In my last article, I described how evolution has enabled humans to adapt to a changing environment to ensure our survival as a species. I also showed how those very qualities that helped us survive can prevent us from thriving and becoming the best version of ourselves. In this article, I will explain how you can resist billions of years of evolution to foster positive change in your life.
To overcome those billions of years of evolution, we must use evolution against itself. There is no doubt that evolution has done a remarkable job of ensuring our survival; gosh, we’re still here! It has also done an exceptional job at helping us thrive; gosh, life’s pretty darned good these days for most of us in the developed world (though, admittedly, not for everyone). Why? Because evolution has given us brain development far beyond that found in other animals. Specifically, over the past 250,000 years, we have fully developed the cerebral cortex and, more importantly, the pre-frontal cortex (I call it the PFC) which gives us the power to resist our more primitive instincts. The PFC is responsible for what is known as “executive functioning,” which involves:
- weighing risk and rewards,
- recognizing short-term vs. long-term consequences,
- emotional control,
- organizing efforts,
- identifying options, and
- making deliberate decisions that are in our best interests.
The challenge in engaging the PFC to resist our baser evolutionary tendencies is that it has only been around for a blink of an eye in evolutionary. Our primitive instincts are just so deeply engrained in our neural wiring that it can take a Herculean effort for your PFC to override those instinctual urges. But it can be done and therein lies our ability, however difficult, to create positive changes in ourselves and our lives.
I use the metaphor of “forks in the road” to describe our PFC’s capacity to look at the different roads we could take, be able to decipher which is the bad road (bad feeling, bad destination) and which is the good road (good feeling, good destination), and then choose the road that is most beneficial to us. As I hope I have demonstrated above, our fight-or-flight reaction clearly lacks that capacity in the modern world, and will most likely take you down a bad road. I characterize these forks in the road as simple, but not easy, choices. They are simple choices because would you rather go down the bad road or the good road? Obviously, the good road. But it’s not easy because of the aforementioned billions of years of evolution that you are trying to resist.
Taking the good road, guided by our PFC, requires us to marshal all of our evolved resources to prevent a knee-jerk instinctive reaction in response to a perceived threat. But “in the moment” attempts to take the good road will likely fail because those reactions occur, thanks to our survival instinct, immediately, viscerally, and powerfully, often far too quickly for our PFC to have time to engage and override them. Rather, it takes planning (a strength of the prefrontal cortex), awareness, determination, and time for our evolved brain to supersede our primitive brain and better serve our interests and goals in the complex world in which we live. So, the next time you are confronted with the modern-day equivalent of your survival being threatened, how can you be sure that you will respond constructively rather than react instinctively? Here are some practical steps you can take.
Establish Change Goals
It is difficult to resist your instinctive urges if you haven’t identified the alternatives you want to replace them with. It is helpful to establish a set of specific goals you want to achieve in this change. Examples could include staying calm when faced with conflict, listening more, exercising, eating healthily, or any number of positive life changes in terms of what you think, the emotions you experience, the behaviors you engage in, and the ways in which you interact with others.
You can identify these goals by, first, looking at your life and seeing where you are thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that are unhealthy or counterproductive. Then, specify healthy alternatives that you can strive for. The more simple, clear, and tangible your goals, the easier it will be for you to harness them when you are faced with a fork in the road.
Identify “Hot-button” Situations
People who struggle with unhealthy ways of living typically have common situations in which their “hot buttons” get pushed and they get “lit up.” If you can identify those situations beforehand, this knowledge can “prime” your PFC to be sensitive to these situations when they arrive, thus enabling it to intervene before or shortly after your prehistoric tendencies begin to assert themselves.
Create a Change Plan
It’s one thing for your PFC to be able to recognize those situations that trigger your primitive reactions. It’s an entirely different thing for it to be able to formulate a plan—on the spot!—fast enough to block the way of those reactions before they reach unstoppable speed. That’s where having a plan comes in. Consider what you think, the emotions you feel, and how you behave when you are on the bad road. Then, make a plan for how you want to think, feel, and behave when your PFC puts you on the good road. The more specific and actionable your plan, the better able your PFC will be able to execute it.
Stop!
Such a simple piece of advice that is so difficult to implement because of the reality that evolution has wired into our brains our need to react swiftly and intensely to survive in hostile environs, even when they rarely if ever occur in modern times. Yet, with proper planning, awareness, and self-control, it is possible to resist the ancient urges and engage your PFC.
By hitting the “pause” button and giving yourself several seconds, you interrupt the information going to your primitive brain and prevent it from causing you to react in that moment. Also, in those few seconds, you give your PFC time to activate and respond; you redirect the flow of information away from your “inner caveperson” and to your PFC, allowing it to take over control of your thinking, emotions, and behavior.
Take Action
One thing to keep in mind when you begin to implement your change plan. To paraphrase the classic Robert Burns poems, “the best-laid plans of mice and men…,” meaning plans don’t always work out and, most often, not on the first try. In the case of making positive changes in your life, the most important thing is to be persistent in your efforts to put those plans into action. Sooner or later, your plan will reach fruition, and, with each subsequent success, it will get easier and easier, until the bad road has grown over and the good road is the only one you can take.
Consistent Conscious Commitment
There is no magic, instant fixes, or quick solutions to making significant changes in your life. Rather, it is a daily and, in fact, moment-to-moment choice you make to leave the bad road and get on the good road. Remember that your innate instincts and well-learned (though unhealthy) habits will automatically take you down the bad road. So, as I noted above, to exit the bad road and merge onto the good road, you need to leverage your PFC by, in those moments when a fork in the road appears, making a conscious commitment to the good road.
Then, to rewire your brain to take the good road in the future, you must make that conscious commitment consistently, that is, every time you come to those forks in the road. The good thing about the good road is that it is self-reinforcing; it feels good and good things happen, which encourages you to continue to make that consistent conscious commitment in the future. Over time, through sheer repetition of that consistent conscious commitment to take the good road, your brain gets rewired to take the good road automatically. In time, the bad road will become overgrown until it is unrecognizable as a road at all and the only option you will have is the good road. And, once you are on the good road, you can once again enjoy your life’s journey.
