each other best practices right, and have this external accountability besides ourselves. Does that make sense? And this is so important to keep you on track, to keep you motivated. And if you've gotten off track, it's okay. Don't beat yourself up. Don't stay there, because that will not give you the dopamine hits. It will not increase, right, your motivation by beating yourself up.

Speaker 1: 28:10

And lastly, the last scientifically proven method to overcome your brain paralysis and boost your motivation, it's what's called adjust goals dynamically. It is to adjust your goals, okay, it's so important. So, from time to time, I want you to reassess and adjust the goals. So, if we're in mid-January, this is a perfect time for you to look at your goals, right, and look at the tasks, the breakdown of the goals and by when you want to reach them. Right, and look is it realistic? Right, is it realistic or not. This is the time that you can adjust that and you can do that periodically throughout the months.

Speaker 1: 28:54

Right, you could have a check-in every month to see where you're at. You could have a check-in every week. Everybody's different. Some people like to check in weekly, others find that too overwhelming or, depending the tasks that they have, they're like, from week to week there's not much changing. And some people do it monthly, right, and I talk about your goals to work on certain goals every month, that adds up to then later on, the bigger goal at the end of the year. So you could do it in increments of what they call the 12-week year. There's a book on that 12-week a year and it's great and it's quarterly, right, looking at your goals each month and having those goals each month as if it was the whole year. But it's in a month, very specific, very clear. And then you could check it off as you go along and break it into smaller tasks as opposed to just one big goal.

Speaker 1: 29:51

Okay, and that when you adjust your goals right, the brain responds positively to the newness of you changing things around. Right, it modifies the goal, preventing us from it being monotone, right, and it really helps us to maintain interest. So the brain responds in such a positive way where we maintain that interest when we're looking at the goal and we're like, okay, let me tweak here and there, and that tweak makes it a little bit new and exciting, and next thing you know you're modifying those goals and modifying it prevents us from going into that flat, monotone metonyny of the goal, and then you lack some interest when it becomes flat like that. So, in you adjusting the goal in a way that maybe it flares up a little bit more of an interest for you, right, and it's more doable, that helps the brain also to respond in a more positive way and hitting you with those dopamine and helping you to stay more motivated. Okay, does this sound good to you? I hope that these methods really help you. As I mentioned before, we are in January 15, two weeks into the new year, and many of us may start feeling this lethargic, disinterested, unmotivated, overwhelmed feeling. So it's so good for you to adjust yourself.

Speaker 1: 31:26

I was recently listening to one of my coaches. That's why it's also good to invest in yourself, invest in getting a coach, invest in getting information, the right information. Get curious about your own brain health, right. Get very curious about that. And I was listening to one of my coaches podcast. He gave an exercise which I found very interesting and it's also scientifically proven as a method and he kind of designed this 10, 7, 3 method and I was fascinated by it. And it's this 10 minutes of workout each day, right. Seven minutes of meditation, three minutes of journaling and that's 20 minutes, so taking out 20 minutes of the day. But he broke it down in such a way that I was like, wow, that's really doable. It's 20 minutes of the day where you are setting yourself up for success and that is broken down in your 10 minutes workout, which I also read scientifically that the workout that we do in the morning, we get more benefit of it at any other time than any other time during the day, cause when we work out first thing in the morning, in the morning, it will sustain four to five hours later. It will still be giving us benefit in that day. So if you can do morning workouts, it would be great. If not, it's okay. It still gives us such great benefits to workout.

Speaker 1: 32:59

And workout doesn't have to be a long drawn out workout. It doesn't have to be rigorous like that. It can be power walking it could be. You start slow with walking. It could be that if you in your home you have stairs, right, you can go up and down those stairs rigidly as much as you can. Always check with your doctor for any type of exercise, right? So the coach mentioned a 10 minute workout.

Speaker 1: 33:26

Right, a seven minute meditation. And that is so important because scientists have also shown the power, the impact that meditation has on our brain and it's so beneficial to decrease anxiety, stress, right, decluttering our emotions as well. Sometimes we're very loaded with emotions that can be conducive to us not feeling well about ourselves. So, practicing seven minute meditation, staying still, it could be guided meditation that you can get on different platforms, you can get that. It could be you simply putting a melody or something very light that you can just focus on. It's just you staying still and allowing yourself for the thoughts to come in and you kind of gently push them away and having this willpower for yourself that you're gonna stand still, you're gonna sit still. However you wanna do it, lay still and just reflect. And you could reflect on what you're grateful for, right, and just take deep breaths, right, that also helps when you practice a little bit of breath work.

Speaker 1: 34:37

And then he says three minutes journaling, right, the power of pen to paper, dumping our feelings. Putting our feelings down on paper doesn't have to be perfect, grammatically correct, just writing down how we feel, especially assessing how our body is feeling, the different sections of our body. How is our chest feeling? Do you feel it tight? Do you feel it less tight? What are you feeling in your body? Right, because it's connected. Everything is connected.

Speaker 1: 35:06

So journaling helps to release some of the tension that we may be feeling and it also gives us an opportunity to look back at what we journaled and you may be able to see oh wow, I worked through that and that's how I was feeling. And look how I'm feeling better now or I'm feeling worse now, and then you can pinpoint what factored in for you to maybe increase that anxiety, what were the things, the thoughts that you were having, and then you can self-correct. Okay, and when you total all of that together, that's a 20 minute morning routine. You see A 20 minute morning routine and you can benefit from it and also impact the way that you show up in the day. Right, and that coach of mine gave that 20 minute morning routine. But you may have another routine that you wanna use, and that's perfectly fine. Just continue to work on yourself, continue to be aware, continue to make your adjustments. But those six proven methods to help you, to increase your motivation, to really help you overcome the brain paralysis, is something that you can practice and do on the daily, and you could share it with your partner, with a loved one.

Speaker 1: 36:24

Share this episode so more people in your life can also work on themselves and improving themselves, and this gives us a sense of community, a collectiveness. It's so important for us to look out for each other. However, you need to focus on yourself first and being very consistent with yourself, because we also get distracted by helping others. Right, so you can forward this episode and leave it at that. Be just very mindful, because sometimes we do get distracted in helping somebody else's cause that we do not work on what we need, because it's hard work, because we don't feel as motivated, as I mentioned before.

Speaker 1: 37:06

But now you have the nuggets of knowledge and once you know something, it's so important and it's great to have knowledge, but what's more powerful, it's what you do with the knowledge. You can have all this knowledge, right, all of us. We can have all this knowledge, but it's how we apply it and how do we take action. So I hope that you take action today. It's not late, you're just at the right time. You got this. Till next time, make sure that you are taking good care of yourself and of each other. I'll see you in the next one, besitos Chut Chut.