The Voices You Hear Might Be Saying The Wrong Thing

As I've talked about before, we (our conscious minds) are bombarded by thousands of messages every second. And believe it or not, most of us never hear them.

Where do those messages come from and why can't we hear them? Well, because most of the time, they are doing very little more than simply re-enforcing the behavior that we so naturally live in our lives.

It's just like if I were to beat a drum at a rate of 2 beats per second really loudly, and you were able to sync up with my beat in another room, with a different drum, I wouldn't ever know you were even there.

We wake up when the messages tell us to.

We eat when the messages tell us to.

We do, all day long, what the messages tell us to do.

That is how the subconscious and conscious mind work. We think we are doing what we choose to do each and every minute of the day. But, 99% of the time, what we are doing is more driven out of habit and or life patterns, than of conscious choice.

Normally, when our lives are going the way they always have, this isn't a big deal. Because the messages are in-sync with our conscious thoughts and actions. But. . . when we decide to change something in our lives, or things in our lives are suddenly changed for us, things become a lot tougher.

Going back to the drum beat example, imagine if I were to change my tempo and you didn't. Yep, you guessed it, your presence would suddenly be known to me.

This change causes the messages from our subconscious and our conscious actions to begin to conflict with each other. And there are two results that can occur:

1. You ignore your subconscious pull to your past methods, knowing they don't apply any more. (I accept that our beats are out of sync and I begin to teach you . . . over time to follow my pattern).
2. You revert back to your old habits, ending the changes that you start to experience. (the consistency of your beat at a rate of 2 beats per second, overcomes my desire to be different and I start following your lead, to stop the noise).

Our Subconscious Mind Doesn't Care What We are Doing

The subconscious doesn't care what you are doing, that's not a concern of it. The present doesn't matter to it - nor does current reality. It wants you to do what you were doing - what it's trying to get you to do . . . is get you to do what you did yesterday.

Your subconscious likes repetition. It likes habits. And it hates change.

So every time your life begins to deviate slightly from its past patterns of behavior, you feel a conflict. And that conflict is tough to overcome.

Overcoming the Change . . . Or Not

The first couple days / weeks you are trying to change, your sheer will to make it happen often is enough to keep your subconscious mind from winning the battle. But as your focus dissipates (as it nearly always will over time), the pull of your habits becomes stronger and stronger.

Good news is that eventually, you can build new habit patterns - new ways of thinking and behaving in a given situation. But the bad news, is that the "old patterns" of thought never completely go away - although their influence does decrease over time.

The hardest part of creating change in your life is that the messages become "louder" (more obvious), the more out of sync with your old behavior you get. You can call it self-sabotage, or self-destruction, but the simple truth is that what your subconscious mind is trying to do is simply do what it's supposed to do - keep you safe and alive using the same patterns of thought that have gotten you this far.

It doesn't know if your new patterns are working or not - it just keeps trying to maintain the status quo.

It doesn't want to create failure in your life - it just wants to keep you moving forward the same way you got to where you are.

Breaking Through To The Other Side

You've seen it before in failed diets, attempts to turn over a new leaf, or stopping any behavior that you know is habitual, but is causing you serious harm in your life. Every time you start to make big headway, you hit a barrier that you can not break through - you hit a invisible wall.

The wall isn't really there, it just feels like it is, because the influence of your subconscious is so powerful.

In order to break through the personal barriers, you must keep you eyes on the horizon and your conscious mind on your goals. Don't let the voices (messages) dissuade you. Don't let them turn you around - they grow loudest just before they start to fade.

Stay focused and keep moving forward.

Your Outlook Will Define Your Day - Your Life

Sunrise on a Monday Morning

What is your day going to be like today? Have you decided?

I've never been a big fan of Mondays. In fact, my Mom used to tell me that I was allergic to Mondays, since I tried my hardest to avoid going to school after the weekend.

It's not to say, that in many ways that I wouldn't rather sleep in on Mondays (especially since I'm usually up by 4:30 am, to provide coaching to my clients), but actually, I look forward to Mondays now. Mostly because since I started coaching I look at the week as a new beginning, instead of "long time until the weekend again".

Outlook is everything.

How you face your day will have as much impact as the circumstances you face throughout the day. How you choose to look at life will, for the most part, determine the way life impacts you.

If you have a positive outlook, thankful for the opportunities you face (counting your blessings) you will most likely see everything as an opportunity and make wonderful things happen for yourself both today, and in the coming week.

But (and this is tough), if you wake up on a Monday, and have the attitude of 'gotta get through this day' or I wish this day was over, then you will most likely look upon everything that comes up as a challenge.

Things will come up today, and every day forward. You have seen that time and time again. You can look at each day as an opportunity or as a burden to get through. Your attitude won't change the circumstances, directly, but it will change how those circumstances impact your life.

If you choose to find the positive in situations, then you will find happiness and opportunity in every situation.

If you choose to find the negative in situations, then you will find bitterness and feel failure in every situation.

Choose what you want your day to be!

Choose how you are going to handle every situation that presents itself to you!

. . . And then make it happen.

Don't Let Your Feelings Dictate Your Life

How are you feeling today?

Far too often we let our feelings drive our lives. We let how we feel dictate what we do and how we act. We feel good one day, and it becomes a good day. We feel bad the next, or not up to the task, and sure enough, it comes true.

Unfortunately, being beholden to your feelings, leaves you beholden to your past . . . and to your subconscious mind . . . not to your vision and your goals.

So instead of letting your feelings drive your actions, let your goals drive your actions. Rather than responding to how you feel, respond and drive yourself based on what you want.

What You Want Needs To Be The Driving Factor?

Ever start a diet because you "want" to loose weight, get trim, and feel better about yourself. - only to do good for three days, and quit, because you weren't feeling better about yourself.

Did you stop wanting to loose weight?

Did you stop wanting to get trim?

Did you stop wanting to feel better about yourself?

Usually not. Your goal didn't change. You just gave-in to the feelings of not wanting to do the work any more. Not wanting to work out. And certainly not wanting to feel hungry any more.

You Can't Count On Feelings

Feelings need to follow your actions, not lead them. But they take time - and are rarely predictable 100% of the time. Our feelings are rooted all too often in mixed messages and crossed wires in the memories of our past.

Our goals are rooted in the future.

Don't follow your feelings.
They will lead you in circles, often right back to where you started.

Feelings are confusing.

Often anger is confused with fear. Often hope and infatuation is confused with trust and love.

In the case of the diet above, you should not set a goal to feel better about yourself . . . because how you feel is often too easily impacted by many outside factors - things outside of our control.

And besides, feelings are not measurable and often very related more to how I felt 10 minutes or 10 hours ago, than any set standard. So it is often tough to tell how much better you feel from one week to the next - or from one year to the next.

Sure, you can set a goal of losing 10lbs or 2 inches from your waist, and you can say that you should feel better because of that, but there is no guarantee that you will.

In fact, you may feel that given all the work you did, you should feel better than you actually do, only to cause you to give up on any further efforts.

Let Your Goals Drive Your Actions

Bottom line, follow your vision and your goals . . . and they will lead you to where you want to be, even in the midst of tumultuous feelings.

And besides, and you've heard me say it 1000s of times - Let Your Goals Drive Your Actions.

Set your goals - make them what you want, not what you want to feel. The feelings will follow, if your goals are truly what you want.