You are not built for this world.

You are built for another world, a world that no longer exist.

The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can start taking steps to overcome it.

You are built for an ancient world, a world that our technology and culture has left behind, but one that you are still optimized to thrive in.

For example, in the ancient world, calories were hard to come by, but in the modern world, delicious pastries are plentiful. In spite of this, all of your neurotransmitters are geared to eat too many doughnuts. This is known as an evolutionary mismatch.

If you can overcome the mismatch dilemma, you greatly increase your chances of success, fulfillment and happiness.

But how?

If we fight it, we go against the grain of our nature. Diets fail and New Year’s resolutions die.

If we stay on autopilot, we are at the whims of the modern word, floating along on it’s current, for better or for worse.

So what do we do? How do we solve this dilemma?

You can’t change what you were evolved to do. You can only work with what you have, leveraging it’s strengths to improve your life.

How To Overcome The Limitations Of Evolutionary Mismatch

Trying to overcome the evolutionary mismatches in your life may not be easy.

One has to either manipulate their environment, their perception of the environment or their body. Unless you have some mad scientist skills, you won’t be able to manipulate your genes.

But if you can build the skills necessary and unlock your evolutionary potential, you will not only become successful, but achieve happiness and fulfillment as well.

Remember the following to overcome any mismatch in your life:

• Don’t trust your feelings
• Reconstruct an ancient environment
• Use Hacks
• Consolidate activities
• Align with your core values
• Develop flow

Don’t Trust Your Feelings (Instincts)

There is value in going with your gut instinct when making decisions but if your situations involve an evolutionary mismatch, those instincts may be leading you in the wrong direction.

In the ancient world, you could live on auto pilot, trusting your feelings to provide the optimal experience for your life (or your tribe).

The modern world is different. Your brain and body doesn’t always know the best way to feel.

For example, your body is programed to conserve energy when it can, but conserving energy too easy in the modern world.

You can drive and not walk, you can eat without hunting or gathering, you can experience pleasure with Netflix and porn, without putting in the work to have sex with a real person. But that leads an overweight body and empty pleasures.

Meanwhile, there is difficulty latching on to activities that will energize you.

Most of you are not part of a close knit tribe that continually presents opportunities that would energize you to expand your abilities.

In most cases, it’s the opposite in today’s world. We must first gain a skill or credential in order to become part of a tribe (company). This has a negative impact on motivation.

Baby sea turtles use starlight to navigate to the waters of the ocean, but in the modern world artificial lights are near the beaches, and those baby sea turtles can’t find their way to the water.

With so much artificiality in the modern word, your inner compass could be off. Sometimes, you won’t “feel” like doing what will bring you success and fulfillment.

Don’t trust those feelings.

Learn to manipulate your feelings in order to live an optimal life.

Reconstruct An Ancient Environment

So, how do you overcome the false feelings of the modern world?

One way is to reconstruct an ancient world to live in. But does this mean living like some kind of paleo Amish person? Not necessarily.

There is a trade off to reconstructing a way life that is more in tune with our ancient brain and body. The modern world offers a lot of advantages, advantages that can help you live an optimal life. It will be up to you to determine which parts of the modern world you could benefit from and which parts you need to give up.

Try going to sleep when it becomes dark and waking up when it becomes light. Spend more of your time outside. Spend more of your time walking. Cut out processed foods.

Ironically, your ancient brain will rebel against giving up many of the pleasures of the modern world, but some are simply habits instilled by the modern world, and you may find your life to be more enjoyable after changing them.

Using Hacks

The human body is absolutely brilliant…in the right environment.

But put it in the wrong environment (like the modern world) and it becomes dumb, or worse, damaging to our lives.

Sometimes we are not able to change the environment to what we need it to be, so “hacks” come into play, hacks such as hypnotherapy, supplements, meditation and even pharmaceuticals.

Our ancient ancestors didn’t need to take supplements or make time for meditation. Those needs were fulfilled by their way of life.

Consolidation Of Activities

In the ancient word, our natural activities fulfilled the needs for which were were optimized: Hunting fulfilled our need for food, exercise, socializing (hunting in a group), sun exposure.

To fulfill the same needs in the modern world, we have to go to the grocery store/restaurant, the gym, a social function and spend time outside, all separate activities.

The modern world has splintered our activities so that there’s simply not enough time in the day to achieve the activities for which we are optimized. In order to combat this, we need to consolidate as many activities as we can.

A treadmill desk is a good example, combining our need to exercise and our need to make a living. Team sports fulfills exercise and social needs.

You only have so much time in the day. Without consolidating, it’ll be difficult to hit all of the areas that you need to hit.

Core Motivation

With so many things distracting us and pulling us away from how we were intended to live, it’s important get to the core of what motivates us in order to overcome the various evolutionary mismatches of our lives, so that we can live a fulfilling life.

The two foundational aspects of core motivation are values and flow.

Without core motivation, you will find yourself giving up and drained.

You must overcome by the resistance holding you back from success.

Align With Core Values

Ever feel like you just can’t get the motivation to do something no matter how hard you try?

Or maybe you love doing an activity but feel empty afterwards?

If so, you’re likely out of alignment with your core values.

In order to understand the benefit of core values, it helps to understand the two dopamine circuits in your brain: Desire and Control

The Desire circuit causes you to reach for the easiest dopamine fix you can find, even if it’s to your detriment.

There is only one way to overcome the dopamine of the Desire circuit:

Dopamine from the Control circuit.

You can override the Desire circuit with the Control circuit. One of the best ways to tap into the control circuit is by aligning with your core values.

If you’re not aligned with your core desires, you’re brain won’t think it’s worth the effort to pursue whatever it is you’re pursuing and won’t give you the dopamine you need as a result.

But if your goals are aligned with your core values, the Control circuit will kick in and give you power to overcome your Desire circuit’s desire to sit on the couch and watch Netflix.

If your going to try to go against your evolutionary desires, getting in alignment with your core values is one of the best ways to leverage your evolutionary circuitry against your evolutionary circuitry that’s not benefiting you.

But what are core desires?

In his book, Who am I?, Dr. Steven Riess used factor analysis to identify 16 core desires that are common in everyone. They are:

• Power is the desire to influence others.
• Independence is the desire for self-reliance.
• Curiosity is the desire for knowledge.
• Acceptance is the desire for inclusion.
• Order is the desire for organization.
• Saving is the desire to collect things.
• Honor is the desire to be loyal to one’s parents and heritage.
• Idealism is the desire for social justice.
• Social Contact is the desire for companionship.
• Family is the desire to raise one’s own children.
• Status is the desire for social standing.
• Vengeance is the desire to get even.
• Romance is the desire for sex and beauty.
• Eating is the desire to consume food.
• Physical Activity is the desire for exercise of muscles.
• Tranquility is the desire for emotional calm.

If you’re goals are not in line with your core desires, you are likely feeling drained and meaningless.

You need to find a way to get in alignment with them ASAP.

Take a look at the list above and find out what your top 2 or 3 core desires are and devote your life to fulfilling those desires.

Your core desires are set by your genetics. They are not going to change all that much. Don’t be afraid to go all in on them.

Being aligned with your core values gives you another benefit:

The ability to push through resistance and develop Flow.

Develop Flow

There are a lot of different aspects to Flow but one of the more popular definitions is that it’s a state where things are challenging enough to be interesting but not too challenging to be stressful. It is easy enough to avoid anxiety but not too easy to be boring.

It is one of the most enjoyable states to be in, addictive even.

Your goal is to develop Flow in areas that benefit your life, using it as leverage to overcome some of the evolutionary mismatches that are hold you back.

The problem is that, when you start something new, it’s tough. It’s either too hard or too boring and your ancient brain gravitates towards those things that are easy e.g. Netflix and social media.

You might be asking, isn’t Flow part of our evolutionary makeup? Why is it hard to develop?

On the one hand, it supposed be hard to develop. Your ancient brain only wants to develop Flow around things that are worth the effort.

On the other hand, it can and should be easy to develop Flow, but it’s important to realize that our environment dictates much of how we develop Flow, and again, the modern world skews are ability to develop it, or at least, the ability to do so with things that benefit our lives.

Flow is a product of your environment. But your modern environment is not what you are optimized for.

You need to ask yourself, did your environment produce Flow around things that benefit your life?

Even in recent history, we’ve seen a shift from interest in STEM to humanities. Did humans evolve to like humanities more in that short time period? Of course not, it is a product of the environment.

Furthermore, Flow is more naturally formed in childhood. In childhood, there are typically lower standards and easier skills, as well as a greater amount of curiosity. These lower barriers to entry, make it easier to develop Flow.

What kind of Flow you develop depends on your childhood opportunities, how supportive those around you were and what was valued by others in your environment.

Maybe you got lucky and developed Flow around something that has given you a successful career and a fulfilling life, but many didn’t.

Ideally you want to leverage existing Flow into a more beneficial area of your life, but sometimes you have to do a cold start of developing Flow in a completely new area of life

And doing a cold start on Flow is tough.

This is where core values come in once again. Developing Flow in alignment with your core values, gives you the dopamine to develop the Flow you need.

Flow is half of passion. Core values are the other half.

It may not be easy starting off, but like water wearing away at a rock, your core values can give you the persistence to develop Flow until it gets easier.

To Recap:

You are optimized for an ancient world but you live in a modern world, so:

• Don’t trust your feelings
• Reconstruct an ancient environment
• Use Hacks
• Consolidate activities
• Align with your core values
• Develop Flow

Thanks for reading my stuff,

MJ

P.S. If you want learn more about how to optimize your life, subscribe to my posts.