Your subconscious mind is so powerful it can take over something as complex as driving an automobile across town while you’re busy concentrating on something else.  It’s especially interesting to note that your conscious mind has little or no memory of the trip. For all you know, there could be a stream of mangled stop signs and frightened pedestrians in your wake.  The nature of your subconscious mind is such that things are happening without your awareness or conscious judgements or even memory.

Whenever possible, your conscious mind hands off tasks to the subconscious mind which is capable of most tasks.  The problem is, while your subconscious mind is highly capable of managing familiar tasks, it is not so good at critical or logical thinking. It frequently makes decisions  based on old, outdated information sometimes dating back as far as early childhood. I’m not sure about you, but my critical reasoning skills as a three year old were limited.

Your subconscious mind is great at managing to walk across the room because you’ve mastered all the muscular coordination, balance, and visual input to manage without your conscious mind having to engage in higher reasoning skills.  Your subconscious mind stores information from past experiences so it can refer back to that information when it is on autopilot thus avoiding consulting with the more rational conscious mind.

This process works well for things like walking across the yard, driving to the mall, or negotiating daily routines at home and work.  The problem arises when the subconscious mind is running programs that are based on incorrect assumptions based on past experience. When you were a child, your parents made most of life’s important decisions for you because you were incapable of considering all the important variables. If your subconscious mind has held on to the judgement that you were not competent to make decisions, you may have crippling insecurities about making decisions as an adult.  It is very likely that you also picked up some strong beliefs about authority figures and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships during your early childhood as well.

If you think of your mind as a computer, what happens when your subconscious mind has a virus?  What if your subconscious mind is managing tasks like communication with coworkers, customers, supervisors or family members but is doing so based on past experience and old, outdated programming? Strained relationships at home and at work are often the result of outdated programming or, even worse, a destructive mind virus.

Psychologists estimate that most of our lives are lived on autopilot. Some individuals find themselves repeating patterns of dysfunctional relationships, unsatisfying career decisions, and unhealthy lifestyle choices. Those less than optimal situations most people find themselves in usually have their origins in faulty programming in the subconscious mind.

Just like knowing your computer has a virus isn’t enough to improve its performance, mind viruses have to be removed.  It takes more than just an awareness of a virus to get rid of it.  In the case of a mind virus, you have to identify it AND challenge its validity in order to get rid of it.

I frequently talk about asking yourself empowering questions as a way of breaking out of self-defeating cycles and patterns.  “What other way can I look at this situation?” is a powerful way to break out of old habits of thinking.  It sounds simple, but admitting to yourself and others that perhaps your current way of looking at the world is flawed is one of the most difficult things you ever do.

Notice I did not ask, “Is there another way?” Phrased that way, the question may lead to the lazy response, “No, there isn’t any other way to look at this.” An open-ended question will illicit a more productive series of possibilities.

Opening yourself to other points of view is powerfully liberating and may cause you to realize just how self-defeating it can be to live on autopilot.  You may suddenly realize you’ve been making decisions based on misjudgments and incorrect assumptions.

Go ahead, use your subconscious to drive to work or walk across the yard, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships it’s best to disengage your subconscious autopilot by not assuming so much.

 photo credit: Crispin85

Working in the mental health field for nearly 20 years, I’ve grown accustomed to asking people if they hear voices other people don’t hear. Truth is, we all hear voices in our head no one else hears.

We’re usually so acclimated to the voices in our head we barely even notice them. Hopefully, we can distinguish between the voices in our head and those of the person standing 3 feet away.

The voices in our head can be constructive or destructive. Sometimes the voice we hear in our head is the voice of our mother, father, grandparent, aunt or uncle. Sometimes the voice is a critic and sometimes its a fan. Sometimes the voice is like a play-by-play announcer just describing what it observes or the color announcer that provides opinions and commentary. The voice may be like a close friend giving advice; the advice is sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Otherwise known as our inner dialogue, these voices are often our worst enemy. Political cartoonist Walt Kelly once said through his character Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The instant we’re exposed to a new idea, person or situation, the inner dialogue begins judging the new stimuli based not on facts but on past experiences and expectations. Like an opinionated friend, our inner dialogue sometimes gives us bad advice.  Past experiences and expectations are so powerful, unless you are very careful, you’ll make decisions using faulty data based on history and preconceived ideas rather than on the facts.

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

Our inner dialogue has good intentions. Making judgements based on past information saves time and energy. If a metal object is glowing red, chances are, it’s hot and will burn if touched with the bare hand. Having to re-discover the pain and discomfort caused by touching hot objects with your bare hand would be disastrous to the survival of our species.  Likewise, the stern look from your father means he disapproves of something you said or done.

Conditioned responses are sometimes accurate and provide us with helpful information in the decision-making process.

EXPECTATIONS

Our expectations also have an enormous influence on our perceptions and decision-making process. A colleague who is acting strangely might in fact be angry at you for some reason OR she may be upset about something entirely unrelated to you. If you’ve had negative experiences with colleagues in the past, your brain is primed to see signs of impending negative experiences in the future. When we look for the negative in others, we can usually always find it.

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

There is a popular drawing that contains the image of both a young and attractive girl AND an older, much less attractive woman. At first glance, people typically report seeing one or the other. It usually isn’t until the opposing figure is pointed out that most people realize the drawing contains both an attractive young woman and an old hag. Our past experiences and expectations influence our perceptions of the images we see in this visual experiment. Our mental programming also influences how we treat new people we meet and even new ideas that challenge our way of doing things. Our experience of the world is unavoidably colored by our past experiences and expectations.

TAKE OFF THE BLINDERS AND TALK BACK

Our inner dialogue is, more often than not, highly opinionated. It also has a limited view of the world through what amounts to dark sunglasses.

Imagine meeting a young woman but treating like the old hag some people see in the image. Or, meeting the elderly woman but treating her like the beautiful young woman other’s see in the drawing.

Knowing we have a tendency to judge the present and future based on past experiences and expectations is the best tool we can use to build a better life or business. One of the most powerful things you can do to improve your life is to routinely ask yourself, “what other ways can I look at this?”  It doesn’t matter who you are, your perceptions are WRONG more often than you realize or may be willing to admit.  By remaining open to different ways of looking at people, situations and ideas, you free yourself from self-imposed limitations.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? It is simple. In fact, it is so simple many people I work with are hesitant to even try it at first.  We tend to look for big, spectacular ways to improve our lives when in reality, it’s the cumulative effect of little things that hinders us the most.

 photo credit: R. Smith Photography

Dale Carnegie once said “When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”  Sounds negative, yes, sometimes the truth doesn’t tickle the ears and sound pretty but truer words were never spoken.

The sooner you are able to get out of your head and leave behind your preferences, desires and ways of doing things the better off you’ll be.  Getting into the heads of others and looking at things they way they do is the most important thing you can learn to do.  Sales people, at least the good ones, recognize this and usually make an attempt to understand potential customers before trying to sell them something. -And yes, it’s possible to overdo that by getting overly friendly and familiar with your subjects.

I think its important for everyone to engage in this practice.  It doesn’t matter with whom you are dealing, a solid understanding of what motivates others and careful assimilation of those factors into your interactions is the most important thing you can do to ensure productive human relations.

I don’t care that you have one blue thingie left and you sell it to me at a deep discount. I hate blue and it reminds me of my ex-wife. If you had taken the time to learn about my preferences you’d know that.  How do you learn about my preferences and worldview?  Ask a few questions then SHUT UP and let me talk.  Most people enjoy talking about themselves, their accomplishments and their worldview. Problem is, you are I share that fondness for talking about ourselves and always find ways to work ourselves back into the spotlight.  In the meantime, while you’re mind is busy thinking of what to say next, you miss key elements of what I’m saying.

Your customer doesn’t care that you’ve had a hard day and you’re short staffed and nobody knows how hard you work…bla bla bla. Oh sure, maybe your momma cares, and  your therapist -as long as you pay your therapy bill but for the most part, customers what what they want, when they want it, for the reasons they want it and as conveniently as possible.

The most successful people in the world are those who can set aside the human tendency to focus on ourselves to the detriment of missing what other people are saying, thinking and feeling.  You and I prefer to do business with companies and individuals who obsess about my needs, desires and worldview.  Showing me you understand me starts with actually understanding me then addressing my needs as if you’d rather serve me than breathe. I’m sick of businesses and professionals that think “build it and they will come” is enough. I’m not alone when I stand up and demand “IMPRESS ME”.  Trust me, if you’re little local shoe store doesn’t carry the extra wide shoes I need, I’ll sit at home and order from zappos.com.  You can whine and moan all day but you’ve left me with no options. The internet and a handful of merchants who obsess over customer service are making survival more difficult for local merchants who worship at the altar of mediocrity.

Mr. Carnegie’s advise can and should be applied broadly.  It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about relations with customers, colleagues, family members, friends or lovers; focusing your attention of the ‘other’ person as if the world revolved around them is the easiest way to influence them. Your attempts to genuinely understand the worldview of any human being you encounter will be rewarded with better relationships.  It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell me a pair of shoes or trying to convince me to mow the yard; the secret to influencing another human being begins with setting aside your worldview and adopting mine.

photo credit: drewzuckerman

I recently read a statistic which indicates as many as 75% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned within a week of New Year’s Day.

Albert Einstein once said “you cannot solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.”  The problem with New Year’s resolutions is it takes more than just making a quick list of things you want to change.

You may genuinely want to lose weight. The problem is, the short-term pleasure of eating junk food and sleeping late overpowers your desire to adopt a healthy lifestyle conducive to weight loss. What would happen if your doctor told you, “adopt a healthier lifestyle or you will be dead in 30 days.” Could you do it? Of course you could! The immediate threat of death over one’s head is a powerful motivator. Suddenly the pain of the end of your life is stronger than any short-term pleasure attained by living an unhealthy lifestyle.

Your present mindset and your reactions to life’s circumstances has set the stage for life as you know it. There is a constant dialogue going on in your head. This dialogue is so powerful and automatic most people barely even notice it.

Here’s how it goes: January 2, 2011 and your alarm is set to go off an hour earlier so you can go to the gym to workout or take a brisk jog around your neighborhood. Beep, beep, beep: wakie-wakie: up-and-at-’em Sunshine! At that instant, something happens in your mind that happens so quickly you might be too groggy to even notice it. Your internal dialogue quickly asks “Do I REALLY want to get up this early?” Unfortunately, the answer for the newly resolved exerciser is, “not today, maybe tomorrow.” Before you realize, it’s late December and time to make new resolutions.

The way to fulfill your resolution to get up early and exercise is to change your internal mindset and dialogue. What if the question that sprang to mind was something like “what’s the healthiest thing for me to do right now” or “how much better am I going to look and feel once I lose 20 pounds and have a healthier body?” To fulfill a New Year’s resolution to get up early and exercise requires a different mindset. It requires you interrupt your normal thought process that allows you to make excuses in the first place. Interrupting and replacing your internal dialogue isn’t easy but it can be done by deliberately focusing your attention on the existence of the dialogue in the first place. Once you are aware of your internal dialogue and how quickly and easily this dialogue sabotages your efforts to change, shifting that dialogue to a more productive and empowering line of questioning is much easier.

You mind is pre-wired to ask questions and immediately seek out answers to it’s own questions. The trick is, reprogramming your mind to ask questions that empower change.

We often think of success as something that is tied to big accomplishments, when in fact, an abiding sense of success is rarely tied to big accomplishments. That feeling of achievement is rarely felt just a few weeks or even days later. Achieved goals are, more often than not, followed by the setting of more ambitious goals and the trek toward the new ‘ultimate’ goal. It’s a vicious cycle that in reality, never results in a deep sense of contentment.

Research has shown that a deep sense of accomplishment is more likely to be felt by individuals with a steady stream of small accomplishments than those who express interest in only major accomplishments. Our internal sense of success is rarely tied to a specific event, positive or negative. Our self-concept is based more on our beliefs about who we are and what we are capable of achieving both at home and work. Certainly, specific events can be crucial, but it is our response to those events and not the event itself that is the determining factor.

Some of the most outwardly appearing ‘successful’ people in the world are up to their ear lobes in debt, have few deeply fulfilling personal relationships, and never experience a feeling of contentment. I coached and counseled hundreds of people who, despite tons of professional and personal accomplishment, are never happy and never able to just enjoy and afternoon off without feeling guilty because they aren’t chipping away at that ever-present to-do list.

Success is, plain and simple, an internal feeling of contentment that no accomplishment, job, amount of money or person will ever give you. If you don’t feel successful where you are right now, no amount of accomplishment will be able to give that to you.

You cannot look at a person and discern how successful they are any more than your outward appearance is any indication of how successful you are. Despite what you see in TV commercials, success is truly an inside job.

Sheryl Crowe put it best in her song Soak up the Sun, “Its not having what you want, its wanting what you’ve got.”