How to quiet your lizard brain - Part 1

Photo courtesy of kopitehtarik

Lizard brain. You know, the part of your limbic system whose job is to keep you alive and out of trouble. The part that shouts fear and doom when you think about doing something different and risky.

Everyone's talking about lizard brain these days: Martha Beck. Neil Fiore. And of course, Seth Godin is all over my RSS reader today, promoting his new book Linchpin: Are You Indispensible?

The message is: your lizard brain is trying to stop you from creating and changing by throwing resistance in your path. Resistance: 1. n. the repellent force field emanating from a creative project; 2. n. any activity, thought, or emotion, whether legitimate or irrational, that pushes us away from our creative work. When resistance gets too strong, we procrastinate.

I'm very familiar with lizard brain. And resistance. And procrastination. I've been wrestling with them for years. What writer or artist or human being hasn't?

So whaddaya gonna do? Seth says you need to quiet the lizard brain. Amen, brother. He gives a few pointers in this video on how to do this (i.e. limit thrash to the beginning of a project, keep your team as small as possible) but they're geared to the IT/development world. What if you're a solo amateur creator? I have a few ideas.

1. Pay attention

Seth Godin and Steve Pressfield talk about fighting resistance, but the war metaphor has its problems. Do you really want to engage in an exhausting struggle with a primal instinct?

I've had much better results from befriending my lizard brain. You don't want to startle it by strapping on a sword and hollering a battle cry. It'll just roar back and tackle you. Instead start by sitting quietly and observing, maybe from the corner of your eye. Build a blind and spy on it. Take field notes.

How to do this

Take ten minutes (such a short time, right? Not too threatening to your lizard brain). Think of a creative project you want to ship. Not something you want to work on or dream about. Something you want to FINISH and launch. Imagine that for a minute.

Then get your lizard brain talking. Ask what it's afraid of. What could go wrong. Write down what it says. Why is your project a bad idea? What will people say?

At the end of ten minutes, say thanks to the lizard and close your notebook. You're done. You have paid attention.

Okay, I'm going to quit there because I am determined to SHIP this blog post today. Later this week I'll write about a few other tactics:

2. Make plans
3. Tell someone
4. Get confident

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