Is Your Brain Working Against You?
When you first set a new goal or launch a new venture, your brain always fights you. This is true for one key reason. And that reason holds the secret to turning your brain into a stunningly powerful ally.
The reality is that you have available to you the most powerful super computer ever created. It can work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you program it properly, it will work for you day and night, when you are awake and when you are asleep. And, you carry it with you all the time.
This powerful super computer is your own brain, especially the subconscious part.
At some point, you may have heard something like this:
As humans, we use less than 10 percent of the capacity of our brains. If we were able to use the full capacity, we would be able to accomplish greater things than Einstein did.
This is one of those things that is true if we let it be true. However, it’s not as hard as you may think to begin using the other 90 percent.
The challenge is that, since it’s an organic, analog computer, programming your brain is different than how you might install software on your laptop or tablet. In order to understand how to program your brain, you need to understand a few things about how your brain works.
What We Now Know About Your Brain
The reality that we now know is this: 100 percent of the massive power of the brain is available to us now.
However, most people do not understand how to actually access this phenomenal potential power.
One of the most important things that we now know is that the conscious part of your brain controls much less of your every-day activities than was previously understood — perhaps as little as 2 to 4 percent! That 2 to 4 percent is very important. But, it means that we need to look to a different part of the brain in order to understand why we do most of what we actually do every day.
Your Conscious and Subconscious Brain
The concept of a subconscious brain has existed in modern science for over a century. What has been taught about the subconscious brain has varied quite a bit over that time. Scientists knew that the subconscious brain plays an important role in what we do. But they originally understood it to be a more background role.
We now know that the capability of the subconscious part of your brain is staggeringly powerful.
- Impulses in the subconscious brain travel at speeds of 100,000 miles per hour. This is about 800 times faster than conscious thought impulses, which travel at about 120 to 140 mph.
- The subconscious part of your brain processes about 400,000,000,000 bits of information per second. Your conscious brain processes only about 2,000 bits of information per second.
- Your subconscious brain stores and remembers one hundred percent of everything it ever perceives or experiences, forever. Your conscious brain can typically remember random facts for only about twenty seconds, unless there is some special stimulus to remember them for longer.
- It is nearly unstoppable at achieving goals.
However, the subconscious brain has two interesting limitations.
- The subconscious brain cannot set any goals on its own.
- The subconscious brain has no concept of past or future. Everything is simply now to it.
These limitations are important to understand as we learn how to program the subconscious brain.
Your Brain’s Set Points
Your subconscious brain works in a very simple, yet very powerful way. It has a mechanism in it that works much like the thermostat for the furnace or air conditioner in your home. Once your home thermostat is set at, say 70 degrees Fahrenheit, if the temperature in the room falls to 68 degrees, the thermostat sends a signal to turn the heat on. If the temperature rises to 72 degrees, the thermostat sends a signal to turn the furnace off.
Your subconscious brain’s set point works very similarly. Suppose you have a set point that says you earn $1,000 a week.
If you begin to earn less than $1,000 a week, your subconscious brain will begin to scramble to help you get back up to $1,000 a week. The way your brain works sounds great so far.
However, if you begin to earn more than $1,000 a week, your subconscious brain will begin to compensate (in ways that may surprise you) to “help” you move back down to your set point of $1,000 a week.
The only long-term way to make more than $1,000 a week is to move your set point higher, to maybe $1,500.
Your subconscious brain has many, many different types of set points.
There may be a set point for the kind of grades you get (even down to set points for specific subjects). There may be a set point for the type of athlete, artist, or musician you are. There may be a set point for the type of personality you view yourself to have. There may be a set point for the opinion you hold about yourself.
All of these set points work the same. If you perform worse than where your set point is set, your subconscious brain will scramble to help you improve your performance. But, if you start to improve beyond your set point, your subconscious brain will compensate to bring you right back down to where it thinks you should be.
Reversing the Haphazard Programming
Here’s the scary thing.
Up until now you have been programming your subconscious brain’s set points in all these areas haphazardly at random settings, without even realizing it.
You may have said something like, “Dang it, I just don’t test well.” The more often you say that, and the more emotion you attach when you say it, the more firmly it gets programmed as a set point. And from then on, your subconscious brain will bring its entire super computing capacity to work, 24/7, to make sure that you don’t test well.
It almost sounds like an evil plot, but it’s actually something you’ve done to yourself simply because you weren’t aware of how your brain works.
Well, we want to change that now, and have you start purposefully setting your brain’s set points exactly where you want them to be.
Reprogramming Your Subconscious Brain
In his seminar talk, Success Principles, Jack Canfield describes an experiment from the early days of NASA. NASA fitted a group of astronauts with goggles with concave lenses that turned their view of the entire world upside down.
They did this in order to provide a stress-stimulation similar to what the astronauts would experience in space for long periods of time. The astronauts wore these goggles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the whole length of the experiment. And, they experienced all the challenges that you can imagine would be associated with their upside-down world.
Then, on the 25th day of the experiment, a remarkable thing happened to one of the astronauts.
His world suddenly turned right side up again.
He hadn’t removed the goggles. His brain had simply adjusted its visual set point and changed the astronaut’s perception of the world to the way the brain knew it should be. Over the next five days or so, all the astronauts experienced the same thing — their brains adjusted and turned their perception of the world right-side-up, even though the goggles they were wearing were still presenting the world to their eyes upside down.
What we learn from this experiment (and others that have followed it) is that it takes 25 to 30 days for the brain to form new neural pathways in order to accommodate a new set of programming. This is also the amount of time it takes, as a general rule, to program your mind with a new habit, goal, attitude, or belief.
Whether it is happening on purpose or without thought, all habits, goals, attitudes, and beliefs that exist in your subconscious brain get there in the same basic way.
Over and over, we impress upon our subconscious brain a concept with one or more of these three elements.
- Frequency
- Sensory Vividness
- Emotional Impact
All three don’t need to be present at the same time, but if all three are there, then the neural pathway is stronger and lasts longer. Frequency is the weakest element and emotional impact is the strongest.
This process has happened haphazardly in your brain for all of your life until now, in order to create the habits, goals, attitudes, and beliefs that you currently have.
From here on out, we want to harness this process purposefully in order to draw upon the power of your subconscious brain in order to achieve any goal you set or venture your undertake. As I mentioned earlier, we want to use the conscious brain to create and define the goals and beliefs that you want to have, then consciously program the subconscious brain to achieve those goals and beliefs.
We’ll start with a basic four-step method, and move on to more advanced techniques later on. We’ll talk about each of the four steps in detail, then come back and summarize them.
When you actually perform this exercise, make sure that you have with you your picture of your millionaire outcome and the affirmations that you wrote in your Millionaire Binder. These affirmations will be the initial set points we want to program into your subconscious brain. Later, you can define other set points on your own.
Then, find a place where you can be comfortable and undisturbed for ten to fifteen minutes.
Step One: Prepare the Brain
The first step is to prepare your brain.
Your brain actually has four gears or speeds that it runs in. Each gear is characterized by the patterns of brain waves that we can measure using medical equipment. And, each gear is better equipped for different types of brainwork.
As part of step one, preparing your brain, we want to put your brain into its second gear, the Alpha waves. This brain state will help your programming and conditioning move more easily into the subconscious brain.
The process of preparing the brain is done using a very simple breathing exercise.
- Sit or lie down in a position that is comfortable for you and close your eyes. Take a couple of slow, deep breaths to let yourself relax.
- Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Focus your thoughts on your breathing. If your thoughts wander, guide them gently back to focusing on your breathing.
- Continue this for seven minutes (use a timer).
That is all there is to it. As a general rule, after the end of focusing on your breathing for seven minutes, your brainwaves will be in the Alpha pattern, which is where we want your brain to be for the next three steps.
Step Two: Set the Emotion
The thing that is most effective when programming your subconscious brain is to create as strong of an emotional association with your affirmation as possible. Step two is all about setting that emotion within the brain.
You may be able to create a strong emotion about your picture of your goal all on its own. For some people, though, projecting an emotion onto a future state of being isn’t easy. Fortunately, it is possible to link the emotion of an event from your past to the affirmation you will program about where you want to be in the future.
The process is simple. You picture in your mind an event from your past that you associate strong, positive emotions with. While you are still experiencing that emotion, you move to step three and four to complete the programming process. Your subconscious brain will associate the strong emotion together with your pictured image of your millionaire outcome as if you had actually experienced it.
To prepare for this step, think back through your experiences to a past experience that was just a great experience for you. Find one where things went very well for you, and that every time you remember it you feel a strong positive emotion. A good example is one that represents a big accomplishment, with emotions of triumph, exhilaration, and a strong depth of feeling.
This is your emotional linking event.
To actually perform step two as part of the programming process, finish your breathing exercise then bring your emotional linking event to mind. With your eyes closed, live it in your mind again. Feel the feelings of achievement and triumph that are associated with it. Experience again the exhilaration and excitement that makes this a powerful experience for you. Then, while that emotion is still strong in your mind, move on to step three.
Step Three: Live the Outcome
Once you have your emotional linking event in mind, and are feeling the emotion of that original event, bring to mind your desired goal, belief, venture, or outcome.
With your eyes still closed, live your outcome in your mind.
Picture it as vividly as you can, using all your senses.
- Hear the sounds that make up your picture.
- Smell the fragrances and aromas associated with your goal.
- Attach movement and action to each event.
- And all throughout, feel the emotion of your linking event, associating the feelings of triumph, achievement, exhilaration, and excitement to your picture of financial prosperity.
After two or three minutes of living and experiencing your goal or outcome, move on to step four.
Step Four: Declare the Affirmations
Step four is to declare your affirmations.
The process of declaring your affirmations is simple.
- Read the affirmation
- Experience the affirmation
- Feel the emotion
Repeat this for each affirmation on your list. This will only take five to ten seconds for each affirmation.
As you read each affirmation, read it aloud if possible. Otherwise, read it silently with as much conviction as you can.
Live and experience the affirmation with as much sensory color and action as possible.
If, for example, “taking the state freestyle swimming championship” was one of your affirmations, then experience that championship meet in your mind with as many of your senses as possible.
- See yourself walking out on the pool deck.
- Hear the sounds of the crowd and the pool waves lapping back and forth.
- Feel the roughness of the starting block under your feet and the breeze on your face and the cap on your hair.
- Smell the aromas and fragrances unique to swimming pools.
- Experience yourself coming in to finish on that last lap, hitting the timer switch and looking up to see the rest of the swimmers coming in still.
- Live yourself standing on the podium for the awards ceremony, and the exultation you feel emotionally while you are standing there.
Sums of money are particularly difficult to visualize, since money can take so many forms and can be in so many denominations — it can even exist as nothing more than an electronic transaction.
Two things can help with this.
First, as part of an additional paragraph that goes into detail about your affirmation, describe what that money will mean to you.
Second, include a lot of action in your visualization.
Rather than simply trying to visualize $100,000, for example, see yourself updating your transactions in your money management software and the balance updating to $100,000. Or, picture yourself opening the envelope with your latest bank statement and reading the balance on the statement. Or, visualize yourself using a calculator to add up the latest deposits in your savings account register.
After you have read and experienced each affirmation, come back in your mind to your emotional linking event. Attach the emotion of that event to the affirmation that you just experienced.
Then, repeat this process for each of your affirmations. This should only take 20 or 30 seconds for each affirmation.
The Process in Summary
Here’s the whole process again in summary:
Step one: prepare the brain through the simple breathing exercise.
Step two: set the emotion by bringing your emotional linking event to mind and reliving the triumph, achievement, excitement, and exhilaration to mind.
Step three: live the outcome by living and experiencing in your mind your own millionaire outcome.
Step four: declare the affirmations.
a. Read the affirmation aloud, or at least silently with conviction.
b. Experience the affirmation by living it in your mind.
c. Feel the emotion by linking the affirmation to your emotional linking event.
That’s it — four simple steps and ten to fifteen minutes of your time each day.
Remember the experience of the astronauts and their upside down world. It will take about thirty days of daily and consistent reprogramming. During that time you won’t see much progress, and may feel some discomfort or perhaps even a bit of agitation as old programming is conditioned out by new programming that may be hugely different.
But, after you have consistently followed the process of reprogramming your subconscious brain for the full thirty days, you will see a shift in your own circumstances that is as dramatic as having an upside down world turn right side up.
Set an appointment with yourself in your calendar for fifteen minutes at the same time every day for the next thirty days. If you are not able to do it at the same time every day, then set an appointment with yourself for every day, at whatever time will work for you.
Right before bed is the best time, since your subconscious brain will be able to use the powerful theta waves of REM sleep to solidify the new neural patterns.
First thing after waking up is next best, since you will still be in the alpha wave state of recent awakening.
Doing this exercise at the same time every day will be the most powerful, but remember that the system is forgiving. It is less critical when you do it or how you do it, so long as you are doing something every day for the thirty days.
What To Expect
You should expect a couple of things as part of the process of programming your subconscious brain.
First, you should expect some mental discomfort and perhaps some internal questioning about your outcome and affirmations.
This is the case because of the nature of the reprogramming process. During the thirty days or so that you are doing the reprogramming, your subconscious brain still has the circuitry of the old program etched in its neural pathways.
While the reprogramming is going on, both the old program and the new program exist together in the brain, and the subconscious brain’s thermostat or regulator will experience some dissonance in trying to determine which program to follow.
The reprogramming itself actually happens because of the discomfort the new program brings into your brain, and the brain’s attempt to reconcile the discomfort. So the discomfort is a critical part of the process.
Especially after a couple of weeks of the programming process, you may find that you are feeling frustrated. The initial excitement of starting the process will diminish, but you won’t see results yet.
Recognize that this is the subconscious brain’s regulator mechanism doing its job to keep you on track and make sure that you are certain that this new program is the one it should follow.
Refocus on making sure that you are following the process consistently, every day. And, review why it is that you want to make these changes in your programming. Whatever you can do to stoke the excitement and emotion of your picture will help you continue forward.
Second, as you are doing the breathing exercise of the four-step process, you may find your mind wandering in a way that is exploring ideas of how you can achieve elements of your picture of financial prosperity.
Stop, write down any ideas that come to mind, then gently guide yourself back into the breathing exercises.
These ideas are evidence that the new neural pathway is forming, and that the subconscious brain is beginning to run the new program. It is delving into its massive data banks to locate what it has stored there that will help you achieve the neural pathway’s new goal.
By paying attention to these new ideas and acting upon them, you reinforce to the subconscious brain that the new program should replace the old program.
Setting a new goal or launching a new venture can be scary by itself. And, the way your brain fights you from the beginning can make you doubt your resolve. But understanding how your brain works, and working with it, can turn your brain into a staggeringly powerful ally in getting where you want to be.
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