You’re listening to the Transform Your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This is a
throwback episode starting in January of 2025. We’re going to be actually releasing
two episodes per week. The new episode for that week, and then what we call a
throwback episode, which is a former episode. This episode is episode number 53,
when it was originally released. And this episode is about how your brain sabotages
your goals. Sounds crazy, right? I mean, none of us really think about it that way.
I mean, come on, my brain, my brain’s supposed to keep me alive and my brain is
here to help me. How does my brain sabotage my goals? How does my brain keep me
from creating the change that I want to create in life? Well, it’s not your entire
brain. It’s part of your brain, the oldest part of your brain called the reptilian
brain. So to learn how to outsmart the reptilian part of your brain so that you
can start creating what you want in life, keep listening. Hi, I’m Jim Fortin,
and you’re about to start transforming your life from the inside out with this
podcast. I’m widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation, and I’ve
coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here you’re going to
find no raw, raw motivation and no hype because this podcast is a combination of
brain science, transformational psychology, and ancient wisdom all rolled into one to
take your life to levels you’ve never thought possible. If you’re wanting a lot more
in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and
alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast
is for you because you’re going to start learning how to master your mind and
evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want, then becomes
possible for you. I’m glad you’re here. I know what you’re thinking. You’re like,
Jim, I mean, come on, my goals come out of my brain, but how does my brain
sabotage my goals? Well, I’ve done a couple of episodes about habits and I started
thinking about this episode. And even though I’ve done, I think, two episodes on
habits, what I wanna do is talk about a specific area of those episodes and on
habits. Also, I do know that many times we will hear things and the brain filters
it out And then we hear it in a different way and we’re like, oh, aha, okay, I
know what he’s talking about now. I know how to do what I need to do next. So I
want to talk about one aspect of your habits and the brain that’s responsible for
that aspect of your habits. So when I say that, for example, your brain sabotages
you, it’s not your entire brain. It is your reptilian brain. Now you might have
heard me say before, let’s do this first. Let me talk about three parts of the
brain very quickly. You’ve heard me talk about the three largest parts of the brain
or the three predominant parts of the brain. And I don’t even know how I can
defend that because science is still discovering all day long, you know, after many
years of research and many, many years in the future about how the brain works. And
I’m sure they’ll never figure it out because the brain is an extraordinary
supercomputer and it’s not just a brain and organic matter, it is also consciousness
and the brain filters consciousness. But anyway, so the three things, the three parts
of the brain are the, I want to talk about are the prefrontal cortex, which is the
largest part of the brain, the thinking part of the brain. The part of you
listening to me right now and then processing you listening to me, that is a
prefrontal cortex. Then we have what’s called the middle brain, the mammalian brain,
or the limbic system, which is the emotional part of the brain. And then we have
the oldest part of the brain, which is the reptilian part of the brain. That is
also the fight or flight center in our brain. That part of the brain does not air
quote, “think.” It simply is survival based, and it basically just functions,
for lack of better words on autopilot. That part of the brain also is responsible
for our autonomic nervous system and keeping us alive. And I wanna go back here is
that is the survival fighter flight part of the brain. Now,
this part of the brain, the reptilian part of the brain doesn’t like change. And
the reason that it doesn’t like change, and obviously I’m speaking here and
colloquialisms and everything else, when I say that part of the brain doesn’t like
change, I mean, that part of the brain is not sitting in a lazy boy chair with
its arms crossed saying I don’t like change, I’m too lazy to change. You know, it’s
not that way at all. But that part of the brain is responsible for our survival.
And once we’ve established habits, that part of the brain knows that these habits
are obviously or that part of the brain, air quote, thinks or responds from or
works from whatever habits we have are survival based. Now, I know you’ve heard me
say that before if you’ve listened to the other couple of podcasts on habits. But
here’s something that I might have touched on, but I wanna touch on a little more,
is that the reptilian part of the brain really, really works from predictability.
And many times we think that, you know, we like to predict what’s going to happen,
but then we can think about that, but that really comes from the reptilian part of
the brain, because that is a survival mechanism. And the reason it’s a survival
mechanism, because it can predict, you know, based upon behaviors, you know, if I
walk on the edge of a cliff, I can predict and there’s no railing and I’m on the
edge of a cliff. Well, there’s some predictability that I may fall off that cliff.
Or, you know, many years ago, if we were, you know, when we were hunters and
gatherers and we’d leave the cave, we would want some predictability of, well, you
know what, if I go out and get food, am I going to be attacked by a saber
-toothed tiger while I’m out actually hunting for food? This one research study that
I read about done many years ago demonstrating predictability in the brain. And also,
I think when it comes to chimpanzees, I think they’re DNA, I could be wrong, I
think it’s 3%, I don’t think it’s one, but chimpanzees, they share something like 97
% of our DNA as a human being. And they had these chimpanzees in a research lab
and they were basically showing them food and basically the chimpanzees were
conditioned to see bananas. And what they did is in the same experiment, the same
study, they had conditioned the chimpanzees to see bananas and then what they did is
they hid the bananas and they showed chimpanzees lettuce. And the chimpanzees would
start throwing a fit because what they predicted to happen, meaning seeing the
banana, they didn’t see, they saw the lettuce instead. And that wasn’t what they
were predicting or processing cognitively some way in the brain. So you,
and obviously you’re not a chimpanzee, but again, you are a mammal. People often
miss that fact also. I don’t really think people really, really think about the fact
that We are animals. I mean, we eat other animals. We eat animal products.
I mean, I was, you know, in Whole Foods tonight and just marveling at how we as
humans, we consume things on the planet, not even recognizing that we’re consuming
other living things. Anyway, whole different podcast. But the thing is this,
is the reptilian part of the brain likes predictability And this is a survival
mechanism. This is why, for example, if you’re setting these lofty goals and you
have to put yourself out there and all this kind of stuff, really you can’t predict
what’s going to happen. And that’s outside of the air quote comfort zone of your
reptilian brain. When things are not predictable for us, that equals fear for a lot
of people. That’s why so many people stay in their comfort zones because they can’t
predict what’s going to happen when they leave their comfort zones. Then what they
do is because they can’t predict what’s going to happen, they never leave their
comfort zone. And because they never leave their comfort zone, here’s the irony, it’s
very simple. Because people never leave their comfort zone, they never leave their
comfort zone. And because they never leave their comfort zone, they never leave their
comfort zone. Hopefully the way I explained it, you can actually kind of, in your
mind, draw, visualize, or imagine an imagery of a circle there. I mean, people just
go in circles their entire lifetime because they do not want to leave their comfort
zones. I remember a guy that I was talking to and he’s a multimillionaire,
makes a lot of money online. And now I don’t know if he’s telling me the truth or
not, but it sounds good on paper and I do agree with it. He said, the number one
thing that I did to get where I am “as I got comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
But for most people, when things are uncomfortable, that creates anxiety and anxiety
is painful for people. So for us to become comfortable, what we do is we avoid the
anxiety and then we go right back to our comfort zone again and we stay in those
patterns for years and years. And obviously I’m a human being, I’m on the planet
and I’ve been in those places in my own life so I definitely understand it. So,
talking about goals in this particular episode, here’s the thing, is whatever habits
that you currently have, well, that’s gotten you to where you are. I mean, literally
everything you have in your life is a result of habits. And if you want to create
new things in life, obviously, you have to have different habits. But And here’s
where the catch 22 comes in, is that we have to create new habits, but the
reptilian part of the brain, because the prefrontal cortex thinking part of the brain
thinks we want something new, something different, something better, but the prefrontal
cortex doesn’t like change. So therefore it doesn’t want to get rid of old habits
because it works from old habits or current habits, are necessary for survival. So
what we have is we have then what I call what you’ve heard me say before, the
brain battle. You have the reptilian brain and working from survival, literally at
odds with the prefrontal cortex thinking that we want new and better and different
things in life, and you’ve got two parts of the brain battling each other, and
you’ve heard me say before as well, what happens is nine times out of ten, the
reptilian brain will win over the prefrontal cortex thinking brain, because the
reptilian brain actually also engages then into emotions. And the emotions are
stronger than thinking. To demonstrate that, let me give you a great example here. A
very simple one. Let’s say that, you know, you’re watching the weather and the
weather says it’s going to be really, really cold and rainy and nasty outside
tomorrow. And you start thinking, well, okay, if it’s gonna be cold and rainy and
nasty, then you know what, the hallway closet, I’ve been needing to clean that out
for a long time now. I’m going to clean out the hallway closet. Next morning you
wake up and guess what? It is beautiful and sunny. Then what happens is your
imagination kicks in and then your emotions kick in. And then what happens is you
actually start thinking, you know what, it’s nice outside. I wanna go canoeing or
kayaking or golfing or bike riding or to the park with the kids or whatever. And
then guess what happens to that closet that needs to be cleaned out? It doesn’t get
cleaned out. So notice here how even your thinking is overridden by your emotions,
which is mammalian brain and your emotions are driven by your reptilian brain. And
this is why so often when you get into fear, your thought about fear is actually
overridden by the fear. So as you can see, your reptilian part of the brain is
fighting the prefrontal cortex and the reptilian brain is sabotaging what you air
quote think that you want. So this is how a part of the brain sabotages your
goals. And you know, to give you another example here about the reptilian brain and
how it doesn’t think is let’s say for example, if you’re like me, I do not like
snakes. I kid you not, it must be some kind of past life something or I don’t
know, but I have an irrational fear of snakes. And I could actually go to
hypnotherapy and do self -hypnosis, but there’s no point in it because I mean, I
don’t see any snakes for the most part in my physical environment, but let me keep
going here. I remember many years ago at the zoo, I walked in the snake house and
I walk right back out because I do not like to look at snakes. And I grew up in
rural Texas and we did have snakes, but since then, I mean, I’ve never encountered
a snake. So there’s no point in me going to hypnotherapy to get over the fear, but
my whole reason for sharing this is, I tell you, if I saw a snake,
I would be out of there so fast, that’s not even funny. And that’s reptilian brain.
It’s not prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal cortex would be, hmm, what is that creature?
Is, I don’t know, I guess it’s a snake. Oh, do we like snakes or do we not like
snakes? That’s all prefrontal cortex, you know, left brain thinking. Whereas my
reptilian brain is, boom, we are out of here, dude. We are done with this.
So that’s what our reptilian brain does. As I said, it works from survival.
And when you’re trying to reach for new things and bigger things and greater things
in life, many times we deem there to be, you know, the predictability and the
uncertainty there. And that is counter to survival. And that’s why it’s so hard for
many people to create what they want to create in life. Also, a couple of more
things here is that I mentioned this before is what we do is we personalize our
habits. And I mentioned that in the podcast just recently, and I think in podcast
episode number five, I believe is on habits. I couldn’t be wrong, but I think it’s
number five is habits are just habits. That’s all that they are. There are or no
good habits or no bad habits to the reptilian brain, the analytical prefrontal cortex
thinks, oh, that’s a good habit and that’s a bad habit, but to the reptilian brain,
a habit is just a habit. But then what we do, and I know I used to do it, I no
longer do, is I used to personalize my habits and then I would psychologically make
them about me. Oh, I am lazy or I am unmotivated or I am this or I am that.
and notice I would give labels and stories to my habits when habits were simply
coming from the reptilian part of the brain. So what I want to share with you here
is stop.
Stop personalizing your air quote, bad habits. Your bad habits, there aren’t those
such things, bad habits, they’re just habits. And then what happens is whatever
counterproductive, you know, sabotaging habit that we have, we then personalize it and
then we make it mean something about us, like I am weak or I have no willpower,
which is a whole different episode and I’ve talked about that before. But the way
that I look at habits at this point is if I’m doing things habitually and even
thinking, we can habitually think things. If I am habitually doing things that do
not work for me, they’re sabotaging and counterproductive, I don’t make it about me
anymore. I make it about the reptilian brain and it’s simply just doing its job by
perpetuating a habit. So what I wanna share with you in this episode is obviously
you’ve gotten the point of this episode and the point is that your brain sabotages
your goals but it’s not your entire brain, it’s a reptilian part of your brain. But
what I want you to do and I request is that you actually, anytime you find
yourself in self -sabotage or counterproductive behaviors, stop chastising yourself,
stop telling yourself stories that actually further perpetuate the habit. Stop making
things up in your mind about what a bad person you are. So what I do now is I
cognitively actually use the analytical part of my brain to also shift my
counterproductive habits by, and you’ve heard a version of this before in the other
episodes on habits, but I will say things, if I catch myself in counterproductive
thinking or habit or whatever, I will say things like, whoa, okay, this is not me.
This is my reptilian brain, it’s a survival mechanism. Then what I’m going to do is
what people hear me say all the time is move my attention, move my attention to a
supporting thought or habit. When we do this, what we’re effectively doing in that
moment is restructuring and habits, literally we are, because we call them good
habits and bad habits, what we’re literally doing is we are actually stopping the
bad habit by the cognitive process of recognizing it’s coming from the brain and
then moving our attention and then actually talking to ourself about where we moved
our attention to, to that place that supports us. Okay, so hopefully this all makes
sense to you, but remember, your habits do not you know, the entirety of your
brain, they come from the reptilian part of the brain. And any habit that you have
that you do not like, which if you don’t like it, that’s analytical thought,
prefrontal cortex is coming from the reptilian brain, which deems it to be a
survival mechanism. Okay, so your transformational takeaway this week is three parts
of the brain, the prefrontal cortex thinking part of the brain, the mammalian brain,
the middle brain, the limbic system, and the reptilian brain. What you think you
want in terms of your goals is coming from the prefrontal cortex, thinking part of
the brain, and the sabotage comes from old habits that come from the reptilian part
of the brain. So the reptilian part of the brain will sabotage you. And now that
you have that awareness, now that you have that tool and that power, you can start
talking to yourself in ways like I just gave you and I just shared with you that
I do, so that you actually on our productive behaviors because you are not your
habits. Okay, so that wraps up this episode. Hopefully, I don’t know how long it
is. Hopefully, it’s not too long. And you now better understand because you’ve heard
it a few times now about how it’s not you and do not personalize habits and how
your brain sabotages you and things that you think that you want. All right,
speaking of habits, I went through some of the, well, we have quite a few questions
and I’m grateful for that. Thank you for all of you that are listening, that are
sharing. We get comments quite, I mean, daily from people that have said this
podcast has helped them and I’m very blessed and very thrilled to be able to do
this for you guys. But I looked at the questions and I picked one that seemed to
dovetail with this particular episode and it’s a brilliant question from Malia. And
there’s a lot more that I’ll get into in the next episode on Monday with Molly’s
question. But the gist is this, she’s wanting to know what is the relationship
between habits and self -worth. And when I read that I’m like, you know what, that’s
a phenomenal question to answer next because of this particular episode. But this is
something that I want to share with you and it’s popped in my head many, many
years ago when I was in my home office. And I had it on a whiteboard, which I
don’t know why, it’s behind the office door, which was always open, so I never saw
the whiteboard. But this phrase stayed on my whiteboard for about a decade until I
took the whiteboard down recently. And it’s just popped in my head one day, but the
phrase is this.
We treat ourself like we perceive ourself. Consider that.
We treat ourself like we perceive selves. So if we have perceptions of ourself that
are not positive and low self -worth, then what we do is we create habits that
reflect that back. So we’re going to dig in a lot more to that on the next
episode. So again, extreme gratitude for all of you for listening and for sharing
and for tuning in and investing your time and your energy to, you know, to
participate with me on this journey. All right, make it a great day today and I’ll
catch you on the next episode. Bye -bye.