For so many entrepreneurs and online coaches, we set out to achieve big goals. We know what we want, and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to get us there, but sometimes we’re just blocked. We self-sabotage our own success and it keeps us from truly fulfilling our dream lives. I’ve been there, which is why today I’m teaching you how to reprogram your subconscious mind.
I personally feel very connected to this topic because I feel like I’ve been the poster child for self-sabotaging at times.
A specific time is when I graduated with a finance degree right into the Great 2008 Recession. It was May of 2010 and the economy was not doing very well. People in finance careers were getting laid off left and right. If you had a finance career and you’d been in it for a while, you were probably good. But if you had recently got your job, you were usually the first to go. High-paid professionals were getting replaced by less experienced people because they were cheaper. Then if you were a new grad, you were lucky to even get an interview. It was madness.
However, in my case, I did get an offer directly out of college with the company that I had been interning with.
I got the offer, but I ended up turning it down because I felt like my degree warranted a higher salary. In any normal situation, this would have been a good career call, and I’m all about expecting what you deserve. However, at that time, I needed to take anything I could get in my field and looking back, my ego was self-sabotaging my own success.
After enough times of looking back and realizing my mistakes, I saw that I had an issue with my subconscious mind.
My conscious mind would want to do one thing, but my subconscious mind would want to do another. I know this can be a hard concept to digest, it was for me at the time, so let me first explain the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind.
Your conscious mind controls around 5% of your daily activities.
Typically when you make a decision your conscious mind is doing that. If you are daydreaming and thinking about the past or you’re thinking about the future that’s all your conscious mind. Your conscious mind also processes information relatively slowly versus your subconscious.
The subconscious mind controls around 95% of what you do day-to-day.
That’s what’s required to breathe, swallow, blink, move your hands, your body — everything it takes to exist. You don’t have to think about it for it to happen. As there are hundreds if not thousands of mannerisms and functions your body is performing at all times, your subconscious mind obviously processes information much faster than your conscious mind.
They are two completely different aspects of our being, and yet it is imperative for them to be in synch in order to achieve anything.
In regards to self-sabotaging, your conscious mind is deciding one thing, but your subconscious mind is not on board with it. For example, if you consciously decide, “I am going to get out of debt”, but your internal beliefs are that you’re just not the kind of person that doesn’t have debt, you’re always going to attract more debt. Even if you’re saving like crazy and doing everything the right way financially, you can be subconsciously attracting unexpected bills, your car breaking down, expensive necessities, etc.
I see it all the time, and I’ve experienced it myself. With that said, how do you get your conscious mind and your subconscious mind to meet together? Here are my 3 tips on how to reprogram your subconcious mind.
The first thing that I do is I’ll get on board with my subconscious via activity.
For example, if you write the same word over and over and over again, do you ever notice that the word starts to look a little weird? What’s happening, is your subconscious mind is looking at that word and is starting to interpret it as the action. There gets to be a point when your conscious mind is not really seeing the word. It’s your subconscious mind that sees it and sees it as the action of actually writing and rewriting it.
Let’s say you were to write a sentence like, “I make good money decisions”, and you write that sentence over and over again. Your subconscious mind is doing the action of doing that writing. Then eventually even as you look at it, you will start to see something different. This process is ultimately called “scripting” and it’s the process of ingraining a belief or mantra into your subconscious.
The second thing that I do is feel any emotion along with the thought/belief I want to create.
If there’s a new belief that I want to create I will pair it with motion and emotion. My best emotions are when I’m really excited, or if I’m dancing like I feel I’ve got a lot of energy. In these scenarios, I might do something like have a dance party and say an affirmation over and over. I really find that physical motion adds a lot of strength to this exercise. The idea is to create a feeling around the belief to help associate it with a positive response. Think of it as bribing your subconscious.
The final way to reprogram your subconscious mind is to listen to audio while you sleep.
Your subconscious is most active and most impressionable right before you go to sleep and right when you’re about to wake up. It’s called a state of “beta” when your brain waves are in a “theta state”.
You’ve got your alpha brain waves, your beta brainwaves, your theta, and delta.
Delta is when you’re in that deep deep sleep where you’re not moving at all. The theta brainwave state happens right before you drift off to sleep. It also occurs if you’ve ever had a lucid dream where you kind of feel like you can control what’s happening, but you’re also still relatively sleepy. During these times I put on headband-like headphones and listen to mediations that promote the thoughts and beliefs I want to ingrain into my subconscious. Allowing my brain to be reprogrammed when my subconscious is the most vulnerable.
There you have it! How to reprogram your subconscious mind. Now I’m sure you’re realizing that I am very mindset-centered when it comes to my business. Yes I love a good strategy and I know all the ropes of online marketing, but without nourishing my mindset I would have never made it all work. I also know that what’s holding most coaches back from that 7-figure goal is their own belief system.