Why Your Brain Is Addicted To Instant Gratification And What It Is Costing Your Next Level [ep. #275]
You published that post. You felt that instant gratification rush. And then three minutes later you were already refreshing the app to see how many views you got. That rush is not just a habit anymore. It is actively rewriting your subconscious beliefs about what is possible for you in your business, and it is happening way beneath your conscious awareness.
Every time you check and find nothing, your brain files it as evidence. Evidence that it is not working, that results do not come easily to you, that maybe you are just someone who has to work harder than everyone else. And the worst part? That self sabotage behaviour is being supercharged by your brain's own dopamine loop, repeating itself multiple times a day without you even realising it.
In today's episode I am getting into exactly what is happening in your brain when you expect instant results, why the self punishment that follows is one of the most damaging things you can do for your next level, and three things you can start doing right now to change your habits around this pattern and start building the right evidence in your subconscious programming instead.
Topics covered on Instant Gratification:
Why that instant gratification rush you get the moment you hit post is setting you up for a self sabotage cycle you do not even know you are in
What your brain's dopamine loop is doing every time you refresh the app three minutes after posting
Why your subconscious beliefs about success are being written in real time without your conscious mind having any say
The role of emotional intensity and repetition in subconscious programming and why it works against you just as powerfully as it works for you
Three things you can do right now to change your habits around result checking and start filing the right evidence instead
What identity work has to do with your brain's prediction system and where the real shift happens
How changing your identity at the subconscious level is what finally makes the instant gratification cycle lose its grip
Connect with Rebecca Haydon:
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Obviously, I Can Hold The Next Level: https://www.rebeccahaydon.com/obviously-i-can-hold-the-next-level
Quote:
"You are creating an emotionally charged experience and repeating it multiple times a day, and your subconscious is filing that as the truth about what is possible for you." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] Hello, my love, and welcome back to The Subconscious Expert. Today we are covering instant gratification and what happens when results do not come as quickly as you want them to, and more importantly, what you are making that mean.
You might have already done it today. Gone in to check the likes, the story views, the Stripe notifications, or, if you are anything like me, the email open rate. That is not actually my job within this business. I leave that to Jack. But with all of those things, how did you feel each time you checked and nothing had happened yet?
Because that check-in followed by nothing, when you have literally only put it out three minutes ago, is creating a cycle. And there is a lot of self-punishment in that cycle, which is exactly why I wanted to talk about it today.
How the Dopamine Loop Keeps You Stuck in a Cycle of Self-Punishment
[00:00:57] This check-in, followed by nothing, followed by self-punishment, followed by starting again, is a habit. Falling into that habit and what you are making it mean, "nothing's happened yet" or "nothing's happening," is actively writing your subconscious story about what is possible for you. And it is probably happening every single time you do it.
In this episode, I really want to show you exactly what is happening in your brain when you expect instant results, and what happens when you beat yourself up because they have not arrived in the 0.3 seconds you want them to. Because it is one of the most damaging things you can do when it comes to reaching your next level. We have also got a couple of things to do to let go of this pattern.
[00:01:48] I wanted to start with a little bit of neuroscience, because there is a lot of dopamine in this pattern. When we look at instant results and what we make them mean about ourselves, our success, and our business, the science really matters here.
I have said it quite a few times on this podcast, but your brain is a prediction machine. Everything it does, at every level, is designed to predict what comes next and keep you safe based on those predictions. You already know on some level that this is happening. You have probably just never had the words for it before. I am going to give you those words today.
[00:03:00] One of the most powerful prediction systems your brain has is the dopamine loop. And it is stronger than it has ever been in this day and age, given the sheer volume of instant things we now get to have. Amazon being the obvious example. I genuinely get annoyed now if I am ordering from somewhere other than Amazon and it will not come within the next four hours or the day after. Waiting three days feels unreasonable. That is the world we are living in, and that context matters.
Because the dopamine loop is one of our most powerful prediction systems, when you begin to understand how it works, you will start to notice patterns in yourself that you probably could not see before.
[00:03:49] When you take action, whether that is posting a piece of content, sending an email, putting an offer out on your stories with a poll, or recording a reel, your brain releases a small hit of dopamine in anticipation of a reward.
I think because everyone in my audience loves what they do, loves teaching it, loves sharing information and helping people, that dopamine hit that comes from putting something out into the world is probably even bigger than you imagine. It is coming from genuine passion, drive, and a real desire for people to listen, learn, and have the breakthroughs you want for them.
[00:04:50] It is worth knowing that the anticipation, that feeling you get just after you have hit a post, is actually where most of the pleasure comes from. Not the reward itself. The expectation of the reward.
That means your brain is already invested before anything has even happened. Before any comments, any messages, any replies, any likes. All of it.
So if we use posting as the example, because it is the easiest one for everyone to relate to, you post, you feel the anticipation, you get excited, the dopamine has hit. And then you check. And when nothing has happened yet, your brain registers the gap between what it anticipated and what it got.
And that gap, to your brain, is a threat signal. It is small, but it is a threat signal, because it begins to file that experience below your conscious thought.
Why Your Brain Builds Subconscious Beliefs From Negative Experiences Faster Than Positive Ones
[00:06:00] Your brain has a negative bias. It is wired, at a very deep level, to weigh negative experiences far more heavily than positive ones. And I mean that literally, like weighing scales. This is ancient. It was designed to keep you alive in a world where missing a threat, the lion, would cost you everything. Your brain still runs that same programme.
[00:06:49] If only we could push a world update on that. But what it means is that every time you check and either feel like nothing has happened or nothing actually has, your brain registers it as disproportionately heavy evidence. Evidence that this is not working. Evidence that results do not come easily to you. Evidence that you are someone for whom it is just going to be difficult.
And it does all of that before your conscious mind has had a single chance to form a thought about it. Before you have had time to decide what it means. Your subconscious has already decided, and it has decided somewhere far deeper than you can consciously reach.
[00:07:46] This is why we need to look at what we are making that mean, especially around instant gratification and the expectation of instant results. Because we know that business is a long game.
How Subconscious Beliefs Get Built From Repeated Emotional Experience
[00:08:13] Going a little deeper here, and this is exactly why I work so closely with neuroscience, because bridging these two together makes complete sense. Your subconscious mind is constantly collecting evidence. Evidence about who you are. Evidence about what is possible for you. Evidence about what you are allowed to hold, or what you believe you can hold. And it has been doing that your entire life.
Long before your business existed. Long before you had an Instagram account. Long before you ever posted a piece of content or knew what a call to action was.
[00:09:00] It is really important to understand how your subconscious files that evidence, because it is weighted based on two things. Emotional intensity and repetition.
This is why, when you are doing identity work and you want to shift into the next level version of yourself, emotional intensity and repetition are the two things you need to be working with deliberately. But it works on the flip side too. The more emotionally charged an experience is for you, and the more often it happens, the more significant your subconscious decides it is. The more weight it gives it. The more it uses it to build its map of what is real and what is possible.
[00:10:02] This is why, when one-to-one clients come to work with me, they can hold subconscious beliefs with so much emotional charge behind them, repeated so many times, that they say, "You won't get rid of that belief, Beck, because it's not a belief. It's who I am." They believe it down to their core that nothing can change. Which is complete nonsense, because our brain is neuroplastic. We can change it at any time. It just has so much emotional intensity and repetition behind it.
The more weight you give something, the more it helps, or does not help, to build the map of what is real and what is possible for you.
Why the Evidence You Keep Building Is Working Against You
[00:10:49] So bringing this back to instant results. When you are checking for a result within three minutes of putting something out, feeling nothing, and then beating yourself up, I want you to really sit with what is actually happening in that moment.
Because you are doing two very powerful things at exactly the same time. You are creating an emotionally charged experience. The disappointment, the self-criticism, the self-punishment. That is the emotional intensity. And you are driving it with the same thoughts, over and over again, so your subconscious notices it. And then you are repeating it. Multiple times a day, every single day.
[00:11:32] Which means your subconscious is filing it as significant. As a pattern. As the truth. As just how things are.
Over time, if you keep doing this, which is why subconscious programming work can feel uncomfortable and take a lot of cognitive energy, you are having to stop thoughts you have been repeating for a long time. You are having to feel through emotions you have been feeling for a long time, move through them, and deliberately choose a different thought that actually serves you.
[00:12:24] Because if you stay in that pattern, without you ever consciously deciding this, that experience builds into a belief. A belief about whether your offers work, whether you are someone who can get their message across, what level of success is actually available to someone like you.
And you have probably been building that since you were very young. Through what you watched growing up. Through things bullies said to you at primary or secondary school. It has been building and building, and that old neural pathway is now so strong that you naturally return to it and create more evidence for it.
[00:13:26] So I am not surprised when clients come to me and say, "I have so much evidence for this belief, Beck." Of course they do. Because that is where their focus has been going. The good news is we can change it, so do not get too worked up.
That belief you have been building evidence for, handing it new evidence every single day because your reticular activating system has switched on and is finding it everywhere, it starts to shape everything. What you create, how you create it, how you show up on social media, how much you charge, how you sell, how much of yourself you put into your work.
[00:14:12] That urgency for instant results and the self-punishment when they do not come is a subconscious programming pattern being written in real time, every single day, well beneath your level of conscious awareness. And you might not have had any idea you were doing it until right now. So welcome to the awareness.
This is why the subconscious beliefs that are not serving you feel so real and so strong. The emotional intensity is there. The repetition is there. Both of those things have been working against you.
But if you have built a belief that is strong for something you do not want, you can do exactly the same thing on the flip side. So how do we actually shift this?
3 Things to Do Right Now to Break the Instant Gratification Pattern
[00:14:55] There are three things I want you to do. And while I am framing this around instant results specifically, honestly, given how far I went off on a tangent, these apply across the board.
Step 1. Interrupt the Check-In Loop Before It Runs on Autopilot
[00:15:00] The first thing I want you to do is interrupt it. If you have just posted something and you are riding that dopamine wave thinking this is going to change everything, before you open the Instagram app, before you refresh the sign-up page, before you check the stats, I want you to catch yourself. Just notice that you are about to do it.
You do not have to stop yourself right now. Awareness is the first step, and it is the first step to interrupting the pattern and beginning to change your habits around this. Because your subconscious is running that check-in loop automatically. Your thumb is going to the app without you even thinking about it.
[00:15:57] The moment you bring conscious awareness to it, you create a gap. And in that gap, you have choice. This is one of the biggest things I do with my clients. The questions I ask and the way we dig brings choice back to their map. That is the NLP term for it. And when you have choice, you can do so much more rather than being trapped inside a belief that feels like it has no exit.
[00:16:44] In that gap, you have a choice about what to do next. A choice about what you are going to file in the back end of your subconscious. A choice about what story you let your subconscious build from this moment.
This has come up with several clients recently, which is part of why I wanted to do this episode.
But also, I fell into this pattern myself. Jack used to call me out on it all the time when we first got together. I would say, "The email's gone out and I haven't had the signups I want yet." And Jack would literally say, "Beck, the email went out about 30 seconds ago. I'm not sure people have even received it yet."
[00:17:45] I was building a whole story in real time. So in that gap, as small as it is, everything lives. We have so much choice within it. Interrupt it. Notice it. Give yourself the space to decide what you do next.
I am not saying do not check your stats. I am not saying do not refresh the page. I am not saying do not open the app and see if anyone has voted on your poll. I am saying do not carry the story you attach to them when nothing has happened yet, because you will amplify that story and keep playing it. And then, lo and behold, things will not happen because that is where your focus is going.
Step 2. Deliberately File New Evidence in Your Subconscious Mind
[00:18:06] The second thing I want you to do is change what you are filing in your subconscious mind. Right now it may have been collecting evidence of what is not working. I want you to start deliberately filing evidence of what is.
This is exactly why the challenge I ran back in August, "This Is Who I Am Now," worked so well and produced such incredible results for so many people. Every single day inside Telegram, I was getting participants to share one, two, three pieces of evidence about who they are becoming and what they want to believe. I was getting them to consciously choose and change their identity by choosing what they filed, deliberately.
[00:18:58] Focus on the woman who replied to your email. The post that got more saves than usual. The DM from someone who told you something you said landed for them. The client who gave you that piece of feedback. There is probably far more evidence out there than you are currently seeing. You are just looking at the wrong pieces.
Your subconscious needs new data. And you have to give it that data deliberately, and with emotional intensity. Write it down. Say it out loud. Message it to someone. I get my clients to share those pieces of evidence with me all the time. Let yourself actually feel it. That was the other big piece of that challenge. The emotional intensity is what gets it filed as significant. That is how the map starts to change at the level that actually matters.
[00:20:26] Somewhere, at a level you might not be fully conscious of yet, you already have more evidence than you think. Your subconscious has just been choosing to file other things, or not filing it at all. Now you are going to choose differently.
I want a note in your notes app. I know I have mentioned this in previous episodes, but I want new evidence of what is working and how it feels. Really sit in it.
Step 3. Update Your Brain's Prediction Through Deep Identity Work
[00:20:48] The third thing is updating the prediction. This is the deepest subconscious programming work. Your brain right now is predicting that results are not happening for you, or not happening quickly enough, or not happening the way they seem to happen for other people.
You need to update that prediction at the level it was written. You need to give your subconscious a new experience to build from.
[00:21:11] A couple of things to ponder here. "What would I need to believe about my work for that urgency to drop?" "What evidence has my subconscious been deleting?" I have done a full episode on that and will tag it in the show notes. "What has my subconscious been deleting that would change the prediction?" "What does the version of me who trusts what is happening, what is going to happen, who trusts in herself, actually look like?"
Really update that prediction. Get into the deep identity work with it. It is genuinely powerful.
[00:22:05] I get it. The urgency for instant results is one of the most common patterns I see in high-performing women, and it makes complete sense. You are working hard, you want this, you are putting yourself out there, and you want to know it is working. That is where the frustration comes from.
But this check-in cycle, the self-punishment, the self-criticism, you are literally talking to yourself like a piece of shit, and that is self-sabotage behaviour that is rewriting your story about what is possible for you in real time. And you can change that from today. From the moment this episode ends.
[00:22:50] Start with the very next time you reach for your phone to check whatever you are about to check.
Now, if you are listening to this in real time, I have a live event running called Hold the Next Level. It actually starts today if you are listening on the 7th of April, and it runs across the 7th, 8th and 9th.
Three days to go underneath the patterns that keep you circling the same income and the same level in your business, and rewire them at the level they were written. Exactly what I was speaking about in step three today.
[00:23:17] If you still want to sign up, it is not too late, and you will get all the replays too. I will pop the link in the show notes, and it is also in my Instagram bio. I would love to see you there, even if you are listening a couple of days later. The replays are all there for you.
[00:23:36] Alright. Let's change the evidence. And as I said, I was speaking specifically about instant results today, but have a look at this across the board. Where are you creating emotional intensity and repetition around beliefs and stories that are not serving you? Let's start focusing on something else.
I love you loads, and I will see you in the next episode.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!