Did you ever feel like you’re thinking something else and doing something else? Like the brain that is making decisions, different from the one implementing it? Well, not exactly, but somehow it’s true. Because our brain has two parts, the conscious one and the subconscious one. The mind that makes the decision and actively thinks is the conscious mind, whereas the subconscious mind is the one that acts out of the thoughts analysed by the conscious mind. The conscious mind is the active part that is responsible for logical thinking and the decision-making process. It acts actively at present and is responsible for about 5% of our daily activities. Whereas the subconscious mind is the one that runs silently in the background and is responsible for all of the patterns that we follow, and it is also responsible for our emotions and habits. It’s the mind where our personal beliefs and feelings get stored. And almost 95% of our daily activities are influenced by the subconscious mind.
As we can see from the statistics, the subconscious mind often dominates the conscious mind. And usually when we decide to do something or plan something, we mostly fail in implementing it as per the plan because the decision was made by the conscious mind, which works in the present scenario out of logical thinking, but while implementing the plan, we get struck because the passively working subconscious mind is resistant because of some feelings or emotions stored in it. It’s like a chip that has all our emotions stored and all our feelings stored, and as a system needs an update or reprogramming after some time, similarly, our subconscious mind also needs to get organised and reprogrammed; otherwise, we will keep repeating some patterns in our lives all over again.
Conflict between the conscious and subconscious mind:
Have you noticed some unusual repeating patterns of making plans but failing while working on them? Most of us usually sleep with the setting of an alarm with the mindset of being responsible and disciplined the next day and usually end up sleeping with the alarm beeping, or some of us wake up with an alarm but only to turn it off and sleep again. In the morning the mind is more inclined towards comfort over growth, and it is resistant to a new experience and prefers to choose the already stored emotion of comfort. Now until and unless we alter the subconscious brain, these patterns will keep repeating themselves. But why does it happen?
Our subconscious mind stores each and every one of our habits, whether they are good or bad. For example, when we sit down to work, then our subconscious brain focuses on doing what we’ve practised more, such as scrolling social media. snacking or daydreaming. This is what results in feeling tired, as our mind is refusing to put the energy into work, and we end up feeling lazy before even starting. Our brain usually prefers to save energy until and unless it’s an alarming situation. When we start a new task that can be a bit challenging, our subconscious brain marks it as risky or unnecessary and chooses to rest more instead of completing the task. That’s when we keep procrastinating our simple tasks, and we unknowingly avoid hard work. Now we all are conscious enough to understand the value of our goals and day-to-day tasks, and we tend to complete them as well. But behind the light of consciousness there lies the shadow of our own emotions, which are resistant towards the feeling of achieving the target. Any past experience that has led to disappointment or some fear of getting failed and moments of self-doubt is stored in the subconscious brain, and when we try to get things done, our subconscious mind starts reprocessing these emotions and ends up feeling the disappointment, doubt and fear all over again.
On the contrary, our goal setter – the conscious brain – works with clear intentions such as “I’ll read 5 articles today” or “I’ll wake up at 5:00am in the morning.” It is the brain that, instead of avoiding the tasks, tries to hold us to our commitment. It usually visualizes the outcomes, analyses the results and makes steps accordingly. Ever found yourself thinking about getting the job of your dreams and making a plan to achieve it? It’s the conscious mind working behind it. Our conscious brain creates a road map to follow for the subconscious brain to achieve the goal by implementing new habits rather than being stuck to the same old patterns. Sometimes when we’re resting in our bed, we get a thought that maybe I’m resting more than required, and I should wake up now. This is the awareness signals sent by the conscious brain to interrupt the lazy patterns of the subconscious brain, and acting on these signals rather than ignoring them can lead to us going on autopilot mode with new energy as the old pattern has now been broken by the activity of the conscious mind. When we willingly start acting on commands of the conscious brain and start taking small steps deliberately, we break the lazy loop of the subconscious brain. Each small step taken by us now creates a new pattern or habit for the subconscious brain, which it gradually accepts and forms into a new healthy habit. And with time, while starting work, laziness got replaced by the determination of completing the task as we have reprogrammed our subconscious mind out of the old toxic patterns into new healthy ones as directed and planned by the conscious mind. This is the healthy balance between the conscious brain and the subconscious brain, which we need to practise.
Creating balance between both minds:
Our conscious mind and the subconscious mind both work on different operating systems, and that creates a clash between them. Our conscious mind will say that I want to wake up early at 5am because it’s aware of the present moment and taking deliberate actions after logical and analytical thinking. Our subconscious brain, on the other hand, works 24 hours without any consciousness. It is quite emotional and reacts out of habit and will say something like, “I like the comfort of my bed in the early morning.” Being responsible for the majority of our actions, the subconscious mind works on survival instinct and past memories. Even if we decide something today, we will resist it because of some programming that happened years ago. Some past traumas and failures are still inside our subconscious brain, which gets triggered every time we think about a change. Most people are not aware of this, and they simply accept themselves as lazy without realizing the subconscious brain activities.
For making a change, we must have the right balance between these two brains. And the first step is to be aware. We have to reflect daily on our activities, which of them are governed by the conscious mind and which are governed by the subconscious mind. Then, we have to install new beliefs inside our subconscious brain, and repeating healthy affirmations and visualising the outcomes helps in it. Daily, we need to challenge our subconscious mind by acting according to the conscious mind. Completing small tasks can eventually break the negative patterns of the subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind can be programmed when it’s relaxed; that's why proper rest and sleep management is crucial for maintaining a healthy balance between these two brains. Gradually, with the balance maintained, we’ll be more focused, practical and creative. Overthinking will be less, and we will function with emotional intelligence. We will not repeat the negative patterns anymore, and our growth and healing process will smoothly accelerate. And with outer productivity we’ll attain inner peace as well. It’s the small steps and actions that make the big impact.
“In the journey towards success, it’s the first step that feels heavy and risky. But with time and each move ahead, the road becomes more familiar, and the journey becomes easy, with destiny being clearer and closer.”