How to manage your emotions
We have two main ‘operating systems’ inside our brain: The Chimp and The Human.
There’s a constant battle going on between these two.
The Chimp is the emotional machine. Emotions heavily control our decision making (often times for the worse). Having a Chimp is like having a dog (or a child). You are not directly in total control of its behavior but you are responsible for its behavior.
As such it is, therefore, necessary to learn how to manage your Chimp. If not, then the Chimp will run your life (and this can often lead to some poor quality of life decisions and behaviors).
Think of your Chimp as a child: short attention span, undisciplined, disorganized, wants frequent rewards and is easily upset.
Our Chimp processes information with feelings and impressions.
Chimps still believe they live in the jungle and so sees (un)real threats in everyday situations. It is driven by instinct and desires and fears.
It gets a feel for what’s going on, and then uses emotional thinking to form a plan of action, then makes an offer to a Human.
It’s important to know that all info we proceeding goes to Chimp first then and only then it reaches Human.
The Human is the antithesis of the Chimp. Human makes slower evidence and fact-based decisions by gathering the facts.
The trouble is, by the time the Human has assessed the situation, the Chimp has already reacted — evidence suggests the Chimp reacts five times faster than the Human.
It means that the behavior of the Human is constantly being manipulated.
Part of the problem of clashes between your Chimp and you are not realizing that the Chimp is merely making an offer, not a command. You have a choice to accept or reject the offer.
You are responsible for managing your Chimp and its actions just like you are responsible for your child and its actions. You cannot change the nature of the Chimp but you can manage its actions.
The key question to ask if you think your Chimp might be playing: “Do I want these thoughts, feeling or behaviors?”
If the answer is ‘No’; it’s your Chimp.
My notes from a great book on Mind Management “The Chimp Paradox”
