Do a Dopamine Detox to Achieve Your Goals

Dopamine: The happy feeling your brain gets when it gets something it wants. We all have our vices that provide us dopamine, whether it be junk food, video games, smoking, drugs, talking too much, etc. None of these are inherently bad alone, but too much of a good thing is a bad thing, if it isn't productive or serving you. What is your quick release? What is that small thing you do that doesn't really add any value to your time and only exists for short term reward? The thing is, when we use short term rewards like eating a dozen cookies or gaming for eight hours too often, our mind loses sight of the bigger picture, our long term goals.

You fill your free time with distractions to run away from what you need to do, what your mind truly wants to do, which is work on yourself and your success. I am a person that puts the pro in procrastination and it took me a bit of research to find that a dopamine detox could be exactly what I need. So, I did it. I took thirty days out of my life, which is such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, and I went without my phone, my computer, any sort of electronics, weed, junk food, anything that I had begun to use as an escape from reality and the present moment.

I went without those things for thirty days, and it reshaped my purpose for me. I started an outline for a business I was thinking of starting for a year, I exercised almost daily. I felt better overall just two weeks in, although the first week sucked. Your brain thinks you are starving it of fun, and how dare you replace it with work ideas and journaling? haha, sucker I'm going to make you think you hate your life so you go back to your junk rewards! No brain, not today. I stuck it out and at the end of that thirty days, I felt better than I had in years.

It is so easy to get stuck in an endless loop of short term gratification in today's world. There is not much discipline because things are instant. Instant message, instant coffee, instant sink, you get the idea. When you shift your focus to your long term goals instead, your brain can start to enjoy the process of working towards a goal, which can actually sometimes feel better than reaching your goal. It is all about the journey after all.

Being bored during this break is good. In fact, if you don't get bored I would be a little worried. A dopamine detox gives your mind plenty of time to do something we were made for; to imagine and create. Which is something that gets blocked out when you fill your mind with what could be considered useless knowledge from your chosen distractions. Wouldn't it be nice to feel like you are fulfilling something? Don't get stuck in the endless cycle of distractions. Do a dopamine detox and discover how much better you will feel about your life if you focus your mental energy differently.

To figure out what eats at your time the most and what you should detox from, I recommend writing a list of 10 things that you do often. In that list of 10 things, mark each activity with a 1 through 10, 1 being bad I don't like to do this activity or it is not good for me, and 10 being I love doing this, it fulfills me a lot. The 3 activites closest to a 1 for you will be included in your dopamine detox. The 3 activities that are closes to a 10 for you will be things for you to focus on growing and enjoying during your detox.

If you have done a dopamine detox before, I would love to know! If you have questions, please reach out! Leave me a comment below. Whether you were successful, or it was too hard, I want to know your experience.