Steve Peters Biography & Quotes

“Achievement and satisfaction are dependent on the sense of purpose. They can come from a career, work or leisure activities.”

Purpose Work Achieve Satisfaction Leisure Career Fulfill

Author:Steve Peters

“Your Chimp is likely to have very high expectations of others. Recognise this and replace them with Human expectations.”

Human Expect

Author:Steve Peters

“The Human recognises that although everyone has different abilities and looks, everyone is equally valuable as a human being. The Human also recognises that trying to impress and keep others happy, in order to be popular, is not a good basis for living life. The Human believes that all you can do is your best. The Human also believes that the values that count in life are not based on looks, achievements or possessions but are based on values such as honesty, integrity, kindness and consideration.”

Life Kindness Integrity Achievement Human Value Impress Popular

Author:Steve Peters

“Beating yourself up is a useless and damaging process and it is also a CHOICE. You don’t have to do it. Ask what good is it doing? Also ask is this the way that you want to deal with yourself? You can choose to look more objectively and see what you can do to improve, or accept the way that you are, with a smile. Things won’t get better by attacking and demeaning yourself. Relax and encourage yourself instead.”

Smile Choice Relax Accept Encourage Improve Beat

Author:Steve Peters

“You can choose to look more objectively and see what you can do to improve, or accept the way that you are, with a smile. Things won’t get better by attacking and demeaning yourself. Relax and encourage yourself instead.”

Smile Relax Accept Encourage Attack Improve Demean

Author:Steve Peters

“Laughing at yourself, or situations, is one of the most powerful ways to remove stress from the Chimp.”

Stress Laugh Chimp

Author:Steve Peters

“If appropriate try laughing at yourself or at the situation – it’s better than crying.”

Situation Cry Laugh

Author:Steve Peters

“Learning to get perspective and to laugh at yourself is the most powerful thing you can do.”

Power Perspective Laugh

Author:Steve Peters

“When you ask people who are older about their experience with their first driving test, they often laugh about failed attempts because they perceive failing first time as unimportant. It was merely an inconvenience and didn’t have anything to do with their self-esteem, and probably not even how well they would ultimately drive!”

Self Esteem Laugh Fail Unimportant Test

Author:Steve Peters

“One approach to life that is guaranteed to help you to be happy is to learn to laugh at yourself and keep a sense of humour, whenever you can. Again, this is an Autopilot in the Computer of happy people; it is a learnt behaviour. If you take yourself too seriously then happiness can diminish.”

Happiness Humour Serious Happy Laugh Learnt Behavior

Author:Steve Peters

“Be sure you have realistic expectations of yourself. Remember: the values you hold in yourself are likely to be far more important than what you look like or what you can achieve.”

Achieve Value Realistic Look Expect

Author:Steve Peters

“A true self-image will be based on how much you are living out your values.”

Value Self Image

Author:Steve Peters

“Having realistic and helpful expectations of the world that you live in and the people that you share it with will reduce stress levels considerably.”

Stress Helpful Realistic

Author:Steve Peters

“Humans need healthy minds. There are a number of ways to keep your mind healthy. Some examples include intellectual stimulation and challenge, laughter and fun, purpose and achievements. Making these happen will bring your mind into a healthy state as long as you don’t overdo it and stress yourself! Laughing and having a sense of humour can be the best tonic that you can give your mind. Try to see the funny side when things don’t go according to plan. Learning to laugh at misfortune and at your self is a learnt behaviour, a strong Autopilot, and one worth developing.”

Purpose Fun Achieve Healthy Intellectual Laughter Stress Challenge Plan Misfortune

Author:Steve Peters

“So if you are stuck with thoughts such as trying to keep everyone happy, always trying to impress others, always needing to get approval or worrying about what others think, then it is likely that your troop drive is out of control. Sit down and redefine your troop. Decide who is in it.”

Worry Please Control Approval Impress Troop

Author:Steve Peters

“Many people suffer emotionally because they are constantly worried about what others think of them and they would love to just live their lives and not be concerned.”

Worry Concern Live Suffer

Author:Steve Peters

“An empathy and understanding of what others are going through and altruistic, selfless support for them are the hallmarks of a developed society.”

Society Empathy Selfless Understand Altruistic

Author:Steve Peters

“In its severe form, this is not uncommonly seen when a person has such low self-esteem that their Chimp allows their partner to beat them up, physically or psychologically, and then remain with them. Learn to recognise what is happening and work with their Chimp’s emotions and learn to build self-esteem and self-respect to replace insecurity. This is not an easy task and professional help is often needed.”

Self Esteem Self Respect Insecurity Beat

Author:Steve Peters

“There are a number of aspects to consider when looking at ‘who you are’ and how this promotes happiness. We could consider them as a ‘being’ list. The ‘being’ list is made up of: Self-image, Self-worth, Self-esteem, Self-confidence.”

Happiness Self Esteem Self Confidence Self Worth Being Self Image Who

Author:Steve Peters

“They then beat themselves up because they don’t like this aspect about themselves. In reality it is not an aspect of them at all, it is merely an out-of-control Chimp that they can learn to manage. The woman is easily capable of making decisions.”

Decision Capable Manage Control Beat

Author:Steve Peters

“If you have become upset by something, let this be a prompt to check on whether your expectations are realistic and helpful regarding the situation or others involved.”

Situation Upset Helpful Realistic Expect Check

Author:Steve Peters

“Listen to the balanced majority who will be supportive and have constructive comments.”

Support Comment Constructive

Author:Steve Peters

“Check that the people in your world are able to be themselves and that you are allowing them to do this without judging them by expectations that are unrealistic.”

Judge Expect Unrealistic

Author:Steve Peters

“So understanding the person in front of you, and working with realistic expectations, will help you to help them and also stop you getting frustrated.”

Realistic Understand Expect Frustrate

Author:Steve Peters

“As the Chimp has based its confidence on giving a good talk and impressing people, it’s now severely lacking confidence and is looking to see what could go wrong. In contrast, the Human in Liz has decided that she will base her confidence on doing her best. The objective, therefore, is to do her best. She cannot control the level of the talk or what people think but she will be able to deal with these outcomes because she is an adult Human. Liz knows that she will definitely do her best, even if at the time it goes wrong and the talk is not quite up to scratch. It will still be the that she can do AT THE TIME of giving the talk. She cannot do better than her best. Therefore, Liz will definitely achieve her objective – ‘doing her best’ – and anything else is a bonus. With this approach she can relax and see the talk as an opportunity. Her confidence in doing her best is 100 per cent. Liz can also remember that she can reward effort rather than just celebrating achievements.”

Effort Achieve Best Impress Reward

Author:Steve Peters

“Never beat yourself up if you handle stress poorly. This is a useless and damaging bad habit. As a bad habit is just a Gremlin we can remove it. Try smiling, relaxing and coming back with enthusiasm. You can only do your best, so accept it.”

Smile Enthusiasm Relax Remove Best Accept Beat Come Back

Author:Steve Peters

“In the Human society, we don’t have sticks. Here, an ideal leader is the person who develops the group and encourages them. It is based on the principle that people are doing their best and if they are failing then it means they need more support, guidance or development. People prefer to be encouraged, supported and rewarded, rather than being beaten. Of course there are standards to reach and benchmarks must be set and the consequences of not reaching them clarified.”

Support Consequence Best Reward Encourage Beat Standard Stick Benchmark

Author:Steve Peters

“In reality every human being makes mistakes continually throughout life and does something silly at times. Learning to accept the fact that you are human with flaws and faults is a great relief. It means that making mistakes and errors is normal. Learning to laugh at yourself when you do something silly or when you say something amiss is part of life and being Human. I don’t know anyone who is perfect, thank goodness! Admit your mistakes and shortcomings, but do it with a smile. Also don’t be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.”

Reality Mistake Human Smile Silly Laugh Error Fault Flaw Shortcoming

Author:Steve Peters

“At times I hate myself for being so out of control.’ If Amy doesn’t understand how her mind works she ends up beating herself up and feeling bad about it. If she understands how her mind works then we have a very different scenario and interpretation. What really happened, and how it could have been interpreted more accurately, is as follows.”

Hate Accurate Beat Interpret

Author:Steve Peters

“Smile when you can. Depending on how serious the situation is, try to see the lighter side of it. Laugh at yourself if you have overreacted.”

Light Serious Smile Laugh Overreact

Author:Steve Peters

Steve Peters Biography

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