So define your 3 projects and start stepping! You will build a new pathway to your happy chemicals whether your herd mates do this or not. Your inner mammal will still long for the safety of the herd, but each time you feel threatened, you can shift your focus back to the path in front of you. You can step toward your goals regardless of what the rest of the herd does. If you feel threatened every time a herd mate feels threatened, you may suffer no end of threat.īut you have a choice. If you need to see the herd move before you step toward rewards, you may miss out on rewards. Today, we need to make those choices more independently than ever. We learn to choose our reward-seeking steps and our threat-avoidance steps individually. We have learned to sustain the feeling of social support without constant herd following. But over time, we have reduced our dependence on tribes. Humans have stuck with a tribe for most of our history. They stick with the herd while they seek rewards and avoid threats. They may insist that you are endangering your life with inadequate vigilance. They may wonder why you have happy chemicals and they don’t. Hooray.īut you may be shocked by the bad reactions you get from others. You progress toward your goals and your happy chemicals flow. Now imagine that you summon the strength to shift your focus from threat to reward. You dream of greener pasture, but the right moment to step toward it never seems to come. If the ambitious graduate student erected a screen showing “The Lion King,” you would be glued to it. You don’t intend to be hypervigilant, but it’s hard to tear your attention away from the stream of potential threat signals. Imagine being one of those neurotic gazelles. They would be forever running from the slightest whiff of threat. An ambitious graduate student could create a herd of neurotic gazelles by supplying them with tortilla chips. If you provisioned a herd of gazelles with processed food, they would suddenly have lots of energy to invest in threat-seeking. A gazelle must forage many hours a day in order to fill its belly. But after a bit of wasted energy, they go back to meeting their needs.

It is too busy trying to fill its belly.

It doesn’t get angry at its herd mates for ignoring potential threats.

A gazelle doesn’t expect its herd leader to rid the world of predators.

So we are made to keep seeking rewards despite the persistence of threat. But after you miss a few meals, hunger becomes a threat too. Our brain prioritizes threats because a predator can kill you faster than a lost meal.

We evolved to survive by seeking rewards and avoiding threats.

This may seem hard, but it’s the job our brain is designed to do.

No panic button