Setting goals for creative work
I have watched a minimum of 15 of your podcast appearances, where you talk about Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset and how you especially combine it with your deep understanding of the underlying dopaminergic pathways, which has absolutely blown my mind. I took many pages of notes from your various podcasts, like “getting the dopamine from effort and friction, effort being the right path, focussing on the process rather than the outcome etc.”. But I really struggle to understand how to set long- and short-term goals properly, in order to really focus on the effort process, while still having a concrete goal in mind at the same time (which confuses me a bit). Especially when you work in fields, where you simply can not really set actual measurable goals like in e.g. math (i am a music producer for a living and setting an exact goal like “creating 1 song per day (or week)” isnt hardly ever going to work out because its creative work and the process and timespan is always different per production). So the question is: Are goals neccesary for it and how do i set the best short and long term goals for the growth mindset (as a music creative), so that i can really give my absolute best effort to enjoying the process consistently, if i can’t define career goals clearly? Thank you so much!
Subjective signals
At about 1:24:40 in your video about brain health (youtube.com/watch?v=E7W4OQfJWdw&t=5908s) you mentioned this idea of almost "summoning" dopamine response via intentional attention. Is this a generally available mechanism for behaviors ... or does it relate specifically to food behaviors? And do you happen to have a citation? I think you called them "subjective signals" or somesuch. Thanks!
How do you use Ultradian Cycles in your daily work?
You've mentioned before that you try to include at least 1 90 minute focus block per day as part of your work and overall mission. What is your max number of blocks you can perform sustainably? Do you take vacations or extended breaks? If you knew you needed to drastically increase the amount of focus you do daily, how would you schedule that focus and recover from it? Thank YOU for your interest in science!