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

by Steve Peters

Imagine you are one of two identical twins. Your twin is your best friend and loves you and is looking out for you. Give the twin a name. Then imagine that you are this twin. So, for example, you have called your twin Sam. You now become Sam. In your role as Sam, give advice to yourself and tell some basic truths about what you should and should not be doing with situations, your life, and your problems.

Dichotomous thinking Seeing everything as all or nothing, win or lose, success or failure, is dichotomous thinking where everything is seen as having just two options. This type of thinking is a habit, a Gremlin.

The Crystal-ball Gremlin and snow mountain Crystal-ball gazing is looking into the future and trying to predict what is going to happen. It is usually fraught with problems and typically leads to unhappiness. First the Crystal-ball Gremlin looks into the future and sees doom and gloom, because crystal balls rarely show a happy future. Then the Crystal-ball Gremlin makes a “what might be” snowball and pushes it down the snow slope. As the snowball rolls down the slope it gathers more and more snow to become a mountain. The snowball forms a “what might be” snow mountain. You now are trapped with a mountain, worrying about all these “what might be”s. Smash the crystal ball and kick out the Gremlin. Replace it with an Autopilot of “cross each bridge as I come to it.” The Autopilot says, “I don’t make snowballs by guessing what will happen but I will stay in the here and now, and deal with things as they unfold.” Very often things don’t work out badly and then you have put yourself through misery for absolutely no reason. If you have done this many times, then how long do you want to keep repeating this before you learn to stop?

What you need isn’t necessarily what you want, and what you want isn’t necessarily what you need. Learn to tell the difference between the twins.

Feeling insecure from time to time is normal for a Chimp, so expect it, accept it and then take care of it.