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

by Steve Peters

As we go about our daily routines we exist in three very different worlds. Your Chimp exists in a jungle. It sees danger and territory everywhere and lives by the rules of the jungle. Your Human exists in a society with people in it, abiding by laws. Your Computer makes sense of both the Chimp and the Human perceptions, and interprets these, and comes up with the real world that you live in: a mixture of society and jungle that is forever alternating.

The Chimp therefore needs to know its part of the jungle and its boundaries. This means it needs to be looked after by recognizing its need for structure, familiarity and reassurance. However, if it has a strong troop with it, then it will become confident, adventurous and inquisitive and will be less concerned with the environment.

Some people spend their lives in the “wrong” place. Realizing that your lifestyle is not matching your Chimp’s needs, and doing something about it, is one of the keys to being at peace within yourself. The right part of the jungle is where your work and home environments are happy places to be.

An Autopilot is the way to manage sudden stress. The things that will make you stop your Chimp in its tracks when it is suddenly stressed are: Recognizing that the Chimp is reacting Slowing down your thinking (to allow the Human to get involved) Stepping back from the situation Getting a perspective Having a plan

Whenever you want to stop the Chimp, always actively slow your thinking down. This will work in ALL situations. It is another excellent way to manage the Chimp.

Work out what you can control and what you can’t. Generally, you can control everything about yourself and your reactions, you can control a little of the circumstances, but you can’t control other people. Accept this!

Laughing at yourself, or situations, is one of the most powerful ways to remove stress from the Chimp.

Remember: if you have to make a decision and there is no more information to gather, then the time is right to make it.

It may help to explain to your Chimp that it is reasonable for it not to want to make mistakes, but it is not realistic to think that it will always make the best decisions.

The stress is coming from the consequences and not the decision making.

In circumstances such as this, the Chimp will do two things. It will stop you from making decisions for fear of getting it wrong and it will also make the consequences seem catastrophic, even if they are not, in order to stop you moving. The best way to solve the problem is to establish a routine for decision making so that it becomes an Autopilot.

The main point here is that if you hold an expectation that anything in your life will remain constant, then it is very likely to be a source of stress when it doesn’t. To remove stress you need to live in the here and now and accept that changes are normal and work with them for the future.

Not knowing the difference between chicks and goslings Some stress needs discovering! Picture this: A hen was placed in a pen along with her chicks and then a fox was released. The fox circled the pen to try and grab the chicks. The mother hen knew instinctively what to do and spread her wings and faced the fox. With her wings spread, the chicks ran beneath them and were protected. The hen then continued to threaten the fox by lowering her head and warning him with a pointed beak. The fox couldn’t get the chicks and the hen stood her ground. All was well and the fox was removed. Later that day some goslings were added to the pen. Being a mother hen, the hen immediately took responsibility for their protection and mothered them. The fox was released again. This time as he circled the pen, the goslings also tried to get underneath the outspread wings of the mother hen. However, there were too many chicks and goslings to get underneath and so many ran around blindly. The hen tried to chase after them to get them all under her wings but of course couldn’t manage this. At this point, realizing that it was hopeless, she left both the chicks and goslings and flew to try and get out of the pen, leaving all of the young birds vulnerable to attack. There is a lesson to learn from this. When it comes to dealing with problems and responsibilities in life, it is very important to make a distinction between problems that are your responsibility (chicks) and problems that are the respons...

When someone has been stressed for a long period of time he or she learns to live with the stress and it becomes chronic. The body can actually make changes to its systems and some hormone and chemical systems are altered. This can result in damage to the person’s health, resulting in a lowering of the immune system and illness developing. Chronic stress also quite often leads to depressive illness and anxiety. If you are going to look after yourself properly, then removing chronic stress is a must. If you are seriously stressed, then you should see your doctor for help.

The symptoms of chronic stress are easy to recognize once you know where to look. Some common symptoms of chronic stress include: Constantly feeling tired Short-tempered Lacking a sense of humor Anxious or worrying for no apparent reason Anxious or worrying for trivial reasons Unable to relax properly Paranoid ideas A sense of urgency with everything Tearful or depressed Unable to face work or friends Small tasks seem large Disrupted sleep patterns Some of these are also symptoms of other things but if you have any of them constantly, then you really ought to be addressing the cause. Some common areas to look at for preventing chronic stress are: Using your time sensibly Being assertive Having realistic expectations Taking responsibility for things you are responsible for and nothing else! Addressing problems as they occur Regularly settling your Chimp down by nurturing it Recognizing a potential problem Recognizing your limits Seeking appropriate help early Talking out stressful situations with others When any of these areas are out of control, you can almost guarantee to find a mixture of Chimp activity coupled with Gremlins.

Write down the problems on paper and don’t try to deal with them inside your head.

As a simple rule of thumb, when you have a problem causing stress, divide up the solution areas into three parts: Your own perceptions and attitudes toward the problem The circumstances and setting for the problem Other people involved in the problem By looking at these areas individually you could come up with a number of reasons as to why the stress has occurred in the first place, and then find solutions to remove the stress.

You also need to get rid of any excuses and rationalization as to why you can’t remove stress. Sometimes no matter what you do, you can’t have what you want, so you must accept this and live with it. Some individuals can’t do this, as they have a sense of rights, fairness and entitlement that they cannot get over, and therefore live their lives in a state of constant battle against the world and others. Chronic emotional stress often arises from your own expectations and perceptions of the world, of other people and of yourself. Let’s look at these three potential sources of chronic stress: Chronic stress arising from self Chronic stress from circumstances or events Chronic stress arising from others

Emotional limit and training Physically there is a limit to what each of us can do and we accept this. Emotionally there is a limit to what each of us can deal with and we ought to accept this too. However, just as we can train our physical body and improve our fitness, we can also train our inner selves and improve the way we respond to our emotions.

The golden rule therefore is: If you wake during the night, any thoughts and feelings you might have are from your Chimp and they are very often disturbing, catastrophic and lacking in perspective. In the morning you are likely to regret engaging with these thoughts and feelings because you will see things differently. Try to develop an Autopilot that says, I am not prepared to take any thinking seriously during nighttime hours when the Chimp is in charge.

Key Point Sometimes emotions are very irrational and you have to work with them rather than constantly trying to understand them.

Your Chimp will still insist this is a failure. Think carefully, you have a choice here. If you always wish to measure success in life by what level you attain, then you must accept the emotional consequences when you do not reach this level. If you measure success in life by effort and doing your best, then it is always in your hands to succeed and to be proud of yourself. You can then deal with any disappointing level of attainment as an adult Human. So first define success

Success can be attainment or it can be effort or it may be both. Success can be a material gain or it can be a spiritual or personal gain. Don’t forget, the Chimp and Human may differ considerably in what they define as success.

The CORE principle Commitment Ownership Responsibility Excellence The CORE moon addresses the preparation to undertake a task.

Key Point When you decide to do something, remind yourself that it is commitment not motivation that matters.

First aspect: What is needed for the job? We can break these requirements down into three types: Essential Significant Desirable

Second aspect: What are the challenges you might face? We can break these challenges down into three types: Hurdles Barriers Pitfalls

The biggest factor for success is for you to function at your best, practically and emotionally.

If you have responsibility for your plan, then you must be held accountable for it. The chances of success increase when we report back to someone with a progress report on how it is all going. This is a big factor for succeeding. Having deadlines and reporting back makes both the Human and the Chimp feel obligated to act. When you become accountable, and it might even be to just yourself, you will audit the way things are going. Then you will step in quickly, if things are not going according to plan. So, responsibility can also be seen as accountability on a regular basis.

Taking responsibility and accountability for implementing or carrying out the plan is all about being disciplined.

We have now seen that your chances of success will increase if you have: A thought-through commitment A plan for which you have ownership Accepted responsibility

Personal excellence is defined as doing your best.

Have rewards in place to look forward to as this can give the Chimp motivation and the Human commitment to carry on.

If you consider your Chimp as a child that has little staying power, easily gets distracted, is undisciplined, disorganized, and constantly wants instant rewards then you won’t go far wrong!

A dream is something that you want to happen but it is not fully under your control. The dream has outside influences and therefore you cannot guarantee that it will happen; it is just a wish. Goals are something that you can set and achieve because you have full control of them. Goals increase the chances of dreams happening.

The fewer tasks you focus on, the more likely you are to succeed with them.

It was Abraham Lincoln who said: “If you have eight hours to chop down a tree, spend six hours sharpening your ax.”

The more preparation you make with your plan, the more likely you are to succeed.

An audit is where you can look at what is and isn’t working. You then continue with what is working and change what isn’t, by finding out why it isn’t working. You can check on target goals and if they have reached the level you want, move them to maintenance goals. Then you can select different maintenance goals to become target goals to work on to improve standards.

It is a SKILL to recognize when you are off track and then deal with it appropriately. The audit is all about being positive and realistic. Don’t see the audit in a negative light. It is only helping you to see if changes need to be made. One of the key factors to a good audit is to be flexible in your thinking and with your original plan.

A Chimp will analyze situations by looking back and repainting the picture of what happened in order to put itself in a good light and with good intentions. It will also justify why it acted in the way it did in order to come out smelling of roses. This is well recognized and known as a self-serving bias.

Using attribution error is a learned behavior, so yet another Gremlin can be found in many people’s Computers. If you recognize this Gremlin, then remove it and replace it with an Autopilot that is not biased toward you and biased against others.

In summary, we repaint the picture whenever we look back on events to make sure that it brings us out in a good light.

Anything in life is only as important as you want it to be. An example might help to illustrate the difference in a

Now think carefully: you can live with anybody’s good points. Therefore, remove the first column and do not consider it. Don’t focus on this first column, as it will very often blind you to the bad points and hold you to that person, which may emotionally damage you. The second column means that you can honestly live with these points and that you accept them AS THEY ARE. So ignore this column. Finally we reach the third column. If you have put down anything in this column, then you are really saying that you cannot live with this person. This seems tough, but research looking at lots of couples indicates that whenever there is even one item in the last column, the relationship is unlikely to last.

The Chimp will look at your physical appearance and your achievements to define who you are. Beware, the Chimp can change its mind very quickly and is very subjective. One minute it will think that you are the most amazing person around with stunning looks and the next it will believe that you are the ugliest creature walking the planet.

This is a choice and how you choose will definitely affect your happiness. STOP at this point and make sure you understand all that has been explained on self-image and then make your choice.

Learning to have a realistic but positive approach to life is a learned behavior. Whenever a situation occurs where things are not going to plan, try to develop the habit of looking for solutions rather than dwelling on problems.

The thoughts in your head and the approach you take to life are your choice. You can choose how much a situation bothers you. Think about this. It is for you to decide what in your life is important and what isn’t.

Ask yourself how long you want to brood or dwell on something unpleasant that has passed and how long you want to stay in that frame of mind...