Insight | Dopamine for pursuit, serotonin for contentment

September 29, 2026 · 23 min read

Huberman explains dopamine as the molecule of wanting more and serotonin as the here-and-now molecule of satisfaction and gratitude, a balance he returns to across several talks. Cultivating both prevents a life of constant chasing without enjoyment.

Listen to this insight

The Short Version

Across four conversations, Andrew Huberman keeps coming back to the same two-part picture of the brain's reward chemistry: dopamine is the molecule of wanting, craving and pursuit, and serotonin (with related "here and now" molecules such as the endocannabinoids, oxytocin and prolactin) is the molecule of contentment with what you already have [1][2][3][4]. In his words, "dopamine is responsible for wanting and for craving," while "Serotonin is the molecule of bliss and contentment for what you already have" [1]. The trouble with dopamine alone is that every high comes paired with a craving that grows with repetition, so a life run only on pursuit turns into chasing relief from the pain of wanting more [1]. His answer is balance: keep the drive, but deliberately practice presence, gratitude, rest and sleep so that "pleasure is really two things. It's a joy and pursuit, but it's also the joy in what you have" [1][2][3].

Table of contents

What They Said

All four sources feature the same expert, Andrew Huberman, speaking in different settings: two solo episodes of his own Huberman Lab podcast [1][4] and two long interviews on The School of Greatness [2][3]. What makes the point strong is not a panel of different voices but one neuroscientist returning to the same distinction from four different directions: motivation [1], positive thinking [2], success and neuroplasticity [3], and the perception of time [4].

Dopamine is about wanting, not pleasure

The foundation of the whole idea is laid out most carefully in the motivation episode [1]. Huberman explains that dopamine, discovered in the late 1950s as the precursor to epinephrine (adrenaline), is the same molecule behind both movement and motivation [1]. As he puts it, "the same single molecule, dopamine, is responsible for our sense of motivation and for movement," and he calls it a "double-aged blade" because it sits at the center of "so many great things in life" and also of "addiction and certain forms of mental disease" [1].

The key circuit is the mesolimbic reward pathway: neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) release dopamine into the nucleus accumbens, acting like an accelerator that biases you toward action, while the prefrontal cortex acts as a brake [1]. At rest the pathway fires about three or four times per second; in anticipation of something it jumps to around 30 or 40 times per second, "creating a sense of action or desire to move in the direction of the thing that you're craving" [1]. That is where his core line comes from: "it's fair to say that dopamine is responsible for wanting and for craving" [1]. Dopamine, he adds, does not care what you crave: a cup of coffee, a board meeting, an exam or a person you are excited to see [1].

He backs the distinction between pleasure and wanting with a classic experiment. Rats whose dopamine neurons had been destroyed still enjoyed food and would eat it when it was placed in front of them, but when the lever was moved just one body length away, they would not walk over to press it, while rats with dopamine would [1]. His conclusion is that dopamine is not about the ability to experience pleasure but about motivation for pleasure [1].

He gives the same message in the time-perception episode, answering listeners who think of dopamine as the "feel good molecule": "in reality, dopamine is not necessarily a molecule of removal. It's a molecule of motivation, pursuit, and drive" [4]. That is also why dopamine shows up during trauma: it is often released alongside norepinephrine whenever arousal is high, whether the event is good or bad [4].

The School of Greatness conversations restate the same view in plainer language. In one, dopamine isn't just about pleasure—it's about motivation, drive, and the will to pursue something meaningful, the chemical that fuels curiosity, grit, and long-term ambition [3]. In the other, the summary lists The difference between dopamine (pursuit-driven) and serotonin (contentment-driven) as one of the episode's main themes [2].

The pleasure-pain balance: why pure pursuit never satisfies

The reason a dopamine-only life fails is what Huberman calls the pleasure-pain balance [1]. When you do something you enjoy, like eating a piece of chocolate, dopamine rises, and then other chemicals produce a subtle downward deflection that feels like a low-level pain or craving for another piece [1]. The two overlap so closely that they are hard to tell apart, and he asks listeners to notice it: "if there's something you really enjoy, part of that enjoyment is about the anticipation and wanting of more of that thing. And that's the pain system in action" [1].

The crucial detail is that with each repetition the pleasure shrinks a little and the pain grows a little [1]. This is clearest in drug use, where each dose feels less good while the craving grows, so much of the pursuit becomes an attempt to relieve the pain of craving [1]. "So much of our pursuit of pleasure is simply to reduce the pain of craving," he says, and then, repeating himself for emphasis: "Dopamine isn't as much about pleasure as much as it is about motivation and desire to pursue more in order to reduce the amount of pain" [1].

He finds the word yearning useful here, "because yearning seems to include a whole body experience more than just wanting, which could just be up in the mind" [1]. And he states the balance as a rule: "your desire for something is proportional to how pleasurable it is to indulge in that thing, but also how much pain you experience when you don't have it" [1]. His everyday example is his love of croissants: "The taste of that croissant makes me want to eat more croissants" [1].

He gives rough numbers for how much dopamine different things release above baseline: food about 50 percent, sex about 100 percent, nicotine about 150 percent, and cocaine and amphetamine about a thousandfold within roughly ten seconds [1]. Novelty is a strong stimulus, so fast-updating video games can release dopamine somewhere between nicotine and cocaine, and social media may release a lot at first and then taper while people stay hooked [1]. He also notes that about 15 to 20 percent of people have a genetic bias toward addiction [1]. The question this raises, why people stay attached to things that no longer feel as good, is answered by the growing pain side of the balance [1].

Serotonin and the "here and now" molecules

So what ends the chase? When Huberman gets to satisfaction and satiety in the croissant example ("eventually blood sugar goes up, satiety is reached"), he says those are governed by a different set of chemicals: "Well, that's a separate neuromodulator. That's about the neuromodulator serotonin. It's about oxytocin. It's about a hormone system that involves something called prolactin" [1]. He credits the book The Molecule of More with the name "here and now molecules," described as "the ones that allow you to experience your sensations and pleasure in the present and for which the brain stops projecting into the future" [1].

Serotonin is released by neurons in the raphe nucleus, and his definition is the heart of this insight: "Serotonin is the molecule of bliss and contentment for what you already have" [1]. He frames the two systems in terms of where they point your attention. Both are related to exteroception, the focus on the outside world, but in different ways: "Dopamine makes us focused on things outside us that are beyond what we call our personal space, where we actually have to move and take action in order to achieve things. And serotonin in general has to do with the things that are in our immediate here and now" [1]. Put most simply: "dopamine biases us toward thinking about what we don't have" [1].

He adds the endocannabinoids, the molecules the body makes that bind the same receptors as cannabis, which he says "make you feel kind of blissed out and content in the present" [1]. Then comes the image he returns to: "So you got these two systems, they're kind of like a push pull" [1]. The contrast in their effects is stark: dopamine makes people "rapidly in pursuit of things," while drugs "like marijuana, the opioids, anything that really hits the serotonin system hard, tend to make people rather lethargic and content to stay exactly where they are, they don't want to pursue much at all" [1]. He sums it up: "you've got these molecules like dopamine that make you focused on the things you want and the things you crave, and then you've got the molecules that make you content with what you have" [1].

The School of Greatness interviews carry the same contrast into gratitude and calm. There, While dopamine drives pursuit, serotonin brings presence and peace, and serotonin is accessed when you reflect on what you already have, express gratitude, and feel safe and socially connected [2]. In the success-mindset conversation, Where dopamine pushes us forward, serotonin allows us to rest, reflect, and feel content, described as the neurochemical of connection, gratitude, and 'having enough' [3].

Balance as the goal

Huberman is explicit that the aim is not to trade one system for the other. "So the most important thing, perhaps in creating a healthy emotional landscape, is to have a balance between these two neuromodulator systems" [1]. He wants listeners to "not just feel more motivated, but also to enjoy the things in life that you are pursuing to much greater degree" [1]. And near the end of the discussion he reduces the whole framework to one sentence: "So pleasure is really two things. It's a joy and pursuit, but it's also the joy in what you have" [1].

The School of Greatness summary of the positive-thinking talk states the balance as a pair of warnings: a healthy mindset uses dopamine for motivation, drive and goal-setting and serotonin for contentment, grounding and reflection; without serotonin, dopamine becomes manic, and without dopamine, serotonin becomes passive [2]. The success-mindset summary puts it as a rhythm: The healthiest brains cycle between dopamine and serotonin regularly [3].

The high achiever's trap

Huberman's sharpest warning is aimed at the most driven people. After a big success, many high achievers immediately ask "now what?, and he voices the worry directly: How am I ever going to exceed that?" [1]. People "very high on this dopamine sensation and novelty seeking scale are prone to addiction. They're prone to the rabid pursuit of external goals, of external reception, to the neglect of these internal mechanisms that allow them to feel calm and happy [1]. For them, he prescribes here-and-now practices, the sort of almond type practices we talked about earlier," and "learning how to achieve a really good night's sleep on a regular basis," which together give "balance to the pleasure seeking and offsetting of pain and the pleasure in the here and now" [1].

The positive-thinking interview makes a related point about external rewards. Money, praise and status are unreliable because they are not always in your control and lose impact over time, while internal rewards such as pride in effort and joy in discipline give sustainable motivation, resilience under pressure and higher performance over time [2]. His guiding belief there is: "The belief I think everyone can benefit from is that dopamine release is under your subjective control" [2]. In the success-mindset interview, serotonin is framed as the protection against burnout: without it, the summary says, we burn out [3].

Managing the dopamine side so it does not crash

Because contentment is easier when the pursuit side is not swinging wildly, Huberman spends real time on how to schedule dopamine [1]. His principle: "Big increases in dopamine lead to big crashes in dopamine," and they raise the bar for next time [1]. He borrows from casinos, where the slot machine pays out just often enough to keep you playing, which he calls "the most powerful form of dopamine reward scheduled to keep you doing something" [1]. His advice is to reclaim that schedule for good goals by deliberately blunting the reward for some intermediate wins: "I'm not telling you you shouldn't celebrate your wins, but I'm telling you not to celebrate all of them" [1]. He suggests rewarding yourself unpredictably, sometimes three times in a row and then not at all for ten days, so you don't burn out your dopamine circuits [1]. When a friend had a big financial success and asked what to do next, Huberman and another friend advised him to give most of it away, to reduce the impact of that reward [1].

He also describes extending the arc of a win. When his lab published a paper, he let himself feel excited but not too excited, and then stretched the positive experience out by reflecting on how much he enjoyed the work, the discovery and the people he did it with, offsetting the pain of not repeating the experience over and over [1]. This is, in effect, turning a dopamine peak into a slower, reflective enjoyment of what has already been achieved.

The School of Greatness interviews say something similar about where to aim the dopamine. In the positive-thinking talk, he warns that sharing a big dream ("I'm writing a book!") can give such a dopamine spike that the brain treats it as if the work were done, and motivation drops, so reserve dopamine rewards for action, not applause [2]. He advises anchoring the high to the effort rather than only the outcome: "If you only attach dopamine to the celebration, you erase a lot of the valuable skills that got you there" [2]. The success-mindset interview adds that most people misuse dopamine by linking it only to outcomes, and that attaching it to the process itself, feeling pride not in winning, but in trying, builds sustainable drive [3].

Why balance also matters for how life feels in time

The time-perception episode adds an unexpected layer to the same two-molecule picture [4]. Huberman opens by calling our perception of time "perhaps the most important factor in How we gauge our life," because it is "directly linked to the neurochemical states that control mood, stress, happiness, excitement" and frames how we judge our past, present and future [4]. His promise: "We can control the speed at which we experience life" [4].

The two molecules act on the brain's "frame rate" in opposite directions. "The more dopamine that is released into our brain, the more we tend to overestimate how much time has passed"; asked to signal when a minute is up, people with elevated dopamine might call it at the 38-second mark [4]. "Conversely, the neuromodulator serotonin causes people to underestimate the amount of time that's passed"; with elevated serotonin or after cannabis, people let six minutes pass when asked to mark five [4]. He uses a camera analogy: dopamine and norepinephrine "increase frame rate," fine-slicing experience like slow-motion film shot at 4,000 frames per second instead of 30, while serotonin takes the frame rate down "to say 20 frames per second" [4].

He describes this as "two clocks, two stopwatches," one "dopamine-ergic stopwatch that finds slices really closely," and a coarser one that ticks in big intervals, with your state deciding which you use [4]. There is emerging evidence, he says, that dopamine and norepinephrine dominate roughly the first half of the waking day and serotonin rises toward evening, so people tend to overestimate elapsed time early in the day and underestimate it later [4]. In other words, the pursuit-and-contentment balance is not just an emotional pattern but a daily rhythm that shapes how finely or loosely we experience time [4].

Gratitude, play, rest and meaning

The School of Greatness conversations fill in the serotonin side with specific practices. Gratitude is described as a neurochemical reset that replenishes serotonin and helps combat anxiety and burnout, Restore balance to the pursuit-based dopamine system, and re-center the nervous system [2]. The success-mindset summary says gratitude practices (even 30 seconds) raise serotonin, helping you return to joy after periods of intensity, and that deep sleep, social bonding and physical touch also restore serotonin [3].

Rest is the other pillar. Huberman's number 1 recovery tool is Yoga Nidra, a guided breathing and body-scanning practice that the summary says resets dopamine and serotonin; he does it once or twice a day, especially when short on sleep: "Yoga Nidra is the most powerful tool I use. It literally rewires the nervous system" [3]. Play is described as releasing dopamine, lowering stress hormones and building creativity and social bonds, with the physicist Richard Feynman as an example of an adult who made play central to his learning [3]. In the positive-thinking talk, play, including laughing at yourself, makes effort feel lighter, builds emotional flexibility and helps you stay energized during long pursuits [2].

At the same time, the success-mindset interview insists that pursuit itself is essential to health. Huberman links dopamine and pursuit to the reproductive hormone systems, including testosterone and estrogen, and says that without goals or challenges we lose vitality and the brain idles [3]. The summary quotes him: "The will to pursue something isn't just about achievement—it's the biological foundation of the will to live" [3]. So the goal is never to shut dopamine down; it is to pair it with the here-and-now side.

Get new summaries by email

The GIST of every new summary in your inbox, daily or weekly. Free, and you can unsubscribe any time.

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

On the central point, the four sources agree completely, which is unsurprising since they are the same speaker: dopamine drives wanting, pursuit and motivation, and serotonin (with related molecules) supports contentment, presence and satisfaction with what you have [1][2][3][4]. All of them present dopamine as more than a pleasure chemical [1][3][4], and all of them treat a healthy life as needing both systems [1][2][3]. The solo episodes give the mechanisms and experiments [1][4]; the interviews translate the idea into mindset and habits [2][3].

They also agree on the practical direction: do not attach all your dopamine to outcomes and external rewards, and build in practices that bring you back to the present, whether mindful eating [1], gratitude [2][3], deep rest and sleep [1][3], or play [2][3].

There are, however, a few real differences worth stating plainly.

What happens when serotonin is missing. The positive-thinking summary says that without serotonin, dopamine becomes manic [2]. The success-mindset summary says the opposite kind of failure: Without enough serotonin, dopamine's effects collapse—leaving people unmotivated, anxious, or depressed [3]. One pictures unchecked, frantic pursuit; the other pictures pursuit collapsing into burnout. The motivation episode arguably holds both: pursuit without the here-and-now side leads to "the rabid pursuit of external goals" [1], and the growing pain side of repeated pleasure leads to diminishing returns and craving [1]. The difference may be one of timing (the frantic chase first, the crash after), but the sources do not say so, and both summaries are secondhand reports of interviews rather than transcripts, so readers should treat those two lines as broad paraphrases rather than precise claims.

Whether to celebrate wins. In the motivation episode, Huberman explicitly tells people not to celebrate every win, to reward themselves unpredictably, and even to blunt big rewards, because "Big increases in dopamine lead to big crashes in dopamine" [1]. The positive-thinking summary's goal-setting list includes Celebrate small wins [2]. These are not fully in conflict: the positive-thinking talk also warns against attaching dopamine only to the celebration and asks people to anchor the high to the effort [2], and the motivation episode says plainly that he is not against celebrating, only against celebrating all of them [1]. The more careful, transcript-backed version is the intermittent one [1].

How firmly the serotonin claims are stated. The Huberman Lab episodes are cautious and specific: he credits the "here and now molecules" label to a book, names the brain areas involved, and describes time-of-day effects as "emerging evidence" [1][4]. The School of Greatness summaries make stronger, simpler claims, such as gratitude (even 30 seconds) raising serotonin, or Yoga Nidra resetting dopamine and serotonin, without the studies being described [3]. Those may well reflect what he said, but the sources give no experimental detail behind them, so they are best read as his recommendations rather than established findings.

Which molecules count as the "contentment" side. The motivation episode lists serotonin, oxytocin, prolactin and the endocannabinoids as here-and-now molecules [1]. The interviews speak mostly of serotonin alone [2][3]. The time episode notes that cannabis "increases serotonin among other things, including the cannabinoid receptor activation" [4]. The simple serotonin for contentment framing is therefore a shorthand for a family of chemicals, not a single switch.

Why It Works

The sources offer several mechanisms that explain why balancing the two systems prevents a life of constant chasing.

Dopamine is anticipatory by design. The reward pathway jumps from three or four firings per second at rest to 30 or 40 in anticipation, not on receiving a reward [1]. Because its job is to narrow focus and move you toward something you do not yet have, it cannot by itself deliver the feeling of having enough [1]. The rat experiment shows the split cleanly: without dopamine, animals still enjoyed food but would not take one step to get it [1].

Every high carries a built-in low that grows. The pleasure-pain balance means each rewarding experience is followed by a subtle craving, and with repetition the pleasure shrinks while the craving grows [1]. A life run only on dopamine therefore drifts toward pursuing things to relieve pain rather than to enjoy them, which is exactly the constant chasing without enjoyment this insight is about [1]. Big spikes make it worse, because "Big increases in dopamine lead to big crashes in dopamine" and raise the bar for next time [1].

The here-and-now system works in push-pull with dopamine. Serotonin and endocannabinoids orient attention to what is present rather than what is missing [1]. Because the two systems push against each other, practices that pull attention into the present, like eating one almond with full attention, can shift a normally pursuit-driven behavior toward the contentment side: "It's really trying to accomplish a shift from dopamine being released to serotonin in the cannabinoid system being involved in that behavior" [1]. Huberman describes this as a practice the mindfulness community uses "to try and create increased pleasure for what you already have" [1], drawing on Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Wherever You Go, There You Are [1].

Dopamine responds to belief and interpretation. Huberman stresses that "Dopamine is very subjective" [1]. In a study of 65 college students given either placebo or 200 milligrams of caffeine and told they were getting caffeine or Adderall, those who believed they had taken Adderall reported stronger amphetamine-like effects and did better on a working memory test, despite taking only caffeine [1]. That is why reflection, meaning and how you frame a win can change the chemistry: extending the arc of a success by reflecting on the work and people [1], or attaching reward to effort rather than outcome [2][3]. In the positive-thinking talk, he calls positive thinking "learning how to take control of internal processes, which will shape your external environment" [2].

The two molecules set how finely you live through time. Dopamine raises the brain's frame rate and makes time seem longer in the moment; serotonin lowers it [4]. Excitement, arousal and pursuit fine-slice experience; contentment batches it into larger, easier bins [4]. A fun, varied, dopamine-rich experience flies by but is remembered as long and full, while a boring one drags but is remembered as short and empty [4]. The daily rise of dopamine early and serotonin later suggests the body itself is built to alternate between the two states [4].

Pursuit keeps the body vital; rest installs the gains. The success-mindset interview adds that pursuit ties into hormone systems and a sense of purpose, while deep rest and sleep are when learning is consolidated [3]. The summary describes neuroplasticity as Stress + Stillness = Change: effort and strain signal that something matters, and real change happens afterward during sleep or deep relaxation [3]. That pairing mirrors the dopamine-serotonin balance: strive, then settle.

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

It applies most to driven, novelty-seeking people. Huberman aims his here-and-now advice squarely at those "very high on this dopamine sensation and novelty seeking scale," who are prone to addiction and to chasing external goals at the expense of calm [1]. It also applies to anyone who feels hollow after a big achievement and immediately asks "now what?" [1].

It applies to everyday pleasures, not just drugs. The pleasure-pain pattern shows up with chocolate, croissants, video games and social media as well as with nicotine and cocaine [1]. Anyone can observe it the next time they eat something delicious [1].

It applies to goal-setting and work. The interviews apply the balance to how you set goals, share them, and reward yourself along the way [2][3], and the time episode applies it to scheduling the day: precise, rule-bound work early when dopamine and norepinephrine are higher, creative and brainstorming work later as serotonin rises [4]. Poor, short or fragmented sleep blurs these daily phases [4].

It does not mean more serotonin is always better. Huberman is clear that anything that "really hits the serotonin system hard" tends to make people lethargic and unwilling to pursue much at all [1], and the success-mindset interview says that without goals and challenges the brain idles [3]. Contentment without pursuit is not the goal either; the positive-thinking summary warns that without dopamine, serotonin becomes passive [2].

It is not a tool for treating clinical conditions on your own. Huberman separates two kinds of procrastinators, those who only move under the stress of a deadline and those who are not releasing enough dopamine, and for the second group he mentions options such as Mucuna pruriens and prescription bupropion only as things to discuss with a psychiatrist or doctor [1]. He describes phenethylamine (PEA) as releasing "dopamine at low levels, but also serotonin at low levels," a "cocktail of the motivation molecules as well as the quote-unquote here and now molecules," while noting that "People's response to this varies widely" and it is "a bit of a stimulant" [1]. He insists: "you have to check with your healthcare provider before you would take anything or remove anything" [1]. For real clinical depression, he recommends professional help and notes that data generally favor a combination of medication and talk therapy [1]. If low motivation, low mood or compulsive behavior is affecting your life, speak to a doctor or mental health professional before trying supplements or medication.

Addiction risk is not equal. About 15 to 20 percent of people have a genetic bias toward addiction, and becoming addicted on first use has not been shown for most things and most people, though it is true for some [1]. The balance framework explains the pull, but it does not replace treatment for people who are already caught.

Some specifics rest on thinner evidence. The time-of-day dopamine and serotonin pattern is described as emerging evidence [4], and several practical claims from the interview summaries (gratitude raising serotonin within 30 seconds, Yoga Nidra resetting both systems, late-night screens between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. suppressing dopamine) are reported without study details in the sources [2][3]. They fit the framework but should be treated as Huberman's guidance rather than settled science.

What To Do With It

  1. Notice the craving inside the pleasure. The next time you enjoy something, like a favorite food, watch for the subtle wanting-more that comes with it. Huberman asks listeners to notice that "part of that enjoyment is about the anticipation and wanting of more of that thing" [1]. Seeing it is the first step to not being run by it.

  2. Practice one "almond" moment a day. Take a normally pursuit-driven behavior, such as eating, and slow it down completely, focusing on taste and texture as in Jon Kabat-Zinn's single-almond practice [1]. This is Huberman's example of shifting from dopamine toward serotonin and the endocannabinoids [1].

  3. Add a short gratitude practice. Reflect on what you already have and express gratitude, which the interviews describe as a way to replenish serotonin and restore balance to the pursuit-based dopamine system [2][3]. The success-mindset summary suggests even 30 seconds counts [3].

  4. Don't celebrate every win. Reward yourself on an unpredictable schedule, sometimes several times in a row and then not at all for days, and deliberately blunt some intermediate rewards: "I'm not telling you you shouldn't celebrate your wins, but I'm telling you not to celebrate all of them" [1].

  5. Extend the arc of big successes. Instead of chasing the next peak straight away, let yourself feel excited but not too excited, then keep revisiting what you enjoyed about the work, the discovery and the people involved, as Huberman did after publishing papers [1].

  6. Attach your reward to the effort, not the applause. Be careful about announcing big goals before doing the work, since talking about them can deliver a dopamine spike that stands in for action [2]. Take pride not in winning, but in trying [3], because "If you only attach dopamine to the celebration, you erase a lot of the valuable skills that got you there" [2].

  7. Protect sleep and deep rest. For very driven people, Huberman pairs here-and-now practices with "learning how to achieve a really good night's sleep on a regular basis" [1]. He also uses Yoga Nidra once or twice daily, especially when short on sleep [3], and the positive-thinking talk advises avoiding screens late at night [2].

  8. Keep a real pursuit going. Don't overcorrect into passivity. Choose goals and challenges, since without them we lose vitality [3]. The positive-thinking talk suggests working in 12-week cycles with one hard, uncomfortable "friction-based" goal alongside familiar ones [2].

  9. Match your tasks to your chemistry. Do precise, rule-bound work early in the day, when "you are a much more high resolution camera," and save brainstorming and creative work for later, when serotonin is rising [4].

  10. Build in play and humor. Play, including laughing at yourself, makes effort feel lighter and helps you stay energized over long pursuits [2][3]. It lets the chase feel less like a grind and more like something you enjoy while you are in it.

Sources

  1. How to Increase Motivation & Drive | Huberman Lab Essentials · Huberman Lab
  2. The Science of Positive Thinking & How to Control Your Mind with Dr. Andrew Huberman · The School of Greatness
  3. The Science of a Success Mindset with Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman · The School of Greatness
  4. Time Perception & Entrainment by Dopamine, Serotonin & Hormones · Huberman Lab

Products and resources from this insight

Some of these are affiliate links: if you buy through them, Perfect Summary is paid a commission, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, Perfect Summary earns from qualifying purchases.

Report a problem

Something wrong on this page? A mistake, a broken link, audio that won't play? Tell us and we'll fix it.