Tools for Setting & Achieving Goals | Dr. Emily Balcetis

(soft rock music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, my guest is Dr. Emily Balcetis. Dr. Balcetis is a professor of psychology at New York University. Her laboratory studies motivation, goal setting, and tools for successful goal completion. I learned about Dr. Balcetis' work some years ago, because I'm a vision scientist, that is, I study the visual system, and I heard about this incredible psychologist at New York University who was studying how vision, that is, how we visualize problems, can predict whether or not we will successfully overcome challenges, and how we strategize in order to set and meet goals. And in 2020, I learned of Dr. Balcetis' book, which was written for the general public, entitled Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World. And I read both the hard copy of the book and listened to the audiobook, and I absolutely loved the material. As you'll learn directly from Dr. Balcetis today, how people visualize a problem, that is whether or not they think of a goal or a problem as residing at the top of a very steep hill, or on the top of a shallower hill, or whether or not they visualize a goal or a problem as far off in the distance or closer to them in the distance, visually, in their mind, strongly dictates whether or not they will arrive at the challenge of meeting a goal or overcoming a problem with more energy or less energy. Indeed, it dictates whether or not they can push to immediate milestones or whether or not they will think they have to overcome the entire task all at once. Basically, Dr. Balcetis' work has discovered that how we visualize a problem or a goal in our mind has everything to do with how we lean into that goal, whether or not we think of it as overwhelming or tractable, whether or not we think that we can overcome that goal and then it will lead to yet more possible rewards and goals, or whether or not we feel that we're going to arrive at the finish line and then just be overwhelmed with fatigue. In other words, how you visualize things in your mind, and when I say visualize, I mean literally how you visualize them as a visual problem or a visual goal, has everything to do with whether or not you will be able to meet those goals and whether or not they will lead to still greater goals that you'll be able to achieve. Today's episode is an especially important one, I believe, because you're going to learn about quality peer-reviewed science from the expert in this field of goal setting, motivation, and pursuit, and you're also going to learn an immense number of practical tools that you can apply toward your educational goals, your career goals, relationship goals, goals of any sort. By the end of today's episode, you will be better equipped to set and achieve your goals. Dr. Balcetis also shares with us her own experiences of how to set, visualize, and achieve goals, and she does that within the context of her role as a parent, as somebody navigating relationships of various kinds, and a demanding career. So again, I think that you'll find the information today to be both extremely academically grounded in terms of research, extremely practical, and realistic in terms of how you might apply it in your own life. I'm pleased to announce that the Huberman Lab Podcast is now partnered with Momentous supplements. We partnered with Momentous for several important reasons. First of all, they ship internationally, because, uh, we know that many of you are located outside of the United States. That's valuable. Second of all, and perhaps most important, the quality of their supplements is second to none, both in terms of purity and precision of the amounts of the ingredients. Third, we've really emphasized supplements that are single ingredient supplements and that are supplied in dosages that allow you to build a supplementation protocol that's optimized for cost, that's optimized for effectiveness, and that you can add things and remove things from your protocol in a way that's really systematic and scientific. This is really hard to do if you're taking blends of different supplements or if the dosages are such that you can't titrate or, that is, adjust the dosages of a given supplement. So by using single ingredient supplements, you can really build out the supplement kit that's ideal for you and your specific needs. If you'd like to see the supplements that we partner with Momentous on, you can go to livemomentous.com/huberman. There, you'll see those supplements, and just keep in mind that we are constantly expanding the library of supplements available through Momentous on a regular basis. Again, that's livemomentous.com/huberman. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Thesis. Thesis makes custom nootropics, and as some of you have probably heard me say before, I'm not a fan of the word nootropics because nootropics means smart drugs, and frankly, as a neuroscientist, the notion of a smart drug is somewhat ridiculous. Why? Well, it turns out that we have neural circuits in our brain that get engaged for creativity and yet other neural circuits that are engaged for focus and still other neural circuits that are engaged for task switching. So the notion of a smart drug or a drug that can induce smartness, if you will, is simply not grounded in science.Well, Thesis understands this and has developed custom nootropics that are tailored to the specific types of cognitive demands or physical demands that you might be facing. (inhales sharply) If you go to Thesis' website, you can take a quiz, and from that, they'll give you a sample of different nootropics that you can try so that you can create a customized kit of nootropics for your specific needs. To get your own personalized nootropic starter kit, just go online to takethesis.com/huberman. Take that three-minute quiz, and Thesis will send you four different formulas to try in your first month. That's takethesis.com/huberman and use the code Huberman at checkout to get 10% off your first box. Today's episode is also brought to us by Levels. Levels is what's called a continuous glucose monitor. Some of you may have heard of these before, others of you perhaps have not. Basically, it's a small device that you wear on the back of your arm, it's an app that you install on your phone, and whether or not you are fasting, or you just ate, or you several hours ago, you can get a real-time measurement of your blood glucose, which turns out to be extremely informative. I first started using the Levels continuous glucose monitor about a year ago, and it's taught me so much about how I respond to specific foods in terms of blood sugar spikes, how I respond to exercise, even the sauna, it turns out, can modulate my blood glucose levels and your blood glucose levels in very interesting ways. So all of that has translated into a huge number of very directed changes that I've made in terms of what I eat, when I eat, and how I schedule exercise relative to eating, and sleep, et cetera. If you're interested in trying the Levels continuous glucose monitor yourself, you can simply go to levels.link/huberman. That's levels.link/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by ROKA. ROKA makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality, and they also have some unique characteristics. The company was founded by two All-American swimmers from Stanford, and everything about ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses were designed with performance in mind. ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses can be worn while running or cycling. If you get sweaty, they won't fall off your face, and they're extremely lightweight. In fact, most of the time, I can't even remember that I'm wearing them. I wear ROKA eyeglasses when I read at night, so I wear their readers, and I wear sunglasses at various times throughout the day. The great thing about ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses is that even though they were designed for athletic performance, they have a terrific aesthetic. So unlike a lot of so-called performance glasses that make people look like cyborgs, in my opinion, ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses are the sort that you could wear out to dinner, that you could wear to work. They have a terrific aesthetic. If you'd like to try ROKA eyeglasses or sunglasses, you can go to ROKA, that's roka.com, and enter the code Huberman to save 20% off your first order. Again, that's ROKA, roka.com, and enter the code Huberman at checkout. And now for my discussion with Dr. Emily Balcetis. Well, thanks for being here.