When We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

The Beyond Average Podcast

When We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

St Paul makes an interesting observation about our human nature:

"What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise."

Romans 7:14 (The Message Bible)

We have all found ourselves procrastinating going after our goals, heck, we even want to try and avoid setting those big hairy audacious goals. But why?

The Primitive Brain

Our primitive brain is interested in one thing, our survival. And while our brains have evolved over time and we have developed a more evolved brain, the primitive brain is right there along side him (or more accurately, buried beneath). And thus we have a struggle.

Our primitive brain has 3 goals:

• Conserve energy
• Avoid pain
• Seek pleasure

And this is where the battle begins, because our more evolved brain is interested in going after goals which require a great use of our energy, a great deal of discomfort and a denial of immediate pleasure in favour of a long term reward.

Accomplish goals requires us to be creative and to make a way where there may seem to be no way.

Accomplishing goals requires us to come face to face with our fears and mindset blocks so that we can play a bigger game.

Accomplishing goals requires us to put in a great effort while others around us are coasting along and having a 'good time'.

Our primitive brain is at war with our evolved brain. It will do whatever it can to sabotage our evolved brains efforts at getting after those big hairy and audacious goals.

So How Do We Win The War?

The first key is to become aware that there is indeed a battle going on inside of us. Awareness of a problem brings us 60% of the way to it's solution.

The second key is to feed the right wolf!

The Two Wolves

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

The Good News

The truth is that this is indeed going to be a battle that you will have to face daily.

But the good news is that each day that you choose to feed the right 'wolf'... the next days battle is easier!

So my friend, feed the right 'wolf' daily... and let's get after it!

Connect

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In The Next Episode:

In the next episode we’ll look at how we can often times be our own worst enemy. Episode 4 is called It all starts with your why.

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