Goal-oriented behavior is usually portrayed to be directly related to incentive values. Underlying mechanisms are thought to include reward-oriented response bias and perceptual sensitivity. A recent electrophysiological study by Minamimoto et al. challenges this view, and reports neural activity in the thalamus that appears to counteract response bias. This type of activity might be crucial for our ability to engage voluntarily in actions that give little or no immediate return, but are necessary in the pursuit of long-term goals.