photo credit: Pardesi*

A very common similarity that I have noticed in human behavior is that ‘we want to do something, but we don’t end up doing it’. I want to have a successful career but I disrupt my interview. I want to be thin but I over eat. I want to excel in my job role but I don’t complete my tasks for the day and so on.

How can the rationale behind this behavior be explained? Seth Godin in his recent post explained the phenomena – why is it so difficult to do what we say we want to do?

Answer: The Lizard Brain (Resistance)

Resistance – The voice at the back of our head telling us to go slow, not take risk, compromise and back off. This resistance grows further as we get closer to an insight – the truth of what we really want. Lizards (a physical part of your brain) hate change, achievement and risk.

An advice to entrepreneurs is to block the lizard brain. Be open to change and development, compromise, have meetings, fear critics, take risks and pacify the lizard.

The lizard brain is here to stay – it’s your job to figure out how to ignore it

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. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because her lizard brain told her to.