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4 years ago my drive for greatness was non-existent. I lived a life of comfort with my inner b*tch winning every battle.

I was addicted to social media, video games, porn, and any other form of cheap dopamine. If it gave me dopamine and I didn’t have to work for it, I was ALL over it, I craved it.

I was studying in university at the time and had just started to try and make money online through dropshipping (it didn’t work out if you were wondering haha).

Distractions were already everywhere with university and the notorious student life, but since I was frying my dopamine system I couldn’t focus and I had no drive to actually do anything great (in both the micro and macro perspectives).

I was making any chances of me succeeding with my attempts at online business non-existent.

Of course, with my compulsion to look for instant gratification at every turn, I never made any progress in anything.

So what did I do?

I scoured the internet for a solution, something to fix my inability to get results - and that’s when I came across this concept of a “dopamine detox” -  something you’re likely familiar with.

However, there are some flaws in the contemporary idea of a “dopamine detox” which I’ve found a way around (and will explain to you throughout this letter).

How Dopamine Works

For the rest of this letter to make sense, you need to understand how this molecule works.

The molecule dopamine is largely responsible for:

• Focus and attention

• Motivation and drive

Meaning, when your dopamine is high, you will have a high focus and drive, and when it’s low, your attention and motivation will be low.

Your body has a natural base level of dopamine which is constantly circulating.

This level can be spiked through anticipation of a reward and through getting a reward (that reward can be anything from sex to food to drugs to a post from a friend on social media).

Once your dopamine is spiked, it will fall and fall lower than your original base level.

Remember, your dopamine is responsible for focus and drive - when you anticipate or get the reward, your focus and drive increase, but when your dopamine drops after, so do your focus and drive.

Since your dopamine (your focus and drive) falls lower than your original base level, you feel pretty crap.

You search for the reward that gave you your peak. 

However, this time the spike is smaller, causing you to want more of that reward and spiral in circles of chasing more of the prize and feeling crap since the base level of your dopamine is decreasing

 

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The Dopamine Dilemma

Dopamine is addicting, the activities that easily spike your dopamine feel good at the time, they draw you in - so it’s easy to find excuses as to why you should do them.

• It feels good

• Everyone does them

• What’s wrong with some downtime

But deep down, you know that certain activities are damaging you and holding you back.

Watching porn every night isn’t good for you.

Getting hammered every weekend isn’t good for you.

Spending 4 hours a day playing the PS5 or PC isn’t good for you.

The world is covered in cheap dopamine. It’s everywhere. From the food you eat to the device you’re likely reading this on now.

Everything is designed to spike your dopamine - because dopamine keeps you coming back.

But the link between these easy activities and dopamine is one of the biggest factors preventing you from reaching your potential and achieving Self-Mastery.

• Your inability to do the hard or necessary work

• Your inability to focus during the work

• You wasting hours procrastinating

• You wasting hours getting distracted

• You feeling like crap, with no motivation, no drive for greatness, and an inability to focus (in the short and long term)

• You never achieving any goal you want to achieve

• You never even catching a glimpse of your potential

It’s all caused by your poor relationship with the molecule of drive.

 

Dopamine Isn’t The Problem

I realise that everything so far sounds like I’m demonising dopamine - I’m not.

Dopamine isn’t the problem. It’s the easy activities you’re doing that are related to “unearned” dopamine that are the problem.

 

4 years ago, when I first came across a dopamine detox, I demonised dopamine, and that’s partly because the dopamine detox I did was so effective.

I felt my drive to chase my potential and achieve Self-Mastery resurge. Everything started to click.

I got out of my own way and I was able to do the hard work and actually focus on the task while I was doing it.

I made progress and I became part of the 6% who achieve their goals.

I’ve built a 6 figure business and an audience of over 420 000 people and I wouldn’t have been able to do it if it wasn’t for a dopamine detox.

The standard dopamine detox makes you believe that dopamine is the enemy. It’s not.

The enemy is mindless activities causing unearned dopamine spikes.

 

The Process

So, if any of this has convinced you that you need to restore your dopamine levels and reclaim your natural drive for greatness, here’s what you need to do:

Understand dopamine isn’t the problem

Throughout this whole process, remember, dopamine isn’t the problem. Easy activities causing unearned dopamine spikes are. 

Don’t demonise dopamine, use it as the tool it’s meant to be.

Decide what you’ll remove

You need to decide what mindless activities you’ll remove. 

Porn, drugs, alcohol, social media, video games - decide what activities you perform and remove them

Now, to do a detox as effectively as possible, you would remove all of these activities - especially the ones you don’t want to remove. 

The one you try to find excuses for is the one you’re most addicted to. Prioritise its removal.

Decide how long you will detox

You can detox for as long as you want, but I would recommend 1 week at the minimum.

Remove temptations

Remember, dopamine keeps you coming back to the reward. It’s addicting.

You need to remove all temptations for the activities you’re removing.

• Porn & social media: app and website blockers

• Drugs & alcohol: remove all sources from your house, say no parties. 

• Video games: Delete all your games, unplug your console, place it in the attic etc

• Junk food: remove all from your house, don’t go out to eat

These are just example activities and ways to remove temptations, you don’t have to follow these exactly but use them for ideas of what you can do.

If you don’t do this step and remove temptations, you’re going to fail at your detox.

Embrace discomfort

2 things:

1. Dopamine isn’t the enemy, unearned dopamine is

2. Replacing a bad habit with a good one is easier than removing a bad habit

So, can you guess what you need to do? You need to do hard things.

You need to replace unearned dopamine with earned dopamine.

Gym. Ice baths. Books. Deep work.

And yes, your initial reaction is that these don’t produce dopamine - they do. But it’s earned. It’s hard. You have to work for it - as you should.

Be conscious and repeat

After your detox is over, you can’t run back to your vices.

You need to keep your good habits like the gym, ice baths, deep work and reading whilst not reintroducing your bad habits.

Use the momentum you built during your detox to keep pushing, to keep progressing, to keep chasing Self-Mastery.

Keep drugs out of your life.

Keep porn out of your life. 

Social media, you can reintroduce but you need to be careful and mindful with your usage, using screen timers and app limits to keep control. 

Alcohol, I personally wouldn’t reintroduce, but if you want to, again be careful and mindful.

Limit drinking to celebrations like birthdays and weddings. Don’t be going out every weekend, getting hammered and ruining all the progress you made last week and could make the next week

 

Embrace it

This is tough. But if you’re serious about achieving whatever goals you’ve set in life and/or business, it’s a necessity. 

You need to be in control of your biology, focus, and drive and this is step 1.

REMINDER: MasteryOS is open for enrollment. There are limited spaces. If you want to achieve Self-Mastery, unlock your true potential, and smash every goal you set, click here. 

You also get lifetime access to my private community of elite high achievers and exclusive access to my Personal BrandBldr course.

- Ross.