You can get success if you avoid cheap dopamine

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In a world overflowing with distractions, our brains are constantly bombarded with “cheap dopamine.” This is the instant gratification we get from endless scrolling on social media, binge-watching TV shows, or eating junk food. It feels good in the moment, but it costs us dearly in the long run. Research indicates that social media usage can activate the brain’s reward system in ways similar to substance addiction (Turel et al., 2014).

Success requires sustained effort, focus, and the ability to delay gratification. This is where “expensive dopamine” comes in. It’s the satisfaction you get after finishing a tough workout, completing a complex project, or learning a new skill. It’s harder to get, but it’s far more rewarding.

What is Cheap Dopamine?

Cheap dopamine is the reward your brain gets with little to no effort. It’s the “hit” you feel when you get a like on Instagram, check a notification, or eat a sugary snack.

The problem isn’t the dopamine itself; it’s the source and the ease. When your brain gets used to high levels of dopamine for no effort, it starts to crave it. Hard work, which releases dopamine more slowly and only after effort, becomes less appealing. This is why it’s so hard to focus on a book after spending an hour on TikTok.

The Cost of Instant Gratification

Reduced Focus: Your attention span shortens as you train your brain to seek constant novelty.
Lack of Motivation: Why work hard for a reward later when you can get a reward right now for free?
Anxiety and Restlessness: The constant need for stimulation makes silence and boredom unbearable.

Expensive Dopamine: The Path to Success

“Expensive dopamine” is the reward system of high achievers. It is earned through:

Deep Work: Spending hours solving a difficult problem.
Physical Exercise: Pushing your body to its limits.
Learning: The struggle of mastering a new concept.
Delayed Gratification: Saving money, building a business, or working on a long-term goal.

The ability to delay gratification is a key predictor of success. The famous “Marshmallow Experiment” demonstrated that children who could wait for a larger reward (two marshmallows) instead of taking a smaller immediate one (one marshmallow) tended to have better life outcomes, including higher academic achievement and better health (Mischel et al., 1972).

When you detach from cheap dopamine, you reset your brain’s baseline. Boredom becomes a tool for creativity, not a state to escape. Difficult tasks become engaging challenges rather than insurmountable obstacles.

How to Detox and Reclaim Your Focus

Digital Detox: Set strict limits on social media and entertainment usage.
Embrace Boredom: Let yourself do nothing for a while. Let your mind wander without reaching for your phone.
Do Hard Things: Intentionally schedule difficult tasks early in the day when your willpower is highest.
Visualize Long-Term Rewards: Keep your eyes on the prize. Remind yourself why you are making these sacrifices.

Success isn’t about luck; it’s about discipline. By choosing expensive dopamine over the cheap kind, you are literally wiring your brain for success.

References

Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Raskoff Zeiss, A. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 204–218.
Turel, O., He, Q., Xue, G., Xiao, L., & Bechara, A. (2014). Examination of neural systems sub-serving facebook “addiction”. Psychological reports, 115(3), 675-695.

Fail Fast: When 'Failure' is the Cheapest Cost of Building a Great Product

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In the world of work, especially when building a Product, we are often taught to fear mistakes. We are conditioned to believe that perfection is the finish line and failure is something to avoid at all costs.

But in the reality of today’s fast-paced world… “Perfection that comes too late might be worth zero.”

Today, I want to invite everyone to adjust their perspective on Fail Fast through a thought process called Design Thinking, to see why daring to fail early is actually the safest strategy in business.

The True Meaning of “Fail Fast”

Many people misunderstand Fail Fast as doing sloppy work or just letting things break. In reality, Fail Fast is a philosophy of “Risk Management.”

It is asking the question:

“How can we learn the most important things using the least amount of resources (money, time, labor)?”

Because failing while we are still drafting on paper is always less painful than failing on the day we have invested in building a factory or writing millions of lines of code.

Design Thinking: The Tool That Helps Us “Fail” Valuably

When we pair Fail Fast with Design Thinking, we find that every step is designed for us to “test fail” in a safe space to harvest “lessons” for improvement.

1. Empathize & Define: Ditching Wrong Assumptions

The scariest starting point isn’t making an ugly Product, but making a Product that “no one wants.” The first step of Fail Fast starts with walking in to talk to real users.

What happens: We might find that the problem we thought was huge is actually trivial for the customer.
The Lesson: Admitting that “what we thought all along was wrong” is the first failure of immense value because it stops us from walking the wrong path from the very first step.

2. Ideate: The Space for Trial and Error

In the brainstorming phase, we often fall into the “love at first sight” trap with the first idea we think of.

Concept: Allow the team to propose ideas that are “crazy” or “impossible” as much as possible.
Filtering: Throwing away 99 ideas to leave 1 right idea isn’t waste, but a necessary filtering process to ensure we are betting on what is most worthwhile.

3. Prototype: Build to Learn, Not Build to Sell

This is the heart of Fail Fast. Instead of secretly building the Product to 100% completion, we should create something called an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) or just a simple model.

It might be just a drawing on paper (Sketch).
Or a cardboard model that is tangible.
Goal: Make it as fast as possible to spark questions and criticism.

4. Test: The Moment of Truth

Taking the Prototype to test isn’t to receive compliments like “So pretty,” but to observe real behavior.

If the user is confused, can’t use it, or ignores the feature we are proud of… that is good news.
The good news is that we have “failed” at the lowest cost, and the data from that failure is the compass that tells us where to adjust to make the real Product most complete.

Turn “Fear” into “Learning”

Ultimately, building a Product with the Fail Fast and Design Thinking mindset doesn’t teach us to be losers, but teaches us to be “Learners.”

In a constantly changing world, successful people aren’t those who “never fail,” but those who “get up the fastest” and take lessons from those scrapes to create things that truly answer people’s needs.

Hope this article is useful for you to dare to try and fail systematically to get a product that meets customer needs. Ask yourself…

Have you tried to “fail” to learn something new today?

Mindset on TECHFOR by Suriya Sonphu