Play Within Your Goal: Part II
“Play is the royal road to childhood happiness
and adult brilliance.”
~ Joseph Chilton Pearce
We all have a quit point.
In writing this blog, admittedly, I’ve hit that point a few times.
When doing things that are BIG, SCARY, and HAIRY, you’re bound to run into that point.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature designed us this way.
But, what if you could keep going just a little bit longer—do more than you think you can—before getting to that point?
And, what if it could actually be fun?
It turns out you can.
It may just require you to embrace what came so naturally to you as a child.
Avoiding “the quit” may require you to play!
(Sorry for this awful news!)
Push Off the Quit: Use Play to Lean Into the Hard
Pursuing things on a consistent basis to achieve your GOALrequires an immense amount of focus and dedication.
When you engage in this process, your nervous system is both working for you and against you.
When you enter a clear, calm, and focused state—that dedicated work toward your GOAL—two hormones or neurotransmitters are released:
Adrenaline
Acetylcholine
Adrenaline is designed to get you into movement—it heightens your alertness. Without focus, though, adrenaline will simply make you agitated.
That’s where acetylcholine comes in.
Acetylcholine helps you to focus the energy and, more importantly, prime your brain to move into a learning state.
And this is key to making progress on your GOAL because the combination of these two neurotransmitters helps you to turn actions from calculated entities into more reflexive action. In other words, what was once hard becomes a natural movement or action.
Here, your nervous system is working for you.
But, Mother Nature designed this process to eventually work against you.
Because of pesky little things called glia cells—think of them as a governor—you can only handle so much adrenaline. When the governor is hit, well, unfortunately…
But, just like a golf cart that has been tinkered with to go faster, you can tinker with your nervous system and override the governor.
Through play.
Yes, play can help you keep going.
Play acts as neural energy.
You see, when you play, dopamine is released. And this is important because it actually pushes back against increasing levels of adrenaline resulting from the work you are putting in. Play—well, dopamine—prevents the governor in your brain from being triggered.
As a result, there is a loosening or lightening of the activity or task that you are involved in and, in turn, you have the energy to keep going.
Humor triggers the release of dopamine, too.
So does a really good song.
Or, deeply knowing your purpose and knowing that you are on the right path toward your GOAL.
When it comes to your nervous system, play—or humor, a good song, a strong purpose, etc.—is the secret sauce to help you keep you going and is key to building a better you, a longer lasting you, and to telling that story you’ve always wanted to tell.
The next time things get hard and you want to give up, find a way to lighten things up a bit—you’ll likely tap into that extra bit of neural energy and push off “the quit”.
Play on to achieve your GOAL!
