Written by: Dr. JC Doornick, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The science behind the dopamine rush of entitlement being programmed into our children. By Dr. JC Doornick, Rise Up With Dragon Podcast.
Are you successful? Meaning are you full of success, or are you just another human that feels entitled to be successful because you decided to? This Rise Up was inspired by many years of observation of the behaviors of successful people. Why is it that two people from the same backgrounds, same opportunities, and potential, get different results? One reaches the mountain top of success, and the other inserts their thumb in their mouth and describes how life and their situation aren't fair. Is there such a thing as the success gene? Not in my research. The answer seems to lie within one of my all-time favorite quotes.
"It's who you are t hat determines how well what you do works."
Yes, it's the who, not the do. Of course, we know that hard work, consistency and follow-through are an ingredient in becoming full of success. But what if you are not the right person for the job at this time? If you carry concepts like entitlement, might you feel deserving of success without the need to do the work like the other guy that did? It's a who thing rather than a do thing!
Hmmm? Entitlement? One of those interesting words that can strike a positive or negative chord inside you.
Would you consider yourself to be entitled? Seems to stem from being dealt a bad hand by your manufacturers of life experience. When life throws you lemons, rather than making lemonade, you complain that lemons were thrown at you. Entitled people feel like life has happened to them rather than for them.
We live in a society that's altered the guidance of children from the "if you don't succeed, try and try again."
Where we would kick the kids off the bosom earlier and let them learn to work hard for what they want. To a new strategy that teaches, "If you don't succeed, try something else?" Where we teach our kids they can change their choice of sports, hobbies, jobs, curriculum, and teachers until they find one that miraculously and effortlessly flows to them. It's a shift from teaching that success comes from consistency to one of competency.
What's interesting about successful people is that they'll tell you that competency comes from consistency. Not the other way around. See the problem? Funny to think that the entitled person that reads this article will justify blaming their parents for their lack of success.
Why are parents using this faulty strategy and programming kids to avoid hard work, commitment, and discipline? My observation is that parents feel guilty that they're not spending enough quality time with their kids and want to obtain their love with empathy and understanding. An unconscious attempt to cover up the fact that they are too busy for their kids. Which makes the parent feel entitled to things like personal time, porn, substance abuse, you name it. It's a vicious cycle of unconscious, reactive living. Breaking this phenomenon down to a science, I think it's all about Dopamine. When parents give their kids a break and say no problem son, you can try something else. Or condone giving a reward for last place, which triggers a feedback loop of gratitude and approval. They get a hit of dopamine.
I read a great article by Zara Abrams called “Why young brains are especially vulnerable to social media? The science behind why apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat impact your child’s brain in a different way than your adult brain.
In it, Zara reminds us that "between the ages of 10 and 12, changes in the brain make social rewards—compliments on a new hairstyle, laughter from a classmate—start to feel a lot more satisfying. Specifically, receptors for the "happy hormones" oxytocin and dopamine multiply in a part of the brain called the ventral striatum, making preteens extra sensitive to attention and admiration from others."
"We know that social media activity is closely tied to the ventral striatum," said Mitch Prinstein, APA's chief science officer. "This region gets a dopamine and oxytocin rush whenever we experience social rewards."
This falls under the famous quote from the bible that lets everyone off the hook. "Forgive them, father, for they know not what they do." As with many aspects of the human experience, many things are running on autopilot that persuade us to unconsciously make inefficient decisions.
After parents take enough hits of dopamine, they become addicts and require more and more of it every day. Throw social media in and you have an amusement park of dopamine hits. Send a text, get a response? Dopamine hit. Get likes, comments, and views from a post on the artificial highlight reel of your wall. Dopamine.
Your introduction to the true arena of achieving success is when you recognize you've become soft from an entitlement program running inside your brain that releases you from responsibility. Then acknowledge that success takes radical responsibility and hard work overtime.
How do we accomplish this feat? I created a system in my soon-to-be-released book called the interface response system. Its purpose is to help people observe and catch their unconscious programmed perceptions and behaviors. Put a pause on them, allow the creation of a new perception, and produce a more rational, logical response that acknowledges your responsibilities in the success game. This pause and challenge of this learned helplessness become the antidote to entitlement. Make Sense?
Dr. JC Doornick, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. JC Doornick is a leader in Health Transformation, sense-making and the human response system. After a spontaneous recovery from a near-death brush with suicide, Dr. JC shares strategies to dramatically shift one's perspectives to reclaim control as the dominant creator of your reality... He is CEO of Doornick Enterprises and the host of the Rise up with Dragon podcast, ranking in the top 1% internationally. His mission is to positively impact the world by shifting the perception of the humans that live in it.
