CSChristoffel SneijdersThree brains: head, heart and gut for decisions you keep deferring

How To Overcome The 3 Major Blocks Preventing Your Happiness And Success | Blocks To Happiness

16 Sept 2016 · 3 min

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3:18

In this solo talk, Christoffel Sneijders outlines three major barriers that keep people from flourishing, focusing primarily on the fear of change. He explains that humans are hard‑wired to avoid pain and seek happiness, which leads many to stay in familiar, even unhappy, situations. Using the classic frog‑in‑boiling‑water metaphor, he illustrates how gradual negative change goes unnoticed, mirroring the operation of our “reptile brain” that resists incremental discomfort. Sneijders invites listeners to reflect on their own willingness to change, asking whether fear is holding them back from pursuing happiness and success.

Chapters

Hey, good to see you again. Nice to see you back on this video. And today let's just dive in the topic, what are the barriers, the blocks of flourishing or being successful, being happy, or learning or changing? And they came aware in research that in general we have 3 major barriers or blocks, whatever you like to say what they are. And what's the first one? And that's most people have a fear of change. Most people like to stay somewhere in the same thing they know. And why is that? Because we move because we like to do something happy, or we move because we are afraid. We like to escape the pain, and that's somewhere hardwired in our brain. We are looking for happiness We like to avoid pain. If we're avoiding pain, one of the good strategies is: when it's not broke, don't fix it when it ain't broken. So people don't like to change. And it means for a flourishing life to be more successful, to do other kind of things, even if we are in a not happy place, we like to be rather the same than change. Had a little test with frogs. Say you put frog in water. The frog's in. That's okay. Do you put a frog in boiling water? It jumps out right away because think that is freaking hot. I will burn myself. I burn my little feet. Jump out. And that's how we also react. When something happens, we change. When you put a frog in water and is in there, okay, that's okay. And you slowly. Turn on the temperature of the water. The frog will stay there and think, "Hmm, okay, gets a little bit less comfortable, but it's okay." Hmm, comes a little bit less comfortable, but it's still okay. And it goes on with frogs that they really die from the heat of the water. They almost get burned. They get burned because they don't like to change that slowly. Change, make it more and more negative. They just accept it. They don't go away for the change. And it is somewhere the same as it is in our own mental brain. In our own brain, we have somewhere inside ourselves a reptile brain that somewhere works the same. So when people go gradually worse, they stay the same. They don't like to change. And that's one of the biggest obstacles to really make a change for people. Now just think about how does it affect me, those kind of things. Am I willing to change? Do I pursue happiness? Do I move because of— I like to avoid discomfort? And is fear really something that stops me of changing? The fear of change. Hey, see you next time. Ciao!