Book Summary
Are you tired of procrastination? Do you feel like you always know what you need to do but can never find the motivation to start? In this video, we introduce the revolutionary book “Designing the Brain for Success: How to Program Your Subconscious Mind to Achieve Your Goals”—the ultimate solution to all your motivational problems!
This book shows you why your brain seeks cheap, instant rewards and how this natural mechanism can trap you in a cycle of procrastination and distraction. We believe the problem isn’t your willpower; it’s how your brain is programmed.
By reading this book, you will learn to:
- Discover the root cause of your procrastination and lack of motivation.
- How to eliminate destructive dopamine sources (like social media) and declutter your mind.
- Use the “10-Minute Rule” to break initial resistance and start any task.
- Turn bad habits into positive signals for progress.
- Find your personal dopamine sources in work and life, and use them for sustainable motivation.
- Condition your brain with “small rewards” to enjoy the effort and achieve big successes.
- Design a precise, step-by-step roadmap to reach all your goals.
- How to turn rest into a strategic tool for boosting productivity, not just a reward.
- Transform failures into learning opportunities and a source of greater motivation.
“Designing the Brain for Success” is a comprehensive and practical guide that will turn you into the architect of your life. It’s not just theory; it’s a step-by-step instruction manual for rebuilding your brain’s motivational system.
Get this book now and begin your journey toward permanent motivation, incredible focus, and countless successes. No more wasted time!
#procrastination #motivation #success #successbook #personalgrowth #dopamine #brainprogramming #goodhabits #psychologyofsuccess #mindcontrol #dopaminereward #purposefullife #timemanagement
Author: Vahid Zakavati
Copyright: NLP Radio
Have you ever had the feeling that you know what you should be doing, but you lack the motivation to start? Have you repeatedly begun a project with enthusiasm, only to abandon it halfway through? Do you feel stuck in a repetitive cycle of procrastination and distraction, where instead of making progress toward your goals, you spend your time and energy on unproductive tasks?
These shortcomings are not a sign of a weak will or laziness; rather, they are rooted in an internal mechanism that involves you in an unwanted battle every single day.
This book is written for you, who are tired of this situation and want to create a lasting change. The promise of this book is simple and clear: if you read it carefully to the end and apply its principles, you will find the solution to all these problems. You will learn how to activate the brain’s automatic, “autopilot” section instead of fighting against your mind, programming it for lasting success and motivation so that from now on, your tasks are performed automatically.
In this book, I will teach you one of the most enjoyable methods that will help you reach this goal.
Please stay with me until the end of the book, do the exercises, and see the changes in your own life.
Chapter 1: Welcome! You are an addict, but to what?
We must begin with a simple and fundamental truth: every human being is an addict. This dependency does not stem from a moral failing or lack of willpower, but is a biological and vital mechanism rooted in the deep parts of the brain. The human mind is instinctively and for the sake of survival, in search of reward and pleasure. This search is guided by a chemical called dopamine, which plays a primary role in the motivational system and drives us towards actions that seem desirable.
This constant craving for dopamine is evident in people’s daily behaviors. Every time an individual checks their phone for new notifications or scrolls through social media, small and rapid doses of this chemical are released in their brain. These instant rewards, obtained with minimal effort, create a brief feeling of satisfaction and pleasure that encourages the mind to repeat these behaviors, even if they have no real value.
The main problem originates from this point: when faced with important and constructive tasks, such as studying, exercising, or working on a project, the brain calculates a cost in energy and focus that it deems heavy. On the other hand, the reward for doing these tasks, which is the feeling of success and progress, is not gained instantly and is often deferred to an uncertain future. This equation leads the brain to choose the low-cost, high-instant-reward path, and reinforces the cycle of addiction to unproductive tasks.
In fact, these cheap rewards are so accessible and tempting that they can completely disrupt an individual’s motivational system. This phenomenon is known as procrastination, but in essence, it is the result of the brain’s unconscious choice to prefer a small, quick reward over a large, delayed one. This mechanism traps the individual in an endless loop of starting and abandoning tasks, preventing them from achieving greater goals.
This book is written with the purpose of teaching how to control this system. By gaining a precise understanding of dopamine’s function and how the brain becomes conditioned, one can, instead of becoming addicted to worthless pleasures, create a “constructive addiction” to effort, progress, and success. This type of addiction not only does not harm an individual but guides them toward a more powerful version of themselves and allows them to gain lasting pleasure from every step they take toward their goals.
Chapter 2: Why Does Your Brain Seek Cheap, Instant Rewards? (Revealing the Secret of Procrastination)
The human brain is an extremely precise accountant and, at the same time, a very cautious executive manager. Its primary duty is to manage the body’s energy and find the most efficient path for any action. Every decision we make throughout the day is, from the brain’s perspective, a cost-versus-reward calculation. The brain constantly tries to select activities that yield the highest probability of receiving a reward with the least amount of energy, even if that reward is insignificant.
This mechanism is one of the main reasons individuals struggle with performing important and meaningful tasks. From the brain’s viewpoint, beginning a major project, studying a difficult book, or learning a new skill is considered a high-cost activity. These tasks require a great deal of mental energy for focus and deep thought, and most importantly, their ultimate reward, which is the feeling of success and progress, is not gained instantly and is often deferred to a distant future.
In contrast, options like scrolling through social media, watching short videos, or eating a sweet treat have a negligible cost to the brain. These activities, with almost no effort, release a steady stream of dopamine instantly. The brain recognizes these quick rewards as a definite win and prefers them over large, delayed rewards, because in uncertain conditions, it seeks guaranteed returns.
This process is exactly what is known as procrastination. Procrastination is not a sign of laziness or a weak character; rather, it is the brain’s logical and instinctive response to a high-cost task whose reward is either uncertain or delayed. The brain, to conserve energy, guides the individual toward a low-cost, instant-reward task, and in this way, the person becomes trapped in an endless cycle of postponement and delay.
Understanding this mechanism is the first step toward freedom from it. By accurately recognizing what costs your brain avoids and what rewards it is attracted to, you can change the game. Instead of fighting the brain’s natural tendencies, it should be taught in a new way: so that instead of escaping work, it finds pleasure in performing it and obtains its reward not from the outcome, but from the process of the effort itself.
Chapter 3: Uncovering Your Brain’s Reward Map: What Energizes and What Drains You?
Gaining a precise understanding of the brain’s functions and its unconscious tendencies is the first step toward taking control. Just as an engineer examines blueprints before repairing a complex system, you must map your brain’s reward system. This map includes all the activities your brain reacts to, whether by creating a feeling of pleasure or by generating a sense of resistance and avoidance. This process will help you gain a deep understanding of your internal mechanisms.
To create this map, you must first carefully list the activities you consistently avoid doing. These are the tasks that create a feeling of heaviness, resistance, and mental fatigue. These activities might include writing a report, starting a new work project, or answering piled-up emails. This list forms the high-cost side of your reward map, where your brain recognizes it as a threat to its energy and avoids it.
In the next step, you must create a list of all the activities your brain is unconsciously drawn to. These are the things you do without any thought, which give you an instant reward. These activities might include endless scrolling on social media, watching television series, or constantly checking messages. This list represents the easy escape routes with low-value rewards that your brain chooses to conserve energy.
By comparing these two lists, you will discover your behavioral pattern. You will clearly see what your brain is running away from and what it is attracted to. For example, you might realize that every time you have to write a report, you immediately start scrolling through Instagram. This direct connection reveals your personal destructive dopamine loops and shows you what has been disrupting your motivational system.
This simple yet profound process is the fundamental basis for all the changes we will discuss in this book. Only when you fully know your reward map can you consciously create new paths for it. This stage marks the end of the problem diagnosis section and prepares you to begin the second part of the book, which focuses on rebuilding the brain’s system. This map is your key to unlocking sustainable motivation and productivity.
Chapter 4: Clearing the Ground: How to Eliminate Sources of Cheap Dopamine?
After you have mapped your brain’s reward system and identified the primary sources of escape and cheap rewards, the time for action has arrived. Just as a farmer clears weeds from the ground before planting new seeds, you must first eliminate the easy dopamine paths from your environment. This step is not a punishment but an investment to prepare your brain to receive valuable and lasting rewards. Without removing these obstacles, the effort to create new habits will be fruitless.
One of the most effective methods for clearing the ground is to create physical and digital distance from sources of cheap dopamine. Applications such as social media and video streaming platforms are designed to give you the highest dose of dopamine with the least amount of effort. Temporarily deleting these applications from your phone or using tools to block access during specific times can completely eliminate easy access to these instant rewards.
With this method, you create the necessary friction to prevent destructive habits. Your brain naturally seeks comfort, and when it is forced to make even a minimal effort, such as opening a browser and typing a website address, to get an instant reward, it often gives up. This friction automatically reduces the brain’s tendency toward low-value behaviors and provides the necessary mental space to focus on high-value tasks.
In the early days of this process, you may experience a feeling of emptiness or restlessness. These feelings are completely natural and indicate that your brain is adjusting to the new conditions and searching for alternative sources of dopamine. This period is a key stage for rebuilding, as it forces your brain to creatively seek new ways to gain rewards instead of running from challenges, which is the beginning of lasting changes in your life.
This cleansing phase is a preventative action that forms the foundation of all subsequent teachings in this book. By eliminating these constant distractions, you are preparing your mind for reprogramming and building constructive habits. This is a non-negotiable process that allows you to be free from the control of destructive habits and to create an empty space for building a new motivational system.
Chapter 5: The “10-Minute Rule”: A Powerful Tool for Starting Over
One of the greatest obstacles on the path to achieving goals is not the work itself but the fear of starting it. The mental resistance to beginning an important task is often so powerful that it can completely prevent an individual from taking action. This is the exact point where the brain, by estimating the high cost of the required effort, quickly escapes toward easier, instant-reward options, and thus, the cycle of procrastination continues. To overcome this initial resistance, one must find a way to reduce the friction of starting a task.
The solution to this problem is a simple yet highly effective strategy called the “10-Minute Rule.” This rule commands you to focus on the task for just ten minutes, without any thoughts about the final outcome or the entire work. The main goal is not to finish the task, but merely to start it. This is a small and manageable commitment that your brain readily accepts and does not resist.
The power of this rule lies in its psychological mechanism. From the brain’s perspective, committing to a ten-minute task is considered a very low-cost, low-risk activity. This small commitment temporarily deactivates the brain’s alarm system that runs away from difficult and high-cost tasks. Instead of seeing a large mountain of work, your brain sees only a small hill that is very easy and accessible to climb, and this is what makes starting the work possible.
Experience has shown that in many cases, after the first ten minutes are over, the brain automatically feels a desire to continue the work. The initial resistance disappears, and the individual gets into a flow state. This is because the brain, having passed the costly initial stage, now recognizes continuing the work as a less costly activity. This feeling creates an internal reward that encourages the individual to continue on the path rather than stop and move toward completing the task.
Therefore, the 10-Minute Rule is a powerful tool that intelligently uses the brain’s tendency for comfort to guide it toward performing difficult tasks. This rule teaches you that starting the work is half the battle and that by reducing the initial resistance, you can automatically gain the necessary motivation to complete it. This is a vital strategy for turning a daunting task into an actionable one and helps you regain control of your life.
Chapter 6: Breaking the Chain: Turning a Bad Habit into a Positive Signal
Destructive habits do not form randomly; they are part of a specific behavioral loop consisting of three main elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue is the trigger that directs the brain toward an action, the routine is the behavior the individual performs, and the reward is the dopamine-fueled feeling of satisfaction the brain receives from it. To break this pattern, simply trying to eliminate the behavior is futile, because the cue remains active, and the brain will continue to seek the reward.
The primary solution to overcoming this cycle is to replace the destructive routine with a constructive behavior. In this strategy, instead of fighting their urge, an individual identifies the cue of a bad habit and uses it as a trigger to perform a useful task. The main goal is to break the connection between the cue and the negative reward and to create a new one between that same cue and a positive reward. This process is a form of intelligent brain retraining.
For example, many people, when they feel mental fatigue or work-related stress, unconsciously pick up their phones and go on social media. In this case, the cue is the feeling of fatigue, the routine is scrolling through social media, and the reward is the dopamine gained from this action. To break this chain, the individual must change the routine as soon as they feel the cue of mental fatigue.
Instead of performing the destructive behavior, a positive and small routine should be chosen, for example, starting work using the 10-Minute Rule mentioned previously. In this situation, the cue (the feeling of fatigue) still exists, but the new routine is a constructive one. The new reward is the dopamine gained from performing a useful task, which brings not just an instant feeling of satisfaction but a lasting sense of success and progress. By repeating this process, the brain learns to use the fatigue cue as a trigger for performing useful tasks.
This approach gives an individual the power to use their natural tendencies to their advantage, instead of fighting against them. Every time a person converts a destructive habit into a constructive action, they are essentially reprogramming their brain. This strategy marks the end of the mindset rebuilding section of this book and shows you how to intelligently gain control of your behavior without needing infinite willpower and to use internal rewards to achieve success.
Chapter 7: Finding the Treasure: Finding Your Personal Dopamine Source in Work and Life
After clearing the ground of weeds and removing the main obstacles from your path, it is now time to plant new seeds. An environment free of distractions alone does not lead to success; instead, it must be filled with purposeful and meaningful activities that provide you with sustainable motivation. This stage is the beginning of the brain’s reprogramming process, which requires finding your personal dopamine sources deep within yourself. These sources are the treasures that must be discovered.
To find these sources, you must look beyond the tasks assigned to you or the things you feel you should do. Instead, you must consciously search for activities where you experience a state of flow. These are the moments when you forget the passage of time, become completely absorbed in your work, and feel a deep sense of satisfaction and pleasure. This search is a personal and unique process for every individual.
These dopamine treasures can be found in different areas of life. For one person, this source might be writing a story or playing an instrument; for another, it might be solving a complex mathematical problem or coding. Sometimes, this reward is found in helping others or organizing a social event. The important point is to precisely identify the part of these activities that is intrinsically rewarding to you and attracts you to them, providing you with a good feeling.
When dopamine is released from a meaningful and valuable source in your life, the brain creates a very strong and sustainable motivational loop. This reward, unlike cheap rewards, brings with it a deep and lasting sense of satisfaction that naturally guides an individual toward repeating that behavior. This positive cycle ultimately leads you toward becoming a more successful and committed version of yourself and helps you to stay on the path of progress continuously.
Therefore, this chapter is an invitation to look within yourself and identify what truly gives you energy and meaning. This is not about forcing yourself to like something, but about discovering and nurturing the interests that already exist within you. By finding these valuable treasures, you define a new and meaningful target for your motivational system and prepare yourself for reprogramming your brain for great success.
Chapter 8: Small Rewards, Big Successes: The Art of Brain Conditioning
Even after discovering the true sources of dopamine in life, large goals can still seem intimidating. The mind naturally seeks guaranteed and quick rewards, and when it faces a task whose reward is gained months or years later, it might lose motivation. To overcome this obstacle, the gap between the current effort and the future reward must be filled with small and meaningful rewards. This process is the main key to reprogramming the brain for sustainable successes.
This solution is built on a simple yet powerful principle: breaking down large goals into a series of very small steps and rewarding oneself after completing each one. The purpose of this is to create a direct and strong connection between performing a constructive task and receiving a feeling of instant satisfaction. These rewards can be material or non-material, ranging from a short break, listening to a favorite song, or having a cup of tea, to checking an item off a to-do list.
The most important point in this strategy is the immediacy of the reward. The reward must be given to the individual immediately after the small step is completed so that the brain can establish a direct connection between the work done and the good feeling received. By repeating this cycle, the brain automatically becomes conditioned and learns that performing these tasks is not only not tiring but is a direct source of dopamine and pleasure. In this way, the initial resistance to work gradually decreases.
This process is, in the true sense of the word, rewriting your brain’s reward map. Every time you turn a high-cost task into a small and rewarding action, you are teaching your brain that effort and progress bring powerful internal rewards. With every small checkmark you make on your to-do list, a sense of success is created within you, which naturally increases your motivation to continue on the path, and this is a self-reinforcing cycle.
Applying the art of brain conditioning with small rewards allows you to enjoy every moment of the journey and be motivated by the process of progress itself, instead of focusing on the final destination. This strategy activates an internal and endless motivational engine within you that drives you forward even in the most difficult conditions and ensures that your addiction to progress will never fade away.
Chapter 9: Roadmap to Progress: Designing Step-by-Step Goals
Having a big goal without a precise roadmap is like having a vague wish that will likely never come true. In the previous chapters, you learned how to discover your constructive dopamine sources and use small rewards to condition your brain. Now, it is time to turn this knowledge into a powerful tool: designing a roadmap to your goals where every step becomes a source of motivation. This map is a bridge between your current situation and your ultimate success.
The process of designing this roadmap begins with a method called “reverse engineering.” First, you must clearly define your ultimate and large goal and then, you must return from the end of the path to the beginning. By specifying the final destination, break it down into larger stages and then break each large stage into small and manageable steps. For example, if your ultimate goal is “writing a book,” a large step could be “writing a draft,” and a smaller step could be “writing one page per day.”
Every small step on this roadmap must be designed as an actionable task that comes with an instant reward. Every time you complete a small step, your brain must receive a dose of dopamine as a reward. This reward can be as simple as checking an item off a daily list or a short break. This process creates a positive feedback loop that teaches the brain that effort and progress are enjoyable and beneficial, and it encourages it to continue on the path.
This approach eliminates the main problem of resistance to large goals. When a big goal is divided into hundreds of small and rewarding steps, it no longer resembles an unattainable mountain but instead becomes a series of small hills where climbing each one is not only easy but also enjoyable. This process creates a continuous feeling of progress and success in an individual that keeps their motivational engine constantly active.
Ultimately, a roadmap to progress is more than a simple plan. It is an intelligent system that automatically reinforces itself by using the brain’s internal mechanisms. This map helps you to create motivation at every moment of your journey instead of waiting for it to arrive. By using this tool, your addiction to progress is solidified and becomes a lasting characteristic of your personality, preparing you for the next chapters, which focus on maintaining and upgrading this system.
Chapter 10: Rest, a Dopamine Tool, Not a Reward
In the modern world, many individuals view rest as a reward they earn after completing difficult work. This perspective is a fundamental mistake that often leads to burnout and a loss of motivation. Rest is by no means a reward, but rather a vital and undeniable component of the process of productivity and progress. A tired mind cannot work effectively, and trying to force it to continue will only lead to a decrease in quality and an increase in mental costs.
From a scientific perspective, rest is the time when the brain gets the opportunity to consolidate information and strengthen new neural connections. When an individual is learning a new skill or working on a complex project, their brain processes a vast amount of data. Rest allows the brain to transfer this data to long-term memory and solidify the neural pathways related to new habits. Without this recovery time, this vital process will be carried out incompletely.
A smart strategy for using rest is to divide work into focused periods and short rest intervals. These rest intervals act as small rewards that continuously supply the brain with dopamine and prevent it from reaching a state of complete exhaustion. This method, instead of pushing an individual toward cheap rewards, allows them to intelligently and with minimal effort maintain their dopamine level in an optimal state.
Ignoring the importance of rest is a major danger to the motivational system that has been built with great effort. When the brain is drained of energy, it strongly resists performing high-cost tasks, and the tendency toward simpler solutions for gaining dopamine, such as aimless browsing on the internet, increases dramatically. In this condition, the risk of reverting to the destructive habits that were previously eliminated is very high.
Therefore, change your perspective and view rest as a strategic tool for increasing productivity. By scheduling regular rest periods, you are in fact investing in your mental capacity and motivational stability. This action allows you to maintain the positive cycle of motivation, effort, and success in a sustainable manner and ensures that your constructive addiction to progress will never lead to burnout.
Chapter 11: Rewriting the Story of Failure: Why Is Failure Only a Temporary Reward?
On the path of building constructive habits, one of the biggest obstacles an individual faces is the fear of failure. The brain instinctively avoids failure because it interprets it as a negative signal and a warning about losing energy and resources. This fear can easily lead to feelings of despair and disappointment, compelling the individual to abandon the path of progress. In such moments, to compensate for this unpleasant feeling, the brain intensely seeks out cheap, instant rewards to quickly relieve the psychological pressure created.
However, there is a fundamental truth: failure is by no means the endpoint, but rather a vital part of the learning and growth process. From the motivational system’s perspective, every failure is merely “feedback” that provides you with valuable information about the path that needs to be corrected. In reality, every failure gives your brain a golden opportunity to receive new data and strengthen the neural patterns related to learning. This perspective, instead of focusing on the negative outcome, focuses on the positive information derived from it.
When an effort does not lead to success, the brain naturally experiences a feeling of frustration, and this feeling is a strong trigger for seeking dopamine from cheap sources. This is the trap many individuals fall into after a setback, causing them to revert to their old destructive habits. But understanding this process allows you to make a conscious choice and take a different path instead of falling into this trap.
The solution to this problem is “rewriting the story of failure” in your mind. Instead of viewing failure as a personal defeat and a reason to give up, treat it as an opportunity to reward your brain for learning. Immediately after a failure, create an internal reward for yourself by analyzing what went wrong and correcting it in your plan. This reward is a deep feeling of satisfaction from being intelligent and capable of problem-solving, which shows the brain that failure is not only not bad but can be turned into a source of motivation.
With this approach, you eliminate the destructive cycle of “disappointment-cheap reward” and create a new, powerful one. Every time you face a challenge or setback, instead of running from it, you use it as a launching pad for your next leap. This mechanism strengthens your addiction to progress against any shocks and obstacles and ensures that your motivational engine will never stop working, even in the most difficult conditions.
Chapter 12: You are an Architect: Building a Life You are Motivated For
Throughout this book, your journey has transformed you from an individual unaware of your brain’s motivational system to an expert and controller of this system. You learned why the brain is drawn to cheap rewards, how to eliminate destructive dopamine sources, and how to use small rewards to create a positive and infinite cycle of motivation. Finally, by rewriting the story of failure and turning it into a source of learning, you have insured your motivational system against potential damages. Now, you have all the necessary tools to build a life full of motivation and success.
Your role is no longer a consumer or a victim of your habits, but an architect. You now have the blueprints and maps needed to design a life where your brain is a powerful ally instead of an enemy. An architect consciously designs their environment, eliminates distractions, and creates easy, rewarding paths for constructive tasks. This is a creative and personal process whose result is not only success in goals but a life full of meaning and joy.
This process is not a one-time project but a continuous, lifelong practice. Life will always present you with new challenges, and the temptation to revert to old habits will always exist. But now, you have a deeper awareness of yourself and your brain. When faced with any new obstacle, instead of giving up, you will ask yourself: “How can I solve this problem using dopamine principles?” This question is the key to overcoming any obstacle.
With the continuous practice of these principles, your relationship with hard work and effort will completely change. Where you previously viewed a task as a chore or a heavy burden, you now see it as an opportunity to receive a reward and experience the pleasure of progress. Your addiction to progress becomes a lasting and fundamental characteristic of your personality. This transformation will be evident not only in the results of your work but also in the quality of your daily life.
This book was a guide, but the action and building are your responsibility. You are now armed with the knowledge and awareness of how to design your life in a way that you are motivated for it at every moment. The roadmap is in your hands, and the path is clear. All you have to do is start building. This is the end of the book and the beginning of your real journey toward a life with lasting motivation.
6sfw6m