PDF Summary:The Chimp Paradox, by Steve Peters

Each of us houses a psychological Chimp inside our brains, primitively reacting to the world and spurring us to act emotionally, impetuously, and irresponsibly. If you’ve ever struggled to stay in control of your urges, succumbed to temptation, or sabotaged your own success, your Chimp has probably taken the reins for a bit. Fortunately, our brains also have an inner Human who, when functioning properly, keeps our inner Chimp under control and allows us to interact with the world in a stable, positive, productive way.

In The Chimp Paradox, psychiatrist Steve Peters outlines a mind management program that can help you manage your inner Chimp and lead you to happiness, success, and a sense of balance between your emotional and thinking selves.

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• Bring the right agenda: Be clear on what exactly you want to address and what you want to accomplish with your conversation. If you don’t have a clear purpose, your conversation will be reactive rather than proactive, and will more likely wander and end up being hijacked by your Chimp.
• Use the right method: Decide whether you want to approach the other person face-to-face or through writing, such as an email or letter. There are pros and cons to either method: Writing your thoughts down allows you to word them constructively and allows the other person time to digest them before responding, but subtleties and nuance can be lost in writing. Often, speaking face-to-face can prevent misunderstandings.
• Allow for each party to make their own choices: You can’t force the other person to behave in a certain way, but you do have a choice as to whether or not to accept their behavior. At a certain point, if you’re unable to agree on behavioral changes, you have to either accept the other person for who they are or decide you can’t live with it and leave the relationship.

Planet 2’s Moon: Your Troop

Your troop is a small group of people who support and nurture you. Your Chimp has a natural drive to be part of a troop. In the wild, chimpanzees without a group of chimpanzees are unprotected against predators, and our inner Chimp feels the same way. Your Human also wants a troop, but less for survival and more for the benefits of living in a community where all people are cared for. Find a group of people who care about you and will provide you with both psychological safety and community engagement.

Planet 4: Your World

The fourth planet in your psychological universe is the planet of Your World, which is where you create and maintain a safe, happy place that fosters both your Chimp and your Human. The key to feeling well-adjusted and secure is effectively managing stress. Stress is an unavoidable part of anyone’s world. Stress isn't inherently bad: It's nature’s way of alerting you that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.

There are two kinds of stress: acute and chronic. Acute stress is immediate and sudden, while chronic stress is ongoing. We’ll first discuss the moon of Acute Stress, and next we’ll look at the moon of Chronic Stress.

Planet 4 Moon 1: Acute Stress

You can prevent your Chimp’s Fight, Flight, or Freeze reaction in the face of sudden stress by filling your Computer with positive Autopilots that can override your Chimp’s negative response. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Be aware: Consciously recognize when you’re feeling stressed by acknowledging that you’re having feelings you don’t want to have, such as anger, anxiety, or fear.
2. Resolve to change: Tell yourself that you’re going to change your typical reaction. You can do this by saying a word to yourself like “change” that will trigger your Computer to spring into action.
3. Pause: Give yourself a moment to think before you react, allowing your Human an opportunity to contribute.
4. Form a plan: Think of practical actions you can take or statements and questions you can make.

Planet 4 Moon 2: Chronic Stress

Chronic stress is stress that you have learned to live with over time. It can arise from living in a difficult circumstance (such as long-term unemployment or chronic back pain) or from dealing with difficult people for a long time (such as an emotionally abusive family member). Often, though, chronic stress comes from within.

When Chronic Stress Comes From Within

Chronic stress often arises when you have negative Gremlins—deep-seated negative habits of thought—living in your Computer. A Gremlin is likely driving your actions when you, for example, make excuses for your poor behavior rather than accepting responsibility, or when you get so used to living with anxiety that you actually seek out or invent problems.

You can manage Gremlins like you manage Goblins—by replacing them with positive Autopilots, including the following thoughts:

• Most worries turn out to be trivial.
• Worrying never does any good in and of itself.
• Solutions to problems take time.
• You're capable of living with your problem and addressing it over a long period.

Planet 5: Your Health

Your fifth psychological planet is the planet of Your Health. To get this planet properly aligned in your psychological universe, focus on both your physical and mental health. In each area, you may have malfunctions or dysfunctions you need to address:

Malfunctions are when your “machine” (your body or brain) is broken: when you’re ill and need a doctor for help. These can be physical problems, such as when you break a bone, or they can be mental problems, such as when your brain chemistry becomes imbalanced, and you need medication to address a mental illness. Alcoholism and drug addiction are also malfunctions that you may need professional help to manage.

Dysfunctions are when your machine is functional but you’re still having problems because you’re mismanaging it. Your physical well-being involves your nutrition, weight, and fitness. It’s easy to mismanage these areas because in each of them, your Chimp and your Human want different things:

• Your Chimp wants an easy life with little effort and lots of enjoyment, and it’s reluctant to put off immediate pleasure for the promise of future pleasure.
• Your Human wants long-term happiness and is willing to forego short-term happiness to get it. Your Human wants to be fit and eat sensibly, and it’s able to resist the temptation of instant gratification that prevents those goals.

The best way to empower your Human to drive your health decisions is to be proactive rather than reactive and plan for the future, so that you don’t find yourself, for example, hungry in the afternoon without a healthy snack planned—in which case, you’re likely to let your Chimp drive and choose an unhealthy snack.

Planet 6: Success

Getting the sixth planet in your psychological universe into alignment means being successful. Success means different things to every person, and it also means different things to your Chimp and your Human. Typically, your Chimp will desire superficial things like money and power, while your Human will want things more meaningful on a higher level, like the fulfillment of your purpose. Take some time to examine your goals and what will make you feel successful, and decide which Chimp goals and which Human goals are worth pursuing.

Planet 6 Moon 1: Realms

This planet has three moons that help stabilize it and help you achieve success. The first moon, the moon of Realms, recognizes that different people will be in charge of different aspects of your life. There are three realms in which you’ll interact with other people:

• Your realm: You’re in charge in your realm, whether that’s in your home, your job, or somewhere else where it’s clear you set the rules. If your rules are not followed in your realm, your Chimp will act out, so it’s important that you clearly define the rules for anyone in your world (for example, if you want people entering your home to remove their shoes, you must ask them to).
• Another person’s realm: When you’re in someone else’s realm, you must respect their rules as you would expect them to respect yours.
• A joint realm: You can jointly control a realm when you’re in either a personal or professional relationship. The key to successfully managing such a relationship is clearly defining which person sets which rules.

Planet 6 Moon 2: Preparation

Your moon of Preparation will stabilize your planet of Success because proper preparation will greatly increase your chances of seeing a project through. To properly prepare your Chimp and Human for a project, think through four areas:

• Commitment: More than emotional motivation (driven by your Chimp), you must have thoughtful commitment (driven by your Human) in order to stick with a project. Thinking through what you'll need and what challenges you may encounter will increase your level of commitment.
• Ownership: When you feel ownership of a project, both your Chimp and your Human are enticed to work harder. Ownership might mean you designed a project yourself, or that the project fits your sense of identity perfectly (for example, if you join a charity that reflects your priorities).
• Accountability: To prevent your Chimp from shirking its responsibilities when it loses its emotion-based inspiration, establish benchmarks of progress that will hold you accountable, such as deadlines or checkpoints for partial completion.
• Goals: Set goals that are ambitious enough to excite you but not so unrealistic that you set yourself up for failure.

Planet 6 Moon 3: Carrots

You’re much more likely to be successful if you have a diverse set of “carrots,” that is, rewards, that you use to encourage yourself. Therefore, fill out your Moon of Carrots with a variety of rewards that will keep you working toward success, including:

• Prizes: Rewarding yourself with small prizes for accomplishments can motivate your Chimp and your Human to reach for the next milestone. Prizes can be small and superficial, like a special latte or movie tickets.
• Celebrations: Reflecting on the work you’ve done and celebrating it will satisfy your Chimp’s need for praise.
• Recognition: Seek validation from other people to satisfy your Chimp’s need for social recognition.

Planet 7: Happiness

Your seventh planet is Happiness. The specifics of what makes a person happy are different for every person, so to start, figure out specifically what will make you happy. Be aware, when evaluating what makes you happy, of the difference between what you might want and what you need. These are often the differences between what your Chimp wants and what your Human wants.

Planet 7 Moon 1: Confidence

Your planet of happiness won’t spin smoothly if you don’t have confidence in yourself. When you're confident, you feel secure, and when you're secure your Chimp feels happy. Base your confidence on your efforts, and not on the results of them. If you base your confidence on specific accomplishments, then your confidence will be variable and you’ll live with constant fear of failure—this is typically how your Chimp measures its confidence. However, if you base your confidence on your efforts, then you’ll feel confident that you’ve done your best even when things don’t work out for you—this is how your Human views confidence.

Planet 7 Moon 2: Security

If your Chimp doesn't feel safe and secure, you won’t achieve happiness. Your Chimp has a strong drive to protect itself from risk and danger in order to find happiness, but these instincts themselves can prevent you from finding happiness. For example, your Chimp might instinctively resist change because change means things will be unfamiliar and will introduce vulnerabilities into your life, but this might mean you resist pursuing a new career that would ultimately improve your happiness.

To prevent your Chimp from overreacting to perceived danger, confront your fears about risk. Your Chimp won’t be quieted by you simply ignoring risk, but if you're honest about the possibilities—both good and bad—that might result from any decisions you make, your Chimp will be better able to calm down, knowing that you at least are aware of the possible danger.