Our brains are really good at arguing. Like, really good.
They’ve had a lot of practice.
As we go about our daily life, our brains want to argue with almost everything they see. “The weather sucks – it’s too hot”.
“Well now it’s winter, now it’s too cold.”
“My friend should text me back faster.”
“That girl should smile more.”
“Men should be nicer to women.”
“Men shouldn’t be so nice to women, that’s called being a simp/beta/cuck/’nice guy’.”
“The bank shouldn’t charge me so much interest.”
“My boss should quit being a dick.”
“The government shouldn’t tax me so much.”
“I should do more; I should quit being so lazy.”
“I should get my ass to the gym.”
“The gym shouldn’t be so expensive.”
“That cute girl in the gym shouldn’t wear that hot outfit, it makes her look too sexy and it’s distracting me”.
You’ve probably thought a lot of those thoughts – maybe all of them. And that’s just in an hour or so of existing… imagine how many more argumentative-thoughts appear in your head as the day goes on.
So, yeah. Our brains like to argue – it’s kind of their job. You see, without that arguing – without that constant judging of people and things and events and ourselves – we probably wouldn’t have survived. If we didn’t judge things and argue about things, we would have been eaten by the very first lion that appeared (instead of judging it as “ooh shit that thing is dangerous” and then running away to safety). Without our brains arguing all the time, we wouldn’t have debated things and learned things and discovered things and learned truths about ourselves, our world, existence itself, and all of that cool stuff.
So our brains arguing about everything and judging everything is a… good thing?
Yep. It’s how we’ve survived.
The thing is, it’s also a very limited thing. With our brains arguing about a billion things a day, chances are sometimes we’re going to be… (brace yourself, this might sting)… wrong.
Yep, sometimes we’re flat-out fucking wrong about something we were so utterly convinced we knew everything about. We’re ignorant as hell sometimes (Buddhists say “All suffering is because of ignorance“), and that ignorance leads us to make mistakes, hold ourselves back from greatness, and not live the lives we truly want to live.
A great example of this is stubbornness (something I recently talked about!), and a refusal to listen to the advice of others. We often want to do things “MY WAY!!!!!!” and we throw a little tantrum if someone tries to gently tell us, “Hey my friend… uh… there’s actually a better, more-efficient way of doing what you’re currently trying to do.”
Our brains get angry (we don’t like to be told we’re doing something “wrong”), and we push back, “No it’s fine, I got this.”
And then we miss out on the opportunity to learn, to grow, to do something in a much better, more efficient way. We literally get less of what we want sometimes, because of our stubborn brains that like to argue.
Hmmm, so that’s one way our beautiful, stubborn little argument-machine brains can hold us back from success. Are there other ways?
You bet your hot little ass there are. Another way is “limiting beliefs” – when we truly believe something isn’t possible. For instance, if I tell you “You can have an abundant sex life – after all, I did it!” your brain will automatically want to argue, to bring up limiting beliefs, to focus on how “it won’t work for me” or “I’m not good enough” or “it’s impossible”. You’ll push back a bit, or you’ll say “His advice doesn’t really apply to my unique situation“, and you’ll dismiss my advice or only half-ass your efforts instead of going all-in.
Why?
Because again, the brain loves to argue. It genuinely enjoys arguing; it gets a pleasure out of “being right” and “proving others wrong”. A genuine pleasure – if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably admit you love saying these 4 little words to people:
“I told you so.”
(And if you’re honest, you’ll also admit you fucking HATE when someone says those 4 words to you.)
See? That’s the payoff our brains (our egos) get from arguing, from trying to be right, from trying to make people see “our side of the story”.
So how can we overcome these limitations of our brains?
Anytime you feel yourself coming up with limiting beliefs, or excuses or “reasons” why you “can’t” do something – remind yourself (gently – this isn’t about judging yourself, at all), “My brain is an argument-machine. It loves to argue. It loves to say other people are wrong. My brain loves to be right; even to the detriment of my own happiness or success”.
Because that’s the thing – our brains do love to be right all the time – even when we’re completely and utterly wrong. Our brains love love LOVE to be right, and will often place the need to “be right” over the desire to be happy. Yes, that’s right – our brains will often choose to be “right” over being happy.
So, notice this tendency in yourself – where in your own life have you really dug your heels in, refused to budge on a particular issue, refused to see any other viewpoint? Maybe politics, or a social issue, or in an argument with a friend?
Maybe it’s to do more with yourself – maybe other people have been trying to help you, giving you advice, but you’re just not quite ready to listen to it and so you’ve been telling them why they’re “wrong”, or why their advice “doesn’t apply to me”, etc? (We call these: “limiting beliefs“).
Maybe you’ve even been dismissing what I often say to you – “If I can achieve success, you sure as hell can too”. Maybe you think you’re too short, or too old, or the wrong race, or too bald (I’m bald, remember!), or any number of other limiting beliefs (I’ve covered them all here). You can ask yourself: “What if I’m wrong? What if my limiting beliefs are my brain just being an argument-machine; literally just arguing because it likes to do that? It’s literally my brain’s job to argue… why am I even taking it seriously?”
Just notice this tendency in yourself to argue, and then gently let it go.
This will probably take some practice – I am absolutely not perfect with any of this. And that’s ok. Just practicing this whenever you remember will bring you a lot of peace – and you’ll find you get a hell of a lot more success – when you don’t take your argument-machine quite so seriously.
P.S. If you’d like help with this, I have a coaching deal on:
