The Chimp Paradox: The Acclaimed Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness

by Steve Peters

The Chimp is an emotional machine that thinks independently from us. It is not good or bad, it is just a Chimp.

Having a Chimp is like owning a dog. You are not responsible for the nature of the dog but you are responsible for managing it and keeping it well behaved. This is a very important point and you should stop and think about this because it is crucial to your happiness and success in life.

One of the secrets of success and happiness is to learn to live with your Chimp and not get bitten or attacked by it. To do this, you need to understand how your Chimp behaves, and why it thinks and acts in the way that it does. You also need to understand your Human and not muddle up your Human with your Chimp.

The Psychological Mind is made up of three separate brains: Human, Chimp and Computer. • You are the Human. • Your Chimp is an emotional thinking machine. • Your Computer is a storage area and automatic functioning machine. • Any one of them can take complete control but usually they work together.

Try to improve your ability to recognise when your Chimp is hijacking you with thoughts, feelings and behaviours that you don’t want to have. By doing this, you are learning to recognise the difference between yourself and your Chimp and who is in control at any point in time.

As Chimps are constantly vigilant to danger, they tend to think catastrophically. They overreact to situations and fuel them with high and intense emotion.

Logical thinking means that we follow patterns of thinking that are linked and make sense and then reason out conclusions on which to act.

There are several forms of logic that we use. Examples include: • Deducing things by going through steps • Working with evidence and facts, to reach a conclusion • Following arguments by piecing together information • Employing reasoning to work things out

The Human looks for justice and structure, and works with ethical and moral principles to establish Human rights and Human values to live by. They are based on value judgements of right and wrong, with consequences attached to them.

The Fight, Flight or Freeze (FFF) response is arguably the most frequently used and most important instinct that our Chimps possess. The entire animal kingdom shares this one particular instinct and it is used every day by all species, including humans. This FFF instinct is nature’s automatic response when danger or perceived danger threatens. The response takes place instantly in order to protect you. It is a very powerful reaction and it provokes intense emotion to make you act quickly. It is meant to evoke intense emotion because it is there to ensure survival in situations that can be life-threatening.

Anxiety typically occurs when you don’t make a decision. It is a perfectly natural response from your Chimp showing that it is healthy. The answer therefore is to make a decision or reassure the Chimp!

The female chimpanzee has an amazingly powerful maternal drive; otherwise the young would not survive. She will protect her young to the death if need be. She also has a strong nesting instinct to provide shelter for the young. If you think about it, a female chimpanzee that is highly insecure is the one that is most likely to survive and be vigilant enough for their offspring to survive.

Some women complain bitterly that they find decision-making difficult, even just choosing what to wear. They then beat themselves up because they don’t like this aspect about themselves. In reality it is not an aspect of them at all, it is merely an out-of-control Chimp that they can learn to manage.

The Human male and Human female are extremely similar but are being influenced by the inner Chimp, which is more typically male or female in character.

The Humanity Centre is based on ethics and morals and is the part of the brain in the Human that lights up on a brain scanner when we show the characteristics of what it takes to live in a society. So, for example, when people show empathy or guilt this Centre will light up because it receives an increased blood supply and uses more oxygen to function.

Managing your impulsive, emotional Chimp as an adult will be one of the biggest factors determining how successful you are in life.

You, the Human, have a personality, agenda and Humanity Centre. You think logically and work with facts and truth.

Your Chimp has a personality, agenda and Jungle Centre. It thinks emotionally and uses impressions and feelings.

The Chimp is an emotional machine that will hijack you, if you allow it to. It is not good or bad: it is a Chimp. It can be your best friend or you...

‘But what if…?’ ‘But what if…?’ is the Chimp’s favourite way to open a question. ‘But what if it goes wrong?’ ‘But what if I can’t do it?’ ‘But what if the sky falls down?’ The Chimp very often unsettles you with ‘what if’ questions. Occasionally the Human asks ‘what if’ questions but these are usually constructive in order to plan rather than useless worrying about things that often can’t be controlled or may not even happen.

Willpower is not a good way to try and manage your Chimp – don’t arm-wrestle the Chimp!

A chimpanzee is five times as strong as a human being. Similarly, your emotional Chimp is five times stronger than you are. Don’t try to control it, manage it. You need a management plan!

Part of the problem is that most people don’t realise that the Chimp is merely making an offer and not a command. You do not have to follow your emotions; you have a choice.

Chimp Management is a skill and takes time and you may need help from someone who knows how to help you to deal with your emotions and impulses. There is little excuse for not taking responsibility, by helping yourself or getting help.

You can’t change the nature of your Chimp BUT you are responsible for managing it.

It is not about trying to remove the drive or battle with it using willpower. It is about accepting and working with the drive. This can be done by smiling, relaxing and employing Chimp Management.

Nurturing and managing the Chimp is an emotional skill, and will take time and commitment to develop and maintain it.

Remember that the Chimp is irrational, so just let it express its feelings and then when it has finished let the Human select the sensible things that have been said and ignore the nonsense.

Letting your emotions be expressed inappropriately, in a public place, at the wrong time or in front of the wrong person is like letting your Chimp loose in a supermarket. Exercising your Chimp in a fenced compound is the equivalent of expressing your emotions in private with the right person. By the right person, I mean someone who recognises that this is just a Chimp letting go and not you.

Using facts, truth and logic we can continue to calm the Chimp down and reason with it. This reasoning by the Human is called ‘Boxing the Chimp’.

Sometimes it is right to agree with the Chimp if it is telling you the truth. There is no point in having ‘positive thinking’ if this is really just ignoring the truth. Let’s stick to reality thinking, which is more like it!)

It may take several repeat episodes of exercising the Chimp for any one problem before you can box it. You may also need to keep putting the Chimp back into its box several times for any one problem.

Remember that the Chimp offers you its feelings and then you have to decide what to do with them. If you can recognise that the Chimp is using emotional thinking then you can address it with some specific techniques.

Chimps like to survive; Humans like to have a purpose

There are three common ways to manage your Chimp: Exercise, Box and Bananas.

Guilt, shame, frustration and other negative emotions are there to help us make repairs not to destroy us. Nobody gets it right all of the time and many of us get it wrong quite a lot of the time.

Potentially the Computer is more powerful than the Chimp and the Human because it is the reference source that both of them look to for help and guidance.

Checking to see if you are being realistic and reasonable about any expectation you have is always well worth doing. If your expectations are unrealistic or unhelpful then it is almost guaranteed to lead to very strong negative emotions within you. Typically, emotions such as frustration, anger or disappointment rush in.

My first three Truths of Life are: 1. Life is not fair. 2. The goal posts move. 3. There are no guarantees.

Most likely from early childhood when you were probably brainwashed! As a child you were read or watched fairy stories. The prince always married the princess and the wicked witch died and everyone lived happily ever after (except the witch, of course, but she got what she deserved). In other words, good always wins in the end. But that was a fairy story and you have been brainwashed into believing that it really does happen this way. It doesn’t. In fact we might do our children a favour by changing the ending to let the witch kill off the princess and marry the prince. Then after several horrendous years they get a divorce and the prince mourns for the rest of his life while the witch smirks happily. This is a bit more lifelike. But be warned, if you tell it to children who already have a strong belief that good always wins then they might attack you, so keep your distance!

The Computer has two principal functions: running automatic programmes and acting as a reference source for the Human and Chimp.

The Computer can be thought of as being twenty times faster to act than the Human and four times faster than the Chimp.

It is the Stone of Life that holds the key to stabilising your entire Universe.

The Stone of Life is something that you can work on.

Reinforcing the Stone of Life by making it visible every day is a major settling influence on you.

The ultimate stabiliser I cannot urge you enough to return to your Stone of Life and if necessary perfect and redraw your poster. When you get this clear in your mind it will be the most settling influence on your Chimp, your Human and your very existence. Remember that the Stone of Life is by far the most powerful stabiliser for your Psychological Mind and indeed for your entire Universe.

In these truths he has the following absolute beliefs that include: • I am an adult and I can deal with any situation. • Life is not fair. • Everything that happens comes and goes. • Disappointments are tough but they need to be kept in perspective. • Happiness can be found in many ways. • It’s the way you deal with things, not what happens, that gives peace of mind. • Every day is precious.

If you wrote a list of all the things you would like to be, you may write things like calm, compassionate, reasonable, positive, confident and happy, then this is who you really are.

Developing the Human and bringing out the best in you is about: • Developing yourself • Managing your Chimp and removing the Gremlins • Communicating effectively • Having the right people around you • Creating a world for yourself to live in • Looking after yourself • Getting quality in your life

The Chimp always interprets first before the Human. • The Chimp only hands over to the Human if there is no danger or perceived threat. • The Human can intervene to stop the Chimp reacting by using facts and truths. • The Computer can be programmed to settle the Chimp down before it acts. • Personality is a mixture of Human, Chimp and Computer. • Nature and nurture both influence your personality. • Your Mindset affects the way that you come across. • You can work on the Human, Chimp and Computer to adjust your personality. • You are the person that you want to be but you are being hijacked by your Chimp into being someone else.