Have you ever got frustrated by the battle between your rational and emotional brain?

Your rational brain knows going for a walk in the morning is good for you, and it sets up the alarm.

But when the alarm rings at 5:00 AM the following day, the emotional brain takes over and rebukes, “Are you crazy? It is too early. Why not catch up with your sleep now and go for a walk in the evening?”

Then in the evening, it presents several other obstacles so that you can’t go for a walk.

It happens to me every time I try to implement a new routine, or from a new habit, or try to do something I should do and don’t want to do.

A Jekyll and Hyde battle begins within me, between my rational and emotional brain.

The rational brain knows what is necessary, but the emotional brain doesn’t want to do the hard work.

The Heath Brothers use the metaphor of ‘the rider and the elephant’ to explain the battle.

The rational brain is the rider.

The emotional brain is the elephant.

The rider can control where the elephant goes… to a certain extent.

But, at any moment, the mighty elephant can take over and do whatever it wants.

If we just instruct the rider on what to do, then we have an understanding, but not motivation.

If we only appeal to the elephant, then we have passion but no direction.

If we want to make a behaviour change, we must get both the rider and the elephant walking along the same path. The way to do this is to direct the rider.

The rider is the rational, logical part of our brain.

It knows that going for walks in the morning is good for me. It has a vision and knows the best way to get there. But it is weak. It only has so much strength to manipulate the bulky, mighty elephant below.

To give the rider the best shot at doing the right thing, we must make our desired change crystal clear.

“Lose weight” isn’t very clear, but “wake up at 4:55, put on running shoes, and get jogging out the door at 5:00” is crystal clear instructions.

“Be more productive” is not clear, but “sit down at the desk, open up the word document, set the timer for 15 minutes, and start writing” is crystal clear.

If it is straightforward, the rider can take control.

But, as soon as we lose clarity, your puny little rational rider stands no chance.

The elephant is the emotional, primitive part of our brain.

It likes to do things that feel good and avoid things that don’t. As soon as things feel complicated, the elephant is looking for an easy way out.

The emotional elephant can easily overpower the rational rider, so we need to keep the beast happy.

One way to do this is to shrink the change.

If the elephant thinks a massive change is headed its way, it’s just going to sit there and become an immovable obstacle.

I have been trying to build two habits — start walking in the mornings and do intermittent fasting. But my elephant is resisting. So I have come up with a plan to trick it by making the change small.

Rather than waking up at 5:00 AM, I have started waking up just fifteen minutes earlier than before and going for a stroll around the block.

Rather than doing 16 hours of fasting (as per intermittent fasting), I have started with 13 hours.

Once my elephant is comfortable, I can slowly start taking longer walks and increase my fasting time.

I can gradually ramp up the habit reset and make more significant changes.

Question For You

What rational and irrational brain battles are going on inside you?

What behavior do you want to change?

What habits do you want to form? Can you give your rider some clear instructions and make the goal small for your elephant?