Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

where we revisit past episodes for the

most potent and actionable science-based

tools for mental health, physical

health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. And now for

my discussion with Dr. Emily Belchettis.

Well, thanks for being here.

>> It's my pleasure.

>> Yeah, I've been looking forward to this

for a long time. uh because as a vision

scientist uh who is also very interested

in real life tools and goal setting and

motivation, your work lands squarely in

the middle of those interests. Just to

kick things off, you could tell us just

a little bit about goal setting and goal

retrieval. What's the deal with vision

and motivation? How do those two things

link up?

>> Yeah, totally. When psychologists ask

people like, "How are you what are you

doing to help make progress on your

goals?" They say all kinds of things. a

couple things always pop to the top,

which is, you know, self- pep talks or I

remind myself of how important it is to

to do this job or put up post-it notes

around to like constantly be nagging me

about what I need to do. All of that

takes a lot of time and effort and

commitment. And so, what a surprise that

people burn out, right? It's exciting to

work on a goal when you when you first

set it. You might make some initial

progress, but then eventually we get,

you know, not even to the halfway point

before things get real. things are are

challenging and we fall by the wayside.

So then I you know with my team I was

trying to think of like well what are

strategies that don't require as much

effort that we can automate that we can

take advantage of what's already

happening within ourselves within our

body within our mind that might overcome

one of those challenges and that's when

we started to land on the idea of vision

and we thought you know what there are

strategies that we can use to look at

the world in a different way and that we

can automate that might help us to

overcome some obstacles to make progress

on our goals to maybe literally see

opportunity unities that we hadn't been

able to see before.

>> You've published a number of studies in

this area, but maybe you could highlight

some of the more important findings in

the area of how people can adjust their

vision in order to meet goals more

quickly and more efficiently.

>> So, you know, we started thinking about

what are the goals that are most

important to people that they struggle

with the most. And regardless of where

you look or who you ask or when you ask

it, people's number one goal is

something related to their health,

right? So, one of the first things that

I did was um go over to Brooklyn.

There's a couple armories all around um

the the the burrows here around New York

City. And one and the one in Brooklyn in

particular is now YMCA. You somebody had

invited me, a physical therapist said,

"Hey, you should come out and and check

out what's happening here with your

interest in exercise and trying to find

new ways of helping people, new tactics

that they can add to their tool belt."

Uh I think you're going to find some

interesting people that are working out

there who, as it turns out, are some of

the fastest runners in the world. like

you know one of the people that was in

the the last Olympics before I showed up

won the gold medal for the 400 meter. I

thought when these people are running I

bet they are like hyper aware of

everything that's going on in their

surroundings. Where are they relative to

the competition? What's happening in

their peripheral vision? What's going on

on the side? Who's behind them? Who's in

front of them? They probably have this

like master sense, this master visual

plan at any point in time. And that's

what probably makes them elite. So when

I started asking them, is that the case?

Do you do you really pay attention to

what's in your surroundings? What's

behind you? What's on the sides? They

said no. Like all of them said no. And

sometimes when I do do that, it's a

mistake. So that was surprising. It

totally went against my intuition about

what they do that likely contributes to

their success. What they said instead

was that they are hyperfocused. They

assume this narrowed focus of attention

almost like a spotlight is is shining on

a target. Now, when they're running a

short distance, that target might

literally be the finish line, the line

that they're trying to cross. If it's a

longer distance, they set sub goals

like, you know, the person the shorts on

the person up ahead that they're trying

to beat or they choose some sort of

stable landmark like a sign that that

they would pass by. Like a spotlight is

shining just on that or like they have

blinders on the sides of their face.

That's all they're paying attention to.

And I thought, well, that's something we

can play with, right? Like they are

elite and they are accomplished. So then

we started thinking like, okay, what

about people who who aren't competitive

runners? Is this a tactic we can teach

people? The answer is yes. You can tell

people about what these Olympic athletes

are doing. Imagine that there's a

spotlight shining just on a target.

Choose choose something up ahead, the

stop sign two blocks up that you can you

can just see. And you know, imagine that

you you have blinders on so that you're

not really paying attention to the

people that are passing by or the

buildings or the garbage cans or the or

the trucks that are on the road. you

know, tune those out and focus in on

that target until you hit it and then

choose another one, right? Sort of

recalibrate, choose the next goal. You

know, one of the first studies that we

did was was teach that strategy and

juxtapose or compare it against a group

that we said just look around naturally.

You know, you might see that finish line

up ahead and there's things on the

periphery. Whatever your eyes want to

do, whatever you think is going to work

best, feel free to do that and tell us

what you're looking at. Then we gave

them a finish line. We created sort of,

you know, an exercise that's moderately

challenging. um but possible. We put

ankle weights on that that accounted for

about 15% of their body weight. Told

them to lift their knees up sort of high

stepping to a finish line. So this would

be challenging uh for them to do. Um but

we said, you know, it's an indicator of

overall health and fitness. Some of

these people had narrowed their focus of

attention and some were just looking

more expansively or naturally. And what

we found is that those people that we

trained, just everyday normal people

doing this this moderately challenging

exercise, they were able to move 27%

faster. They could do the exercise more

quickly, and they said it hurt 17% less.

Everybody was in the same sort of

circumstance, but yet their experience

was really different. So, we were really

excited about that, right? Because it

meant that this strategy, we could use

it on people who are not elite athletes.

It could be easily adopted. a quick

training session, right, can teach

people to look at the world in a

different way. Again, this narrowed

attention was different than whatever

they do naturally, the comparison group.

Um, but it had a big outcome. It had a

big difference on the way that they were

engaged in the exercise.

>> Are they focusing on a specific point or

is it kind of the entire horizon of that

goal? Because the finish line is indeed

a line. in our interviews with people,

our our sort of focus group studies, um

it seems like it's more like a a

circular point. And that's in fact what

we're teaching people, what we're

training them to do. So rather than

going broadly looking across a line from

left to right, we are encouraging them

to like imagine a circle of light that's

shining on some target. Now, of course,

a finish line is a line, but if they're

staying in their lane, if they're on a

track, right, you can imagine that there

is that there is a circle shining just

on where in their lane they'll cross

that finish line. Or if it's a stop

sign, you could imagine a circle of

light illuminating that. So, that's what

we're teaching people to use and that's

what seems to be effective to maintain

that focus rather than sort of being

pulled to engage with peripheral vision.

And there's some amazing people um some

runners in history like Joan Benois

Samuelson. She's one of the first uh

female marathon competitors who has has

won multiple marathons. She's Canadian.

I think she's won, feel free to correct

me, like 10 marathons in in her life. Uh

and she talks about sort of not assuming

this like this wide but

but narrow wide but not deep or tall uh

attentional focus. She talks about like

finding the shorts on somebody ahead of

me and focusing on on those shorts until

she passes them and then resetting that

goal.

>> The most pressing question I have in my

mind is can we I

uh all of us use this strategy to make

the starting line a goal point because

for a lot of people it's not about going

from start to finish. It's about getting

to start. And is there any physiology or

physiological changes I should say to

reflect the idea that maybe just

visually focusing on the start line

would actually get me more excited as

opposed to make me less excited to

engage in effort.

>> There's certainly vision science that's

tied up in that very first stage of of

goal setting, like identifying what that

goal is in the first place and taking

those first steps. A lot of people's

go-to strategies that involve vision are

are vision boards or dream boards or,

you know, post-it notes, right? They're

creating some sort of visual

representation of what it is that they

want to accomplish. You know, almost

like a scrapbook collect visual icons

that reflect where you want to be to

motivate yourself. It's a really common

tactic that's effective for identifying

what you want, but it may not actually

be effective for helping you to meet the

goal, to get the job done. So colleagues

of mine at New York University um have

probed why why is that? Why is just you

know thinking about what you want in

your life and um and sort of putting

yourself vicariously into those shoes

imagining what my life will be like if I

can accomplish everything on this list.

Why doesn't that work? Well, first of

all, does it work? The answer is no. And

why does it not work? uh because what

happens these colleagues Gabrielle Oten

Jen and and her and her research team

have found is that you know going

through and dreaming about or or or

visualizing how great my life will be

when I get X Y and Z done. Um that is

that is like a goal satisfied. I have

identified what it is that I want. I

have experienced it even if just in an

imaginary way. I've had that positive

experience of of thinking about what how

great my life is going to be when I get

this thing done. And they start to sort

of rest on their laurels. She's actually

measured systolic blood pressure and

heart rate. And they found that people

who do that, who go through that

experience of visualizing how great my

life will be when I get X, Y, and Z

done, their their systolic blood

pressure, the bottom number on your

blood pressure reading, decreases. Now,

I'm all about finding ways to relax, but

motivation scientists know that systolic

blood pressure is actually an indicator

of our body's readiness to get up and

act, to do something. Now, that can be

the going out for a walk, going out for

a run, hitting the gym. It can also be

things like doing math problems, right?

Even if it's it's something that's just

mental, systolic blood pressure actually

goes up in anticipation of your body or

your mind needing to do something,

taking the first steps on a goal. So

then it helps us to understand of like

okay if I've just created this dream

board, this vision board and put myself

psychologically in that space of a goal

satisfied. Why is it bad that blood

pressure goes down? Because it means

your body is chilling out. It's like all

right, cool. I just accomplished

something pretty major. I actually now

don't have the physiological resources

at the ready to take the first step

right now to do something about that.

So, so that was a pretty monumental um

uh finding for motivation scientists to

understand that like creating these

dream boards, these vision boards or

to-do list might actually backfire

because it in it in and of itself is the

creation of a goal and the satisfaction

of the goal and then people

understandably give themselves some time

to just enjoy that positive experience.

>> Everything you're saying again is

consistent what we know about the

physiology of dopamine circuits for

motivation. I have a a good friend who

perhaps in incidentally perhaps not is a

cardiologist uh at a major university

who said that uh one of the major errors

that people make uh with bookw writing

and completion is they will tell people

they're going to write a book and people

will say oh you definitely should write

a book everyone's going to love your

book and they never end up writing it

and his theory is that they get so much

>> dopamine reward from that immediate

feedback with all the protection of

never having the book criticized

>> that they never write the book. I'm sure

there are exceptions to this, but um I

guess it raises the question, what's the

better strategy?

>> Yeah. So, I'm not saying that people who

enjoy uh dream board creation should

stop what they're doing, but the process

of goal setting shouldn't stop with

articulating what the goal is. So, at

that same point that we're trying to

figure out what do we want to do? What

what is my vision for the future? In

those planning sessions, we need to

simultaneously uh think about a couple

other things. One is um how are we going

to get there? So take it out of the

abstract, take it out of this idyllic

visual iconography and start thinking

about the practical day-to-day. We need

to break it down into more manageable

goals. Not just my 10-year plan for

myself, but my twoe plan. What what can

I accomplish in the next two weeks and

the two weeks after that's going to set

me on the right trajectory? Plan big

picture. Think big picture abstractly,

but then also break it down more

concretely. That's probably not

surprising, but it's an important aspect

of the goal setting process. Then again,

Gabriel Oten in my department has

identified a third often overlooked or

underappreciated stage that has to

happen at that goal in the goal setting

process and that's thinking about the

obstacles that stand in your way of

success and that will actually help

improve motivation in the long run. And

sometimes people think that that like is

counterintuitive. You're saying like for

if I want to increase my motivation,

have more motivation, then I need to

think about how hard it's going to be,

all the ways that I'm going to fail

because it's like coming up with a plan

B, a plan C, plan D in advance of

actually experiencing that. If you were

on a boat and the boat started to sink,

that's not the time you want to start

looking for life jackets, you already

want to know where one is so you can go

to it right away. And it's the same

thing with goal setting is that you want

to know what am I working towards, how

I'm going to get there, and if I

experience this obstacle, here's what

I'm going to do about it. You may never

experience that obstacle, but if you do,

you're probably going to be shy on time,

thin on resources, maybe experiencing an

anxiety that hijacks your brain, so

you're not functioning at that optimal

level of judgment and decision-m. You

want to already have like the snap next

step in place so you can just hop to it,

right? We're not going to do our best

thinking when we're in crisis mode. Um,

but we don't have to if we have used if

we have already used our resources in

advance to come up with that plan B or

that plan C. Michael Phelps like

incredible athlete, right? This is

something that he and his coach have

routinely incorporated into their uh

into their training. Back in 2008, he

was hot for the first time on the

international stage. It was the Beijing

Olympics. Michael Phelps was on the

brink of doing something that no one

else in the history of the Olympic Games

has ever done, which is win eight gold

medals in a single Olympiad. At the time

of this story, he had already won seven

and he had just the 200 fly in front of

him before he could do what no one else

has ever done, win the eighth gold

medal. And the fly is his thing, right?

This should have been this should have

been easy, like a no-brainer. He's going

to win this. He's going to break Olympic

history. As soon as he dove into the

pool, his goggles started to leak. And

by the time he had done three lengths of

the pool, he just had to flip around and

and come back to the to the starting

line/finish line, back to the edge. Um,

by the time that happened, his goggles

were completely filled with water and he

was swimming blind. I would have

panicked. I would have sunk to the

bottom of the pool. I wouldn't have even

been in the pool to be honest. Like, I'm

not a swimmer. Definitely not going to

be in the Olympics. But, uh, but for

him, he didn't. It wasn't a moment of

panic like it probably would have been

for nearly every other person in that

situation because he had foreshadowed

that kind of possible failure. He had

imagined that obstacle hitting him in

advance and not even just imagined it

but practiced it. What will we do? He

routinely practiced swimming with his

goggles not fully secured on his face.

His coach notoriously would uh rip the

goggles off of his head, smash them on

the ground for maybe dramatic effect or

something so that he didn't even have

any goggles possible to grab as he's as

he's in practice. So because he had

foreshadowed that possibility and the

solution if my goggles start to leak

then I will do in his case start

counting my strokes then I'll make it

through. He knew exactly how many

strokes it would take for him to get

from one end of the pool to the other.

He started counting his strokes. He won

that he won that race the 200 fly. He

won his eighth gold medal and he'd go on

to win 15 more in his career. So we

might not all be swimmers. We might not

all aspire to Olympic level performance.

But I love that example because I think

it it helps sort of demystify or give us

an alternative perspective on the

importance um and the motivational

reasons why thinking about obstacles in

advance. Thinking about the ways the two

three four ways that your plan might go

ary is actually effective at helping us

to overcome the obstacle that might

otherwise lead us to throw in the towel.

So I do think that there's great power

in thinking about our visual experience

alongside other tactics that we might

use for meeting our goals. I have a

question and I to be honest I know the

answer in advance but I'd love for you

to tell us a bit about how unfit people

view the world versus how fit people

view the world or how unmotivated people

visually see the world as opposed to

highly motivated people. Maybe you could

describe that study. I think it's a

particularly important one mostly

because yes it identifies a perhaps a

physiological or psychological

differences between motivated and

unmotivated or or uh fit and unfit

people but it also provides a a path to

to remedy that.

>> Yeah. So out of my lab but also out of

several other labs there's been work

looking looking at that relation between

states of the body and visual

experiences. They haven't necessarily

tried to integrate the motivation

science element um to it, but they were

looking to see do visual experiences

change as a function of different states

of our body. So they've looked at people

who experience chronic fatigue. Um the

elderly, people who are overweight, um

those that are, you know, wearing

wearing heavy backpacks and so who are

sort of put into that experience of

being overweight. What happens to their

perceptions of the environment? Well,

what they find is that distances look

further to those that are overweight,

chronically tired, older rather than

younger, weighted down with with extra

baggage. Um, distances look further and

hills look steeper. We've done some of

those studies, too, where we try to like

give people more energy or or deprive

them of of energy and see does that

change their their perception of space.

They do this a lot in medical studies.

You give somebody a a drug and you give

somebody a placebo, a sugar pill, and

then uh importantly, nobody really knows

who's got what until you've analyzed all

the data and the results are revealed

that that these are the people that that

had the drug, the active agent. Same

idea in the psychological research. In

this case, what we did was give people

Kool-Aid to drink. And for some people,

that Kool-Aid was sweetened with sugar,

an actual caloric entity. It could give

them energy. other people drank Kool-Aid

sweetened with Splenda. So, yeah, it's

sweet, but it actually doesn't have any

caloric value. You're not giving people

energy. You're just giving them that

that experience um of of sweetness. Now,

some people, of course, are really good

at identifying like what's what's real

sugar and what's Splenda. But when you

put it into Kool-Aid, a pretty noxious

powder, it actually masked it for

everybody and nobody had any idea. We

asked them to guess what they got. We

tested them afterwards and they were

wrong. So nobody is able to guess u with

accuracy what was your drink sweetened

with which is important because they

were blind that the way that scientists

use it. They didn't know what it was

that they were drinking. We give them

about 10 to 15 minutes for that sugar to

metabolize and we measured uh their

circulating blood glucose levels to make

sure that we had in fact given their

body circ you know circulating glucose

energy that they might use in the next

um activity. And um and the researcher

again didn't know whether they had just

served sugar or Splenda. Then we asked

people to estimate distance. So we gave

some people more energy or we kept

others sort of at like whatever their

normal level was. And what we found is

that those people who didn't even know

it but who had been given more energy by

drinking Kool-Aid sweetened with sugar

perceived their space as as more

constricted. They that visual illusion

of proximity was induced. they felt that

their finish line again in the context

of an exercise task was closer to them.

So in just the same way that these other

physiology labs vision science

physiology labs found that people who

are chronically tired who don't have

don't feel like they have as much energy

or those that are physically weighted

down and for whom you know moving within

an environment is more costly. Um we

could create that experience for people.

We did an experimental version of that

that if you have more energy the world

looks easier. the distances to a finish

line don't look as far. So that was some

of the experimental evidence that we had

um to show that people states to their

body do impact their visual experience.

Now I'm a motivation researcher. So for

me the big question is well what's the

point of that study then besides just

showing this connection between the body

and the eyes and the visual experience.

We think that that's fundamental to one

of the reasons that people experience

difficulty when they're exercising when

it's really harder for your body because

of its physical state to move within a

space. You might say like, well, why

don't they just go exercise? Because the

world looks harder to them. Because that

distance that that they're supposed to

walk because a doctor tells them to or

that a partner encourages them to or a

hill that they should hike up because

someone told them that would be good for

their health, it looks more challenging

to them than it does to somebody who

isn't who who isn't who's in who is in

better physical health. Now, if it looks

that way, if it looks harder, if it

feels like it might be harder, then

psychologically we know that it is. When

you have set yourself up

psychologically, mentally for that kind

of failure experience, like I don't know

that I have the resources that to get

this job done. This this looks really

hard. You're already motivationally in a

place u for this task to be closer to

impossible for you. So to put it all

together then what we know is that

people whose bodies might make it more

challenging for them to exercise um are

seeing the world in a more challenging

way and that is having these downstream

motivational and psychological effects

that makes it less likely for them to

try to take on the task in the first

place or to experience it as harder than

than other people would or do.

>> Is the solution the same? However,

meaning if these people are taught to

adjust their visual goal line or to set

a visual spotlight on an intermediate

goal, can they overcome some of this uh

this challenge that they face simply by

virtue of their skewed perception?

>> Yes. So in all of the studies that we

have done um looking at that connection

between this narrowed focus of attention

and improvements in exercise we do not

find that it only works for the people

who are in shape or that it backfires

for people who are out of shape. It

works for everybody. This is a strategy

that everybody can adopt because it's

just simply about like what do you

allocate attentional resources to? What

do you sort of ignore and what do you

focus on? And that in that visually

induces the same kind of illusion for

everybody regardless of whether you're

overweight or you're or you're at your

target weight um or if you're struggling

to get there or you've already

accomplished where you want to be. That

visual illusion can be induced for

everybody and it has the same kinds of

consequences.

>> Are there any studies looking at how

adrenaline or epinephrine or any other

stimulants impact motivation? if you

actually are more physiologically

aroused or jazzed or whatever you know

amped up um or you just think you are uh

in our studies we have found that they

work in the same way that it can produce

the same kinds of consequences. So and I

like that because it tells us like you

can actually change the state of your

body to induce these kinds of

experiences or you can try to you can

just think that you can trick yourself

you can placebo effect yourself out and

produce the same kinds of effects. I had

to give up coffee like 12 years ago. Not

because not for any I love the taste and

so decaf is my jam. Um but I can't drink

the caffeine because it it didn't

actually do the thing that it does for

so many other people like make me feel

more energized and more awake. I just

got sweaty and jittery and anxious and I

couldn't focus. And I happen to marry

the same kind of person. He also can't

drink caffeine but loves the taste of

coffee. The interesting thing is that we

both have to have coffee in the morning

to feel like we're ready to go for the

day. So, it's just part of our routine

or whatever to have that taste and have

that sensation to feel like I'm ready to

take on the day. Even though I mean,

yeah, decaf still has some caffeine in

it, but we're not drinking that much of

it to probably actually create a

caffeinated experience in our body, but

we're tricking ourselves psychologically

into into doing that thing that in years

past used to work for us both.

>> I'd love to ask about other kinds of

goals, meaning non-physical goals. Is

there any example or tactic that people

could use to um better approach

cognitive goals of school, work, but

that don't exist in the fitness and

sports domain?

>> Totally. A couple years ago when when I

was writing the book, I I also had a

child the same the same month that I had

the opportunity to like pull all this

research together is the same month that

that my son came to be. And uh and I

started to realize like I became a lot

less interesting once he was around. He

was fascinating, but I was changing

diapers and feeding him and like that

was it. People would come over like

what's up? How have you been? Like tell

me something that's going on in your

life and like all I had to talk about

was this what was boring and I just felt

like I've lost myself. I used to pride

myself on the crazy adventures and

problems I would get myself in and I was

a great storyteller and that all of a

sudden disappeared as soon as he came

into the world because he became my

world. So then I started thinking like I

need to pull back some coolness in if I

ever had it in the first place, but I

need to be a cooler person that I'm

coming across right now. So I decided I

want to learn to play drums. I'm and I

want to be like a a one-h hit wonder as

a as a rockstar drummer. So that's a

goal that I set for myself at the same

time that my son came into this world

when I was also trying to think about

goal setting and how to improve my

ability and all of our ability to to get

a job done when you're faced with some

pretty big obstacles. So I got to

practice all these techniques that we're

talking about on myself and see for

myself when I tell people, hey, try this

thing like narrowed focus of attention.

Does it help with something like

becoming a better drummer? And the

answer is yeah. These tactics at least

work for me sometimes under some

circumstances and they do for other

people who try them for other goals that

aren't necessarily about exercise. One

that I found particularly helpful was

overcoming my bad memory that

everybody's memories are faulty, right?

Everybody has sort of a a warped

perception of the past. It might be

skewed more positively than maybe we

deserve or it might be skewed more

negatively if you feel that you know

what looms large in your mind as you

reflect on something from the past are

the mistakes that you've made or the

things that the social faux paws that

you had or you know challenges that you

faced at work when you got in trouble

with a boss or with a colleague. If

that's what really stands out in your

mind

or the good side of all of those

possibilities, we probably aren't

getting the world right. And and that is

something that our brain has evolved to

give us a faulty memory to level and

sharpen to not encode and remember and

be able to recall everything that we've

experienced with accuracy and precision.

And that's a problem when it comes to

assessing our own goal progress when we

want to be our own accountant and try to

determine how are we doing. If I want to

become a drummer, am I on track for

getting there before X before my time

runs out? Am I going to make it or not?

And I think that's an experience whether

they want to be a drummer or not that a

lot of people can resonate with of like

trying to determine is this trajectory,

is this rate of progress going to get

the job done by x amount of time? Will I

have my swimsuit body by summer or will

I save enough for retirement by the time

I hit 65? For these goals where time is

involved and there is a deadline, uh we

do take moments to assess our our

trajectory. And if we just rely on our

memory, we're probably going to do a bad

job of assessing that the that

trajectory of knowing whether we're on

pace to meeting our deadline. And I

found that to be the case as I was

thinking about, am I actually going to

be able to learn this song? I mean, I

know that it's going a lot slower than

it probably would for anybody else, but

to give myself a deadline and a

commitment, I decided I was going to put

on a show. I was going to invite

everybody I knew and also people I

didn't know, and I was going to play my

one song for them. So, in the process of

like figuring out, am I gonna be able to

play this show? I sent out invitations.

Like, the date is committed. Like,

people are coming to listen to my one

song. God bless them. Um, how is it

going to go? And and it felt awful. It

just felt like I am not making progress

here because there's a lot more things

that actually are pressing, right? Like

the kid does need to get fed. I do have

to go to my day job. The editor is

asking for the next draft of this book.

And that is going to take precedence

like it does for so many people that

that things command your your bandwidth

even when you have this goal that you've

committed to and that you've got, you

know, on the books. And so I just felt

this looming anxiety about this this

goal that would require, you know, like

didn't have to be daily practice, but

like you can't you can't cram that kind

of a a goal. It does take, you know,

committed investment for a sustained

period of time. And so I had this

looming anxiety that I'm not making good

enough progress. But that's because I

was relying on my memory and my brain to

to recall like how many times did you

practice? What was it like the last time

you practiced? What was it like when you

tried to play this bit, you know, or

this riff like 2 weeks ago? Have you

gotten any better since then? And it

just felt like no, I haven't practiced

enough. I don't remember when the last

time I played was, but it definitely

doesn't feel like I'm getting any

better. Then I thought, you know what? I

should stop relying on my brain to tell

me where am I at and is is am I on an

upward slope here? I need to look at the

data. I love data. Scientists love data.

So, I started to collect data on myself.

What I did was download this app that a

friend had told me about called the

reporter app. There's lots of these

kinds of things out there. Basically, it

just like sets up your phone to randomly

ping you with whatever questions you

want your phone to ask. It records your

answers. You can download the data. you

can make pretty graphs to see am I

getting how what's my change and how

I've answered these questions over time.

So I did that for a month. I had my

phone ask me, you know, a couple times a

day, did you practice since last time I

asked you? My phone says, did you

practice? If mostly it was no, and if

yes, then it would funnel a couple other

questions like, how did you do? How do

you feel? Check a couple different

emotion words now about your experience

uh when you played. And I did that for a

month. after a month went into my

office, downloaded the data and first

took stock before I looked at the

numbers like how do I think I did over

the last month and I thought same as

every other month I like I didn't really

get anywhere. Yeah, I practiced but I

still feel awful. But what I found from

the data was my memory was totally

wrong. I actually had practiced far more

times than I remembered. And when I

looked at like my emotion words that I

used, it was a clear upward trajectory.

Yeah, I did cry. that part I hadn't

misremembered or made up. But by the end

of that month, like I had gotten a

compliment from my husband who actually

is a drummer and said like, "Hey, that

that wasn't that bad." All of which is

to say I needed to see to collect that

data on myself and to look at it

objectively accurately and completely

because my brain wasn't doing that for

me. that visual experience of of

downloading that data and and looking at

like what was my actual experience um

gave me a better insight as I was trying

to assess the trajectory of my of my

progress. I became a more accurate

accountant of my own progress which is

important for you know setting goals or

resetting them when you need to

calibrate in light of of what's left to

do and how much time do you have to do

it in.

>> Fantastic. Well, you've given us a ton

of mechanistic and uh conceptual and

practical information. So, I'm I'm

speaking for a lot of people when I say

thank you for taking the time out of

your schedule amidst kids and running a

lab and teaching at the university. And

we hope to have you back again.

>> Thank you so much. It was a great

conversation.

>> Thank you.

>> Thanks.