Your Brain's Disappointment Center Sabotages Change

In our achievement-driven society, we're constantly bombarded with advice on how to set better goals and track our progress. Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound or SMART, goals, fitness trackers, and calorie-counting apps have become ubiquitous tools in our quest for self-improvement. But these popular methods may sabotage our success and well-being. Recent research has uncovered some surprising downsides to our obsession with performance-based approaches, and neuroscience might explain why.

The Performance-Based Goal Trap and Your Brain's Disappointment Center

The specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound approach has long been touted as the gold standard for goal-setting. However, studies show they can backfire in unexpected ways:

1. Narrow focus: Performance-based goals can cause us to neglect important demands of our work or life that aren't specified in the goals, like when our child is sick and this disrupts our exercise goal.

Source: Tero Vesalainen / Shutterstock

2. Reduced motivation: The rigid structure of performance-based goals can decrease our intrinsic motivation and enjoyment of tasks. Oscarsson and colleagues (2020) found that they can perform worse than doing nothing at all.

3. Ethical compromises: The pressure to achieve specific targets has been shown to lead to unethical behavior or the habit of cutting corners. Research by Ordóñez and colleagues (2009) found that overprescribing goal-setting can have serious negative consequences, including a corrosion of organizational culture and reduced intrinsic motivation.

4. Stifled creativity: Performance-based goals can decrease our intrinsic motivation and enjoying goals is shown to discourage risk-taking and innovative thinking.

But why do performance-based goals lead to these negative outcomes? The answer might lie in a small region of our brain called the habenula, often referred to as the brain's disappointment center.

The habenula plays a crucial role in processing negative feedback and regulating motivation. When we experience disappointment or perceive a lack of reward, the habenula becomes active, leading to decreased motivation and negative emotions (Hikosaka, 2010).

Performance-based goals, with their emphasis on specific, measurable outcomes, may be setting us up for frequent activation of the habenula. When we inevitably fall short of our precise targets or experience setbacks, our brain's disappointment center kicks into gear, potentially leading to motivation loss and negative emotions observed in the goal-setting research.

The Performance-Goal Pitfall and Habenula Hyperactivity

Similar issues arise with performance-based goals, in general. Whether in education, work, or personal development, an overemphasis on performance can lead to:

• Increased anxiety and stress

• Surface-level learning instead of deep understanding

• Avoidance of challenges and quick surrender when facing obstacles

• Cheating, lying, or other unethical behaviors to meet targets

Dweck's (2006) mindset research showed that performance goals can foster a fixed mindset, where individuals believe their abilities are static. A fixed mindset can decrease resilience and hinder learning from failures.

The habenula's role in this process is significant. Studies have shown that individuals with depression or anxiety often exhibit hyperactivity in the habenula (Lawson and colleagues, 2017). This suggests that the constant pressure of performance goals may be overstimulating our brain's disappointment center, leading to chronic stress and anxiety. Moreover, the habenula's control of rewards explains why performance goals can lead to surface-level learning and unethical behavior. When the habenula is overactive, it suppresses the reward system, making it harder to find intrinsic motivation and enjoyment in tasks (Hu and colleagues, 2020). This may drive individuals to seek shortcuts or be unethical to achieve their goals and avoid the negative emotions associated with failure.

The Health Tracking Paradox and Habenula Overload

The rise of fitness trackers and health apps has given us unprecedented access to our personal data. But this constant self-quantification comes with its own set of problems:

1. Reduced enjoyment: Tracking can turn fun activities into chores, decreasing our intrinsic motivation (Etkin, 2016).

2. Obsessive behaviors: Some users develop unhealthy dependencies on their devices, leading to anxiety and guilt when goals aren't met (Duus and colleagues, 2018).

3. Disordered eating: Calorie-counting apps can exacerbate disordered eating behaviors in vulnerable individuals (Eikey and Reddy, 2017).

4. Overexertion: Users may push themselves too hard to meet arbitrary goals, ignoring their body's signals (Shin and colleagues, 2019).

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The Crystallisation of Discontent

The constant feedback loop created by health tracking may be overwhelming our habenula. Every time we fall short of our step goal or exceed our calorie target, we're potentially triggering our brain's disappointment center. Over time, this could lead to a chronic state of dissatisfaction and reduced motivation, explaining the paradoxical effects of health tracking.

Understanding the potential pitfalls of traditional goal-setting approaches has led to the development of more effective strategies. One such approach is the iterative mindset method (Bobinet and colleagues 2023), which I developed during my health behavior research. This mindset was consistently present in individuals who had achieved long-term behavior change, and it appears to work harmoniously with our brain's motivational systems, particularly in managing the habenula's activation.

The IMM consists of three key components:

1. Assess: This component neutralizes past failures and prevents predictions of future failure or disappointment, aimed at mitigating habenula activation.

2. Practice: Individuals choose behaviors they believe they can get themselves to do, practicing until they become automatic habits—a sign of neuroplasticity.

3. Iterate: This component keeps individuals in effort with tweaks and adjustments, preventing failure that might trigger the habenula and motivation loss.

The iterative mindset method is designed to protect from habenula activation. Assess explicitly neutralizes failure, both past and future. The practice focuses on behaviors people are willing and interested in, increasing the likelihood of success. Iterate makes individuals unstoppable by encouraging continuous adaptation.