Your Subconscious is like a Garden
We’ve all seen gardens that are well-kept, overflowing with vegetables, a rainbow of fresh, healthy goodness. And we’ve seen the gardens that are overcome with weeds that are as tall as trees, with nary a vegetable in site.
Our subconscious mind is like a garden. It is soil in which we plant seeds. These seeds (thoughts) grow into ideas and bear fruit as actions. Ralph Waldo Emerson said:
Sow a thought and you reap an action;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
Something is going to grow in the garden of our mind and what grows depends on the seeds we plant. The seeds can be conscious positive thoughts that we purposely plant or it can be random thoughts from outside stimuli.
We give little thought to our subconscious, however it is the most powerful weapon in our arsenal to achieve our goals. Our mind is like an iceberg with the subconscious being the 90% of iceberg that is under water. It is what is unseen that is most important.
“The vast majority of the world focuses on the exterior. Enlighten men are interested in the world within. It is the world within, thoughts, feeling and imagery the make the world without (the outside world),” says Joseph Murray.
How our Subconscious Works
Our subconscious mind is a dutiful servant looking for ways to help us; to please us. Our subconscious protects us from harm (warning us thorough fearful thoughts) so that we don’t get our feelings hurt through rejection, or to stay away from danger.
How did our subconscious know to send us a fearful thought just at the right time when we were thinking of some action? It was because we have sowed seeds of fear. Keep in mind 80% of our thoughts are negative, so 80% of the time we send messages of fear, doubt, anger, jealousy, uncertainty. We are sending tens of thousands of negative messages a day. Our faithful companion, our subconscious has millions of negative experiences to call up and send to our conscious mind when it feels we need to be warned (fear). It is just doing its job.
You are what you think all day long. Whatever your conscious mind believes your subconscious takes as gospel. Your subconscious doesn’t try to reason or filter what the conscious mind tells it. Our subconscious is like a 2-year-old child. It doesn’t understand nuances.
We Feed our Subconscious mind over 10 million thoughts a year
According to Psychology Today we have between 25,000 and 50,000 thoughts a day, 70% of them negative. In 2005, the National Science Foundation published an article regarding research about human thoughts per day. The equates to between 9 million and 18 million thoughts a year. Of those, 80% are negative, 80 percent of thoughts negative and 95% are repetitive. This means we are repeating and repeating the same negative thought, creating a deeper and deeper ditch. The more we repeat these thoughts, the more ingrained they become in our subconscious.
Research has shown that “Deep down, it turns out that people are much more self-critical, pessimistic, and fearful than they let out in their conscious thoughts,” Negative Mental Chatter, says Raj Raghunathan, Ph. D., Associate Professor at the University of Texas.
Unless we take conscious action, this negative attitude permeates our lives. And it goes beyond just us. James Allen – writer of the classic self-help book As a Man Thinketh – says, “men do not attract what they want, but what they are.” We attract those that are like us. If we are negative, we attract negative people and likewise, if we are positive, we attract positive people.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
How to Use your Subconscious Effectively
Make a decision:
Choose to be happy each and every day no matter what. Lincoln said, “I have noticed that most people in this world are about as happy as they have made up their minds to be.” Focus on having a positive attitude. “Think good and good will follow. Think evil and evil happens”, says Joseph Murray.
Only feed good thoughts to your subconscious:
- Speak kindly to yourself. Don’t tell yourself “why can’t I do anything right”. Speak positively to yourself.
- Never finish a negative statement. Always reverse it and turn it into something positive.
- Never tell yourself you can’t do something.
- Never tell yourself you can’t afford it. If you do, your subconscious will provide rationalization to why can’t afford it. A better way to think of rationalization is “rational lies”. Lies we tell ourselves as to why we can’t have something.
- Determine what you want to put in your subconscious. Determine the vision of your life. What kind of person do you want to be? What type of life do you want live? Be specific. Feed your subconscious this vision.
Make your subconscious an ally
Our subconscious only want good things for us. It wants to protect us and keep us comfortable. Which means it will bring to mind fearful thoughts we attempt something that will make us uncomfortable. It wants to protect us from rejection or anything that will make us uncomfortable.
Ever set a goal to lose weight, eating right during the day, only to find yourself unconsciously snacking at night? Why does that happen? What causes it?
Your subconscious!
We are fighting against ourselves and are trying to achieve weight lose through will power and conscious thought to not eat fating food. We are doomed to failure without the help of our subconscious mind.
It’s important to program our subconscious with an image of us being slim and active, enjoying eating healthy food. Create the strong desire to be healthy and strong, enjoying every moment of our lives.
Have confidence our subconscious knows the answer
Our subconscious sends a constant stream of information based on the input we feed it. Our subconscious will work hard for us so put it to work productivity by giving it orders. Tell it what you want from it.
Believe that it will find an answer to a problem and it will. Believe that it won’t find an answer; it won’t. Our subconscious can be a very faithful servant, coming up with good solutions every time or it can be a horrible master, bringing up fears and focusing on negative thoughts, thousands of time a day.
Repetition is the key
With our natural inclination to have negative thoughts 80% of the time, it is important to consistently put empowering, uplifting thoughts in our minds.
Repetition faith and expectancy is the way to get good seed of a powerful vision firmly planted in our subconscious. This is where I have often fallen down. I started off spending time in the morning on a positive vision of what I want in life and the associated affirmations but didn’t stick with it. Why?
I wasn’t making that vision compelling enough in my life. I realized I need to change my mindset from one of a desire to start of my day with a focus on positive thought to one of “I must incorporate the right attitude and a powerful mindset in my life no matter what”. I must set aside time. Nothing is more important. I must invest the time daily for visualization and programming my subconscious with the right thoughts. As Dr. Murray said, “Change your thought and change your destiny”.
As you get into the habit of daily programming your subconscious continually checking in with yourself and directing your thoughts toward the positive, it will eventually become second nature.
How to Start Your Day
- Tell yourself as you are falling to sleep that you will have a good night’s sleep; will wake up fresh and ready to go.
- As soon as you wake up, get out of bed; no snooze button.
- Start with being grateful for what you have and what you will have.
- Picture your long-term goals (e.g. receiving a check for $50,000 from a speech or seeing your book at the top of the New York Times Best-Seller list). Relax and breathe deep as you picture this. Picture how the upcoming day will be. How you manage yourself throughout the day from a positive, assertive state.
- Invest 10 minutes in something inspirational whether it is a book, audiobook or video.
- Spend a few minutes journaling ideas or thoughts.
- Head out to have a fantastic day.