Burning Issues Mens Lifestyle & Home Money

This Instinctive Behavior Leads to Overweight and Debt

instinctive behavior
Written by Sean Collins

It’s not a sugary drink or bacon that causes overweight. Banks are not guilty of our debt. However, banks and the food industry are famous for exploiting one particular instinctive behavior common for every human being. They make profit and we are not even aware of it.

What is causing the overweight?

The difference between the ingested amount of nutrients and energy expenditure.

What’s causing debt?

The difference between income and money expenditure.

What’s the underlying cause of both?

The choice.

What is ‘choice’

It’s a mess in our heads occurring hundreds of time per day.

The ones of the lower intensity — simple choices like turning left or right or choosing between a hamburger or a hot dog — are not wreaking that much havoc. But they do cause the loss of time – the one thing you cannot retrieve or earn more.instinctive behavior neurons firing

The ones of the medium to high intensity, however, can seriously fuck up our lives.

Therefore, the choice is an abstract term that describes the neurological event inside our brains that’s been triggered by having two thoughts of the same weight in the same moment.

In other words, it’s the moment when the right cerebral hemisphere successfully challenged the left.

Our entire belief system (the set of principles upon which are living our lives) resides in the left cerebral hemisphere. The successful influence of the right one is causing the dissonance in communication frequency between neurons.

To restore the resonance or the optimal communication frequency between neurons, you have to “make the choice.”

But to reach the decision, you have to use the power of will which is yet another abstract term we are using to describe the effort of restoring the resonance.

Both of these mechanisms are part of our instinctive behavior or the sets of actions and responses that we are executing automatically without being aware of them in some instances.

How they use the choice to make money? How they cash in on our instinctive behavior?

Why do you go to the mall? Because you have plenty of choices meaning that you are able to pick between a couple of thousands “different” products.

You’re not going there because it’s cheaper than in your local store. It’s only illusion.

Do you know what is the first thing you do when you enter the store?

You look right.

That’s why they place the shelf with the most profitable products to your right. Human behavioral science is telling them that there is a good chance you’ll buy one or more of the showcased products because look how great they all are!

If you are having a hard time believing this, answer the following questions:

  • Do you ALWAYS stick to the list or do you buy few more — great to have/on discount — products when in a supermarket?
  • Do you stick to the list in some small store with not so rich selection?

More choice you have, more you’ll buy.

And how you’ll pay for that?

You’ll use your credit card because you don’t have sufficient amount of cash to pay for everything you need and yearn for and still survive to your next paycheck.

Why it’s hard to resist food or the rich selection in the supermarket?

Because we’re programmed that way. It’s our instinctive behavior.

From the dawn of our species, we are acting like every day can also be our last day so we better get/eat as much as we can and do it fast.

POP QUIZ: Name one supermarket that has the clock somewhere in the shopping area!

The brain learned from the scarcity of the past and managed to find the way to transfer that memory to generations using cellular memory as the carrier method.

  • A baby will almost drown in mother’s milk.
  • You’ll eat at least one slice more of that cake than you need.
  • She’ll take one more serving of French fries just to be sure.
  • You’ll buy that tool also because you might need it (and we both know you won’t).
  • She’ll get yet another new pair of shoes that she’ll wear only once in her lifetime.

We do that because we have the choice.

How to help yourself and screw both the food industry and banks?

Cancel all your credit cards and you’ll see how that choice disappears.

It doesn’t really matter if you’re walking between gazillion of shelves filled with different practical tools when you don’t have the option to pay for it.

You can see the most beautiful venison in that fridge, so fresh and juicy, but if you don’t have the money to pay for it, you’ll just walk away.

And this is where the bank steps in by offering you a neat way to have it all!

Buy whatever you lay your eyes on and we’ll split it on 3,6,12, hell maybe even 24 equal monthly payments so you won’t dry out. You only need to chip in 2-5% of interest rate or a small processing fee and you’re good to go.

The fact is: you didn’t even hear the last part of that proposal.

You can buy the fancy TV set, venison and a new pair of shoes for your wife all at once because you have your credit card with you. How lucky are you?

You did that because you had a choice: to buy it or to skip it.

But the impulse was just overwhelming and there was nothing you could do to resist it.

And that’s how we end up fat and/or in debt. We have a choice. And they know that.

The extreme steps that sometimes need to be taken to override instinctive behavior of a consumer

STEP 1

Cancel or hide your credit cards if you don’t have the needed discipline.

STEP 2

Manage your money in the following manner:

  • 60% goes to your current spending
  • 40% goes to the investments out of which:
    • 10% goes to short-term, high-risk investments
    • 10% goes to medium-risk investments
    • 10% goes to long-term investments
    • 5% goes to personal development (learning)
    • 5% goes to charity

Here’s the important part:

START MANAGING YOUR MONEY RIGHT NOW!

Even if you have just $10 in your pocket, start splitting that money according to the proposed money management plan.

This exact way of money management is what creates millionaires. Keep that in mind.

Sound impossible to live with just 60% of everything you make?

It is. And that’s the whole point. It will force you to make more if you stay determined.

Remember: it’s easier to train the willpower than muscles because you need only one exercise and one set of weights to train your will.

That one good habit will start creating the entire set of the new ones and you’ll put your life on a certain growth trajectory path.

About the author

Sean Collins

An investigative journalist with the thing for business, confidence, societal, and human behavior topics. The straightforward guy with the opinion that doesn't always agree with the mainstream. We call him Choozo. Cuz he's picky. About freakin' everything.