Why You Act Against Your Best Intentions

You know in a cartoon how a character will have a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other shoulder?  Have you had a similar experience, where maybe you want both to pay off debt AND to buy some cute shoes, or you want both to lose weight AND to eat a sleeve of Thin Mints?  Well, today I’m going to tell you why this happens and what to do about it.

We tend to think of our mind as one voice, that is “me”.  But in fact, science has now shown that often different areas of the brain have their own consciousness, all of which speak in that same internal voice.

So your neocortex, the newest, most evolved part of the brain, sets an intention to lose weight.  That involves short term pain in exchange for the long term pleasure of being at your goal weight.

At the same time, your primitive brain may see the cue of the pantry and think “I want a cookie”.  Or it might have the cue of finishing dinner, and send the message of “I’d like just a little something sweet.”  Because your primitive brain wants short term pleasure at the expense of the log term pleasure.

So the good news is, it’s not you, you aren’t broken – it’s just the way your brain is wired.

So what do we do about it?  We have to allow the urge to weaken the primitive brain’s urge-reward pathway by allowing, rather than fighting, the urge.