Why this idea means business : We introduce you to Instinctive Izzy. Learn what the instinctive part of your brain does for you. Read this to learn when and how to lean on your instincts.
It’s hard to picture what different parts of your brain do. You can’t see inside your brain, after all. Even if you could, all you’d see would be a bunch of brain cells sending energy bolts and chemicals to each other. Not that helpful.
So, to help bring to life what different brain parts do, we’ve anthropomorphised some of them. A fancy word for giving objects (like brain cells), human characteristics, feelings and behaviours. Let’s start with the quickest part of your brain : your instincts.
Meet Instinctive Izzy
Ever get that feeling that something’s not quite right?
Maybe you’ve just met someone new. On the surface, they seem nice. Yet something about them feels “off”. But you can’t quite put your finger on why.
Or you walk into a room, and though nothing seems out of place, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
That’s the instinctive part of your brain kicking in.
The so-called lizard brain lives in the cerebellum and basal ganglia at the back of your brain. It controls your reactions, your beliefs and your habits and is the oldest and least understood part of your brain.
When you get that “spidey sense” feeling, Instinctive Izzy is in charge.
Instinctive Izzy’s role
Instinctive Izzy’s role is to look after you.
Part caregiver and part warrior, they do whatever it takes to make sure you survive. Every part of your brain is important. But it’s fair to say without the Izzy part, you wouldn’t be reading this. You’d be dead.
Imagine Izzy as a cross between Katniss Everdeen, Ellen Ripley and Lara Croft. When Izzy’s in charge of your brain, you are not to be messed with. They protect you and look after your best interests.
You hardly even notice Izzy’s there. They’re like a discreet bodyguard, on constant alert for threats and danger. They also take charge when you’re exhausted, fearful or feeling out of sorts.
Instinctive Izzy’s story
Instinctive Izzy is your ultimate supporter. Their job is to make sure you stay on track. Even if that sometimes means overruling the Emotional Eddy and Logical Lou parts of your brain.
Izzy is like your bodyguard, mum and BFF all rolled into a tiny ball at the back of your brain. They keep you upright, keep you focused and sub-consciously hyper-aware of what’s around you. They’re responsible for all those things that you do without thinking.
Goals
Instinctive Izzy helps you live in the moment. They do what they think is best for you, right here, right now. Their ultimate goal is your survival. They want to make sure you make it through the next 30 seconds. The next 5 minutes. The next hour. Another part of your brain can worry about stuff beyond that.
They also want to help you fit in. For example, into your environment so you don’t stand out and look vulnerable to predators. Or within your social group so that you’re not seen as an outsider (though they let the Emotional Eddy part of your brain manage your social activities).
Instinctive Izzy also makes sure you feel safe. That you have shelter. Access to food and water. That you feel warm and dry. It’s why they’re on alert when you don’t have those things. Your instincts kick in when you feel exposed. Hungry or thirsty. Cold and wet. Instinctive Izzy steps in when you feel threatened and gets you to a physical place of safety.
Instinctive Izzy also knows you need to rest to keep your reserve energy levels up. So they make sure you feel comfortable. They help you find a seat when you’re tired of standing. A bed to lie down in when you feel sleepy. Warm, dry clothes when you’ve been out in the cold and the rain. They’re all about looking after you and making sure you’re ready for action when needed.
Summary of Instinctive Izzy goals
- Survival
- Fitting in
- Safety
- Comfort
Habits
Instinctive Izzy loves habits. Things you do without having to think. The instinctive parts of our brain drive all our habits, which is why it can be so hard to change them.
Izzy’s main habit is constantly scanning what’s going on around you. Like a sort of passive radar, they sense when something’s out of place.
They see the knife that’s about to fall off the counter. Hear the footsteps coming towards your front door. Smell the burning from next door’s barbecue.
You’re rarely aware of Izzy doing this until they tell your Logical Lou brain there’s something you need to pay attention to.
Of course, if there’s an immediate response needed (the logical brain is slow to make decisions), then Izzy acts for you. They use their best judgment. Grab the knife before it falls. Look through the spyhole to see who’s at the door. Check that smell isn’t something dangerous. Izzy judges the context and helps you act appropriately in specific situations.
In fact, action is really what drives Instinctive Izzy. If we relied on our emotional and logical brains all the time, we’d do far fewer things. Instinctive Izzy guides us through a whole bunch of day-to-day decisions that don’t require us to waste too much precious brain power.
Izzy’s all about being pragmatic. Making quick, practical choices to save your brain’s energy for the big decisions that do require lots of thought.
Summary of Instinctive Izzy habits
- Scanning
- Judging
- Action
- Pragmatism
Pains
However, Instinctive Izzy can’t do everything.
If our instincts were the only part of our brains, we’d never have evolved into the human race we are now. We’d never have explored or experimented. We’d have stuck to what we knew and shied away from investigating what we didn’t.
For all we rely on Instinctive Izzy to protect us, sometimes our instincts get it wrong.
Instinctive Izzy hates the unknown. They fear unpredictability and surprise. But both of those drive us to be more creative and innovative. Our Emotional Eddy and Logical Lou brains are much better at taking us to more exciting places and stretching our learning horizons.
Izzy also carries all of our biases. Those subjective ideas we believe that if we gave them more thought, we’d realise didn’t make sense. It’s why the Izzy part of our brain prefers people who think like us and rejects those who don’t. Our instincts often cause us to screen out opposite points of view even though those might be equally valid and open our minds to new ideas.
Instinctive Izzy also hates when our Emotional Eddy brain stop us from acting. Fear that makes us freeze up. Anger that causes us to ignore ideas from someone we don’t like. Sadness that triggers a melancholy where we don’t want to do anything. Instinctive Izzy has to fight hard to get us to do something when our emotions bring on inertia.
Instinctive Izzy also dislikes logical questions. Processing complex ideas and dealing with abstractions and hypotheses is distracting and hard. Let the Logical Lou parts of our brain deal with those. In fact, when faced with tough questions, Instinctive Izzy is more likely to lash out or run away (our fight-or-flight instincts).
Summary of Instinctive Izzy pains
- The unknown
- Biases
- Emotions
- Logical questions
Key influences
What influences Instinctive Izzy is mostly a mix of biological factors and learned behaviours.
For example, our genetics drive many of our reactionary instincts. At birth, we instinctively know food comes from our mother’s breast. We instinctively know that fire is hot and not to get too close to it. We know to be wary of spiders and snakes because our genetic instincts tell us that they might be dangerous.
Instinctive Izzy also manages our beliefs. Our view of how the world works even when there’s little logical evidence to back it up. Izzy picks produce from the back of the shelf as they believe it’ll be fresher. Izzy double-checks that the front door is locked even though you know you turned the key. And it’s Izzy who tells us that Politician X must be telling the truth and Politician Y is an orange-faced liar.
Instinctive Izzy also handles most of our habits. They love routine and predictability because these remove the element of surprise. It means they’re in control, and nothing bad can happen because they’ve done that thing before. The familiar journey to work. The weekly status meeting. Izzy is in control when we do things that are known and familiar, and that’s why you often can’t even remember doing those things. Izzy autopilots you through your habits.
These habits usually come from past experience. We do things that rewarded us in the past (good, e.g. exercise or bad, e.g. snacks) and avoid things that previously stressed us, e.g. standing up to bullies or doing our tax returns. Instinctive Izzy pushes us towards quick, easy wins and isn’t that helpful with harder tasks with longer-term payoffs.
Summary of Instinctive Izzy key influences
- Genetics
- Beliefs
- Habits
- Past experience
Online activities
Instinctive Izzy loves going online.
They love the constant stimulus and potential for instant gratification. So blame them for all of your online addictions.
That “48-hour flash sale” and “only 3 left at this price” deals are totally designed to appeal to the Instinctive Izzy part of our brain. Instinctive Izzy loves impulse shopping and hates to think we might miss out on a bargain.
They ignore the fact that there’ll be another flash sale along next week, and there’s probably a good reason that stuff’s being sold so cheaply. Instinctive Izzy lives in the moment. “Buy now” is their mantra when shopping online.
When not buying things, though, Izzy’s observation and scanning skills are always on. Doom-scrolling through the news and their social media alerts, making sure nothing bad is happening that’ll threaten you. Or, on the flip side, checking what’s trending to make sure you’re up to date. Instinctive Izzy knows it helps your status and ability to fit in when you’re aware of the latest news and gossip.
And for a bit of downtime online? Well, nothing beats a good old shoot ’em up for keeping your reactions in practice. Blast a few zombies here. A few killer Nazis there. Instinctive Izzy thinks you never know when fast reaction times might come in handy.
Summary of Instinctive Izzy online activities
- Impulse shopping
- Doom-scrolling
- Trend-following
- Shoot ‘em ups
Offline activities
Instinctive Izzy loves the old Scout motto of “Be Prepared”. They constantly think ahead and make sure that you’re prepping for the worst.
They write constant lists and make sure you’ve always got spare tins in the cupboard. Spare batteries in the drawer. And spare, clean underwear.
As we said earlier, they’re your mum and your BFF rolled into one, making sure you never get caught out or caught short.
Instinctive Izzy is also the part of your brain that makes sure you keep practising doing the things that are meaningful to you. As we said earlier, Izzy loves habits and routines – that’s what practice is. Job skills, hobbies, sports, housework, socialising. Whatever floats your boat, Izzy keeps you on track to keep doing it.
That matters because when you really need to perform those skills – a tough challenge at work or entering a competition in your hobby or sport, Instinctive Izzy takes over and helps you perform at your best in the moment. You don’t need to take time to (logically) think about what to do because Instinctive Izzy’s already on the case.
Of course, the downside to all this constant environment scanning is that Instinctive Izzy lives in a regular state of mild paranoia. Always ready to panic that something bad is going to happen, even when your Emotional Eddy and Logical Lou brains say otherwise.
When Izzy gets it right and prevents disaster, it’s great. But they can also stop you from taking risks and learning from new experiences. The key to your instincts is letting them take charge only when needed. But making sure the other parts of your brain get a fair go when there’s no immediate threat.
Summary of Instinctive Izzy offline activities
- Prepping
- Practising
- Performing
- Panicking
Conclusion - Instinctive Izzy - The warrior deep down in your soul
We all have our own version of Instinctive Izzy inside us, even though we don’t all have exactly the same instincts. That’s because we all gather different habits, beliefs and experiences as we live our lives.
It’s what makes the human race so rich and diverse.
But deep down, what our instincts, our Instinctive Izzys, do for us is universal.
They look out for us. They help us survive and thrive in whatever life throws at us. Trust them to look after you in the moment, and you’ll rarely go wrong.
But for longer-term personal growth, taking a few more risks and making life more exciting, make sure they’re not the only part of your brain you listen to.
Check out our gut instincts article for more on this. Or get in touch if you need help getting more out of your own inner Instinctive Izzy.
Photo Credits
Woman peeking out from bush : Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Calendar (adapted) : Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Man crying : Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash
Woman looking at phone in dark room : Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash
Woman writing in a journal (adapted) : Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash
