The Creative Subconscious is the action figure of the RAS. It has three main jobs: It maintains your sanity, it creates drive and energy and it resolves conflict.
Maintains sanity
The worst thing that could happen in this carefully orchestrated dance of your mind is for the mind to not trust itself. Imagine what chaos would result if you didn’t believe your own version of the truth. The creative subconscious will make sure that NEVER happens.
You know better than anyone else how you truly are, don’t you? Well the creative subconscious will make sure that you behave the way you know you are. It looks at your present self-image and makes sure that your actions match it.
This is why you cannot successfully break a bad habit until you change the way you think of yourself.
For instance, if you believe that you cannot control your overeating, if you should start to exhibit control, the creative subconscious will adjust your behavior to force you to act like yourself. It will cause you to continue to overeat.
You can do better for a short period of time, but the creative subconscious will do everything in its power to correct your behavior so that your action match your version of reality. This is how it maintains your sanity.
In order to maintain your sanity, the creative subconscious will sabotage your success.
You can only stop this process by changing your beliefs.
Creates drive and energy
Anxiety is energy in the RAS world.
When your version of reality and the outside world do not match, you actually get mad. This anger creates the energy to change but it is only available when things are not right.
We usually associate this energy with destructive (like when racist groups destroy a home if they believe that the minority living there is doing better than they should), but this energy can be manipulated to create positive changes in your life as well.
When you are not doing as well as you believe you should be, your creative subconscious will generate enough energy to fix the problem. Not only will it generate energy, it will also give you ideas on HOW to fix the problem.
This is why I always tell you to worry about WHAT you want to do. The creative subconscious will provide you with HOW once you create conflict between what you want and what you actually have.
You will only generate enough energy and ideas to accomplish what you want. After the goal has been met, no more energy is needed and therefore none is created. The creative subconscious is environmentally friendly.
Resolves conflict
If your version of truth does not match what is happening on the outside world, it is the creative subconscious’ job to resolve this conflict. It must fix this problem in order to maintain your sanity. All the creative subconscious wants to do is solve problems.
If there is no problem to solve, no energy is generated and no progress is made. In order to create movement, you must create a problem and the creative subconscious will fix it.
If you want to lose weight, you must believe that you are a thin person who eats healthy and exercises on a regular basis. When your creative subconscious looks in the mirror and sees you on the sofa eating a cream-filled donut and weighing much more than you should, there is a problem. Your vision and reality don’t match.
At that point you will get mad and you will begin to DO something about your situation.
Goal that is too big
If you perceive that your goal is bigger than you can handle, you will have anxiety. Your creative subconscious will look for reasons to lower your goal because it wants to reduce anxiety and return to normal.
This is one of the reasons that I recommend the kaizen approach, tiny little daily changes rather than one long-term change. It creates energy but you will not need to fight as hard to keep your goal.
Instead of wanting to lose 200 pounds in 6 months, why not set a goal of exercising for 10 minutes each day and losing 5 pounds in the first week? Then you can continue to increase your exercise time and the amount of pounds you wish to lose gradually – if you exercised for 10 minutes every day last week, what’s an extra 5 minutes this week? If you lost 5 pounds last week, why not try 6 this week?
Speaking of which, the weekend is upon us. Check back next week so I can show you how to put all of this RAS stuff into action to help you keep your New Year’s Resolutions, this time for good.
Related posts
- Mastering your thoughts
- The Realism Myth
- 5 Mind Games that Hold You Back
- Moving Across the Balance Beam
- Your Mental Thermostat
- Removing Mental Blindness
- How Big Are Your Dreams
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The Subconscious Mind Works Like a Computer (socyberty.com)
I love this. Great post.
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I’m still learning from you, but I’m trying to reach my goals. I certainly love reading everything that is written on your site.Keep the information coming. I liked it!
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