Moment 170: The Scientific Method For Unstoppable Confidence: Professor Steve Peters

In this moment, elite sport psychologist, Professor Steve Peters discusses the way to overcome low self-esteem. Often low self-esteem manifests itself outwardly in abusive relationships, the wrong career, and impulsive behaviours. Dr Peters says these are ‘maladaptive coping strategies’, where you are punishing yourself, thinking that you don’t deserve to treat yourself well, as you believe that you fundamentally don’t deserve happiness. Dr Peters says the solution can be as simple as getting a blank piece of paper and writing down who you want to be, and what behaviours you want to have. He says that this exercise works, as once you remove the interference of your mind, this person you hope to become is actually you, as you are defining yourself. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link/z1I1IZ8k9Kb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/8Mn7QU2k9Kb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Professor Steve Peters: https://chimpmanagement.com/professor-steve-peters/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  So if I'm thirty odd, you know, and I've got low self-esteem, I'm, you know, I'm thirty-three, got low self-esteem, and I came to you. Where would you begin with trying to help? And that low self-esteem was manifesting in abusive relationships, bad work relationships, very negative sort of feelings about myself and maybe even some impulsive behaviours. You know, I'm eating too much or I'm, I don't know, whatever. Where would you start with me?

• 0:29Steve Peters?

  Okay. The first, I mean, just so people say, oh, wow, that's a strange starting point. I'm a doctor, so the first is make sure you're actually okay.

• 0:37Steven Bartlett?

  I'm okay.

• 0:37Steve Peters?

  Because if someone were presenting with this, it could be in depression and that can present in many ways. Typically, it's low mood and loss of pleasure and everything and loss of energy. But that doesn't have to be, so I mustn't miss that. So I would make sure your mind is not ill, but only treatment. Now, we assume that this is longstanding and what you've done is you, what you're describing is a lot of maladaptive coping strategies. So I eat too much, which is probably comfort eating, or it's just habitual stuff that you're just not, you know, or it could be you've got so low self-esteem. I've seen this, you're almost punishing yourself. You know, I don't deserve to eat well and I don't deserve to eat the right things. So I deserve to be overweight or I deserve to look like this. So that could be the bottom bit.

• 1:20Steve Peters?

  So I have to start, my starting point is exploration. But the key to this would be to move all that to one side. If you're in a reasonable place where you can actually communicate, if not, I'll let you express it all. It's important you get it off your chest. If you've got it, you say, I don't need to do that. What I do is what I've seen in the book here. In A Path of Jungle, I explain, the starting point is get a blank piece of paper and write down who you want to be. What behaviours do you want to have? Let's define what you want, not what you don't want, not what you're experiencing. Don't start with a treacle. I call that the treacle. Start with a blank piece of paper and then write down the person you want to be.

• 1:59Steven Bartlett?

  I wanna be, I wanna be really confident. I wanna have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I wanna get married. I wanna have kids. I wanna work out every day. I wanna eat really good food.

• 2:09Steve Peters?

  Right. So what you're describing now is the human system. The great news is when I ask you for the characteristics you've got. So I wanna be calm. I wanna be happy. I wanna be confident. That is you. That is you.

• 2:22Steven Bartlett?

  How'd you know it's me?

• 2:23Steve Peters?

  Right. Because if we were, we can't surgically remove interference neuroscientifically, which we can see on functional marrow scanners. If we remove the chimp and computer system, then you're completely in control of yourself. So you would choose to be calm. You would choose to be confident. So therefore, that's you. The human system can choose. What happens is when you choose to be calm, the chimp system interferes, or the computer interferes and throws shows to the world someone who's not calm. So it's very important to recognize who you are before we start. So now we've got a guy, you're not gonna write, no one ever writes anxious.

• 2:59Steven Bartlett?

  No.

• 2:59Steve Peters?

  No one. They say, no, what I want to be is calm, collected, a good friend, have integrity. That is you if, if we didn't have interference in the machine. So it's very crucial. This is the biggest point in the book. The biggest point is to define yourself because now you've got, self-esteem can rise just on that alone. Once you've grasped that, you say, wow, what I'm presenting to the world is interference. It's not me. If I didn't have this machine, I would not have anxiety because that's a system that you say in the human system can't do anxiety. It's not built to do that. It's built to be rational and calm. But what it wants to do and how it wants to present is a choice. The chimp has no choice. The computer

• 3:42Steve Peters?

  has no choice. The computer's programmed, but these are interfering and presenting to the world someone who's not you. So it's very important to grasp that concept. That's my starting point. Now we've grasped that, we build on that. So now we, I know who you are. I'll say this, sometimes when you're with a friend and you've been chatting a while, and maybe it's got late in the evening, and you've got a lot off your chest and you've just go, you calm down. And sometimes the real you presents. And suddenly you feel at peace. People often say, I don't know, it's just now I felt totally relaxed and thought, I've got perspective. I gather the world's the way it is. I accept things are. And I've calmed down. And then suddenly you see the real person.

• 4:26Steve Peters?

  And they've got morals and values and not every human has. Sometimes the chimp's the good guy. Some, you know, sometimes the human's not nice. So I do get people who do not write, for example, who you are. They don't write compassion. They don't write integrity. They don't care. And if I challenge, say, you didn't put compassion, they say, I don't bother about that. So I have to work out who you are. Okay, so not everyone is going to write the same things. That's why I know it's you and not just a generic list.

• 4:55Steven Bartlett?

  Because someone could just be virtue signaling because you're asking me to do it or because I want to be these people. But really, I'm a, I'm a burglar, I'm a bad guy, you know, I'm, I want to hurt people.

• 5:03Steve Peters?

  Yeah, I'll tease that out.

• 5:05Steven Bartlett?

  How, how?

• 5:05Steve Peters?

  That's my job. Cause again, then you look at evidence based and you look at remorse, you look at whether somebody compensates for mistakes. You look, there's a lot of things, I want to see the history here.

• 5:15Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 5:16Steve Peters?

  And then I'll challenge that and challenge it. So that's a series of talks. So often we have a long time when we detain someone to, to explore this, so we don't get fooled.

• 5:24Steven Bartlett?

  Is this in you, you talk referencing much of your psychiatric work here within psych hospitals?

• 5:29Steve Peters?

  Yeah. So somebody is psychopathic, we generally, everyone's different version of what it is. For me, a neuroscientif, we know there's certain tracks in the brain that are not really fully developed or don't function. And this produces someone without empathy, without remorse, without any conscience. These are classic. And so I don't know that, I'm not a mind reader, I can't tell until people talk. You know, so yes, they could deceive me, I have to just go on what they tell me. But I can listen carefully to the words of the user and listen to what they're saying and look at their past life events. And it starts to unravel. So eventually you think, okay, I know what I'm dealing with now. So, but to be honest, people don't do that with me. What you tend to is, cause I, I would hopefully set a scene where I don't care what you write.

• 6:14Steve Peters?

  I don't care what you want to do with your life. It's not for me, I'm not a judge. I'm here as a doctor to explore this with you and get insights for yourself. So the most people are not psychopathic. We're decent people who've just got lost in the way the neuroscience of our mind has tumbled us. So my starting point, when you gave me all this, was to say, let's write out the real you. And let's start building ourselves on that and recognizing what is not us. And let's start unpicking it. So let's just start saying, right, why would you have? And we went earlier about low self-esteem. Let's look at why you have that. First, it's natural and healthy. That can help people. Sometimes just saying that, they go, that's amazing. I feel better for knowing it's natural and healthy. Maybe rubbish and unhelpful, but at least I know it's healthy.

• 6:58Steve Peters?

  And there's not something wrong with me. Because the second you start saying, oh, I'm trying to please people and I can't say no. And you see that as being a weakness or a fault, we're in trouble again. Because you're muddling yourself up with a machine. So that's my starting point. Who are you? What's the machine doing? All of this, anything the chimp does, anything it does is natural. There's nothing you're going to give me, even if it murders someone. That's what chimps do. They're violent. So it's still illegal and not acceptable. But I'm saying, everything's natural. So that puts us on a different way of looking at it. Again, to try and give context to that, natural isn't always good.

• 7:41Steve Peters?

  So overeating is natural, but it's not good. And even like the classic one I always use with parents and teenagers, I always say, if you've got, said it this morning with someone, if you've got a teenager who's got a tidy bedroom, that's what I want to meet. If they're messy bedroom, great, that's normal, you know? So you're more concerned with teenagers that aren't being teenagers. So if you've got a teenager who never lies, then it's a bit worrying. Maybe they're good at deceit. Because teenagers are learning to lie and they're learning to defend themselves. And it's a natural of doing it. It's not health and hopeful the growth of it. But you've got to say, what's natural? And let's work with that to minimize risk or whatever we want to do.

• 8:23Steve Peters?

  So there's a long-winded way of saying, you know, get you to be yourself, get your machine. Let's see what the machine's doing and let's change the coping strategies. But accept the machine is the machine.