Why most of your attempts to change, do self-development, therapy, and coaching won't work
Last week I wrote a post about how most of your attempts to do self development don’t and won’t work. I got a LOT of great feedback on it and folks asking for more information - so I thought I’d write a bigger post.
And it’s true. I stand by what I said.
Most of your interventions around personal development - whether it’s going to therapy, reading self-help books, working with a life coach, or whatever it might be - won’t work. Not long term.
Yes, you‘ll likely feel a buzz and sense of excitement at the initial changes. You’re doing something new. It’s cool. It’s exciting. You’ve got your mojo fired up and your motivation is high.
You show up with discipline at the early stages. You’re keen. You’re motivated.
And then… a few weeks down the line, you’re noticing yourself be a little bit less disciplined. Your energy is down a bit. You’re enthusiasm is dropping.
Before you know it, you’ve forgotten to do the very things you said you would do.
You’re slowly rolling back to square one - back to where you started.
And so you feel bad about it. You might feel shame. Disappointment. Or maybe you just blame whatever the intervention was: your therapist, the coach, the book. It didn’t work.
I get it. I’ve been there. I’ve tried so many times to enact change and ended up back to where I started.
But the thing is - this isn’t strictly your fault.
When you’re trying to will all of this - when you’re trying to make this change happen, 9 times out of 10, you’re engaging your conscious mind. Your conscious effort. Your willpower. You’re trying, right?
Because that’s what the intervention is giving you.
The therapist is giving you things to think about, process, explore. Things to consider changing.
The coach is giving you deliverables to go out there and do, to achieve. New ways of being.
The self help book is giving you some exercises to practise, some thought experiments and things to consider.
Heck, even the retreat is giving you a few days to immerse yourself into a new way of being and then get out there back into the real world and practise being that way.
The thing is - all of this requires willpower and conscious effort.
All of this is using your conscious mind to create change.
And what we know from neuroscience, is that the conscious mind is only 3% of your behaviors day to day.
Yes, you heard me:
3%.
Your subconscious mind, meanwhile, is a whopping 97% (give or take depending on which study you read). Yes, the subconscious mind drives 97% of your behaviors. Every. Single. Day.
Now, why is this important?
Well, we know that the subconscious mind is responsible for most of your day to day, right?
And we also know that your subconscious mind is something you very rarely are consciously aware of.
It’s something beneath your conscious mind (the ‘sub’).
It’s something that you can’t really ‘control’.
You can’t control it because you’re not aware of it.
What do I mean by this?
What I mean is your subconscious mind is everything beneath your conscious thoughts. The inner workings of who you are. Your brain sending signals to keep your heart pumping. Your brain remembering how to get home, how to drive. Your body remembering how to walk, movement. Your memories. Your dreams. Your inner wants, needs, desires.
Your subconscious mind is everything that lies beneath your conscious thoughts. And heck, are you even aware of your conscious thoughts? Probably not, since we think roughly 60,000 thoughts per day, and your subconscious mind is processing over 1 billion (!!) bits of information EACH SECOND.
Meanwhile your conscious mind - your awareness - is only processing around 40 bits of information each second. And it’s definitely not keeping score of all the 60,000 thoughts you’re having.
So why is this important?
It’s important because it means that 97% of what you are doing each day is basically an autopilot response - an automatic, subconscious behavior that you are not aware of and have no control over.
And that’s the key thing - you have no control over it.
So trying to use your measly 3% effort of conscious thought over 97% subconscious operating mechanism is…just….pointless.
Moreover, what if I told you that in that 97% of your subconscious mind is a load of information, associations, interpretations, understandings, conclusions…bits of information you’ve gleaned and gathered from birth…that you never actually chose?
Your subconscious mind is a collective amalgamation of ALL your previous experiences, your childhood upbringing, what your parents said to you, the society you live in, the culture you are in, the heartaches you’ve had, and so on?
AND what if I told you that until the age of 8 years old, your brain is basically incapable of rejecting information - you’re so young and like a little sponge that all you can do, biologically, is absorb everything around you, passively, because you don’t have the brain wave capacity to create independent thought yet - so you’re just like a little sponge soaking in everything around you?
And that includes the traumas, the wounding, the arguments you saw your parents have, the emotional neglect you felt when they didn’t run to your cries, the hurt from falling over in the school playground and getting laughed at by the other kids…all of that pain…all the garbage from TV commercials, Hollywood films, advertising… and so on…all of that junk is lodged in your brain? In your subconscious mind?
AND, lastly, the final thing I’ll add - what if you knew that your subconscious mind is ALWAYS trying to get your needs met (because that is what it does) and it’s doing so with the only ways it knows how…which, given you absorb all the garbage around you in society from a young age, are often not the most effective ways? In fact, a lot of these ways are just ways you saw as a child….? And, because this is subconscious stuff that you’ve never really examined (because no one ever taught you how to), you’ve still got those coping mechanisms and behaviors as your autopilot ones? E.g. shouting at someone gets their attention so in a conflict, heck yeah, you’re going to shout. Or eating icecream is going to make you feel better, because - well - advertising. Or, crying and having a temper tantrum with your parents gets them to take pity on you, so next thing you know you’re having a temper tantrum with your partner as a subconscious way to get them to take pity on you?
With all of that - does it not make sense that it’s virtually impossible to change consciously?
Of course it’s fricking hard to lose weight when your subconscious mind has associated sugar with comfort, gym with sweat and expenses (plus maybe getting judged by others), and health food with being ‘fussy’ - and your subconscious mind needs to keep you feeling included, safe, and comfortable?
Of course it’s hard to speak up to someone you’re dating and assert a boundary when your subconscious mind has associated speaking up with conflict and fighting - and it needs to keep you feeling safe?
So of COURSE none of these interventions work.
You’re set up to fail when you’re just working with the conscious mind.
But that doesn’t mean you’re doomed.
Far from it.
In fact, this is a pretty cool insight that gives you a competitive advantage over the rest.
Because what it means is that - if you can learn to work with your subconscious mind and effectively ‘hack’ it - you can get results faster than most people.
Which, depending on what you’re trying to do - can be useful.
And, if we’re talking about changing the way your love life is going and getting you into a happy, healthy, secure, meaningful relationship - that means you’ve got a super useful tool to work with to get you there faster.
Your subconscious mind
The beautiful thing is - there are ways to hack it. There are ways to befriend it. There are ways to work with it and to make this all to your advantage.
And honestly, they’re kind of fun once you know how.
This is precisely what changed my life so drastically all those years ago.
Once I realised that all the therapy, coaching, reading, studying I’d been doing was at a purely conscious level - and therefore, surface level - I finally understood why I hadn’t been getting the results I’d been seeking.
I finally understood why I’d ended up in an engagement that I had to call off. Why I kept finding myself in the same pattern of dating the same type of man and having the same type of issues. I finally understood the role I played in this.
And I was able to change it.
I was able to reclaim my power and agency over my life, by befriending my subconscious mind and making it do what I needed it to do. Which was:
Process and release the garbage of the past and the junk of societal messaging that was keeping me stuck
Reveal to me exactly who I am at my core and what I need to be happiest
Realign my life to be in greater integrity so that I wasn’t forcing anything, or feeling like I’m climbing up a hill - but that things were working out for me, easefully, effortlessly, and almost as if by magic
I discovered how to communicate with my subconscious mind, instruct it, tell it what to do, and get it done.
And so I did.
And fast forward a few years of working with my subconscious mind, and my life looks so radically different.
I feel empowered. I feel confident. I feel clear.
I trust myself. I know I am capable. I know I have everything within me to get the results that I am seeking.
My finances, my business, my lifestyle, my health, and of course, my relationship with my husband is better than I could ever have imagined. And I’m not trying to be triggering or provoke you here - I am telling you the truth.
Because I want you to understand that YOU CAN HAVE THIS TOO.
And you don’t need to invest into endless therapy, or coaches, or read a million books. Or go on endless retreats or ingest tonnes of plant medicine.
You just need to learn how to hack the subconscious mind and make it work for you.
Which is precisely what I learned - and have since trained in. And helped tons of successful executives and entrepreneurs learn to do too.
Everyone gets phenomenal results - and they feel transformational changes within weeks.
I can teach you the same thing.
Because when you learn to do this: you can apply it to EVERY area of your life. Your relationships - yes. Your finances - yes. Your career - yes. EVERYTHING.
I specialise in helping you transform your relationships, and we can do this together.
You can then take the same tools and techniques to transform the rest of your life too - it’s all available to you.
You can become a master of your own life.
And you deserve to.
And this is what most interventions - heck, I’ll go so far as to say 95% of interventions out there, don’t teach you this.
Because people baulk at neuroscience, and they baulk at subconscious mind work. ANd to be honest, most interventions want to keep you dependent on them for results. So you keep coming back for more.
That is the opposite of what I want. I want you to learn this, get the results, and move on with your life. So you are your own master. Your own guru.
SO here’s to learning how to do things efficiently and properly - to not wasting time on things that don’t have impact or get your results - and making 2024 be your best year yet.
If this resonates with you, you should watch my free Training on how to create your best relationship yet this year. It’s totally free and I talk about the 3 phase process I teach my clients which uses subconscious mind hacking as well as other incredible tools, to get you the relationship you want and deserve.
