Imagine going on a diet.

You read a couple of books and came up with a plan.

You went shopping and carefully bought the right foods.

So you knew that when you ate the right things, in the right amounts, it would be physically impossible to not lose weight.

Only when you ate your food, you didn’t do it at home.

You ate it at the food court in the mall. Or at your favorite restaurant.

Surrounded by friends who were chowing down like no tomorrow.

Could you do it?

I know I couldn’t!

This is the problem with a lot of our instincts. When they are fired up, it’s pretty impossible to ignore them.

That’s why humans have survived all these years.

If our instincts were super easy to ignore (meaning that losing weight was super easy and didn’t require a lot of willpower) then we would have died out a long time ago.

There’s even a few disease that somehow “turn off” the eating instinct.

They don’t feel compelled to eat, so they don’t. And they starve to death. Or they would without medical intervention.

Quickly pulling back from pain is another instinct. Yet there are a few unlucky people who don’t feel pain. Which means they can get an infection, and die before they know something’s wrong.

One of the drawbacks to our instincts is that societies evolve MUCH FASTER than our instincts do.

It’s like we’ve got this caveman brain that still thinks we need to chase after food, and eat as much as we can whenever we see some.

This is one of the primary causes of “self sabotage,” the mis-match between our conscious desires, chosen by living rationally in a modern society, and our primitive instincts.

Social fear is a prime example of this.

You want to walk over there and start a conversation, but your caveman brain thinks you’re about to go wrestle a dinosaur or something.

You’d like to give a speech, but you feel like you’re about to jump into a pit of piranhas.

You want to pitch an idea to your boss, one you’re sure will make you a lot of money, but you feel like you’re sticking your head in a tiger’s mouth.

Now, some say you should “feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Some say the only way is to FORCE yourself through those situations.

Sure, that will work. But it takes a LOT of willpower, and some very uncomfortable feelings.

Or you could use some mental techniques.

Practice doing it while FORCING your brain to think good thoughts.

Re-Training that ancient part of you that thinks there’s danger behind every shadow.

When you do that, you’ll notice how much easier life becomes.

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