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Thursday, February 11, 2010

"The lizard brain"

A couple of weeks back Seth Godin posted a blog entry about Quieting the lizard brain that I just loved.

The lizard brain (the amygdala) is, as Seth defines it, "...the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise. The [lizard brain] is writer's block and putting jitters and every project that ever shipped late because people couldn't stay on the same page long enough to get something out the door....  The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive."

The lizard brain is what stops us from succeeding, what kills our motivation in the 11th hour, it's the thing that, after we've fought so long and so hard to have our goals in sight, scares us into quitting.

I wanted to share his post with all of you so you could contemplate it in conjunction with your weight loss goals.  Sooner or later, your lizard brain is going to rise up and try to sabotage you, and you are going to need to be ready for that moment.  You are going to need to be able to anticipate the irrational fear that grips you, the sudden desire to give up on your goals that you've worked so long and hard for, and to go back to your old ways.  You are going to be fighting against a very basic instinctive response, an instinct that has helped keep us alive over the millenia.  It is an instinct of self-preservation, but sometimes that instinct backfires and causes us to try to preserve things in our lives that are NOT WORTH preserving.  Things like sitting on our asses and eating bag after bag of potato chips. 

So, friends, as you set forth on your Journeys, keep the Lizard Brain in mind, and start setting up your defenses now.  That way, when it tries to beat you down, you'll be ready for it, and you'll win!  Don't Think, Just Go!

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