It depends on whose numbers you want to believe, but roughly 95% of our behavior is beyond our conscious awareness. Your subconscious files away your memories, experiences, perceptions, and insights and maintains them far beyond the recollection of your conscious mind.
These past experiences and revelations have a tremendous impact on your beliefs, habits, and general behavior.
Programming the subconscious mind is a powerful tool for altering behavior!
Using these strategies will help you program your mind to benefit your mind, body, and soul:
1. Affirmations. Everyone is familiar with affirmations. These are positive statements that you repeat to yourself each day. Affirmations can be powerful, but they must be used correctly:
- Avoid affirmations that are clearly untrue. Your subconscious is flexible, but it’s not willing to seriously consider the ridiculous. Repeating, “I am a billionaire,” is too factually untrue to be accepted by your subconscious. “My financial situation is improving rapidly” is easier to swallow.
- Use imagery and emotions to really sell it. See yourself as thin, financially successful, or selling your first novel. Generate the same emotion you would have in that situation.
- Repeat your affirmations 3 sessions per day for 5-10 minutes each. Right before falling asleep, right after awakening, and any opportune time during the day are ideal times. For example, if you want to strengthen your confidence, repeat the affirmations when you’re feeling self-doubt.
2. Subliminal technology. There is software available that flashes subliminal messages on your computer screen. These programs can run all day long without your awareness. You can use the affirmations included with the software or write your own.
- There are also audio programs with positive messages embedded in the music beyond your ability to consciously recognize.
- There’s a lot of controversy surrounding the usefulness of these programs. Since so many are available for free, there’s no harm in giving them a try for a month. See what happens.
3. Hypnosis. You’ve been hypnotized many times. You probably just didn’t view it as hypnosis. When you’re totally engrossed in a book or movie, you’re hypnotized.
- Hypnosis is just a state of intense concentration with reduced awareness of what is happening in your immediate environment. In this state, you’re more suggestible. In other words, it’s easier to influence you or to change your mind.
- There are many books, audio programs, and videos that utilize hypnotic techniques. Many people find these highly effective, while others seem less impressed. Again, give it a try and determine if it’s worth your time.
4. Meditation. Meditation is a great way of concentrating your focus. Meditation creates a mental state that opens the mind to new ideas. Meditation can be learned quite effectively from books and videos. It does require practice to become skilled, so this isn’t a quick fix. 3 Minute Meditation
5. Visualization. If you’re good at visualizing, you can convince your subconscious of nearly anything. A convincing visualization is viewed by your subconscious as an actual experience. For example, if you visualize yourself giving successful speeches, your subconscious will become convinced this is a skill you possess.
- Again, the best time to use this process is right before falling asleep and upon awakening in the morning. Visualizing is easier and more effective at those times.
We are only aware of a tiny portion of what our brain is doing at any moment.
Our brains are dealing with far too much information for our conscious mind to process. The brain is controlling body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, digestion, concentrations of various salts, neurotransmitters, hormones, and far more sensory data than we’re aware of.
The same is true for our behavior. In theory, the subconscious mind controls 95% of our behavior. It only makes sense to address this 95%. There are several ways to program the subconscious. Pick one and see what you can accomplish!