Have you ever found that you know what you want to achieve, you set goals, practice visualization, and affirmations, and you work hard for your goals, but in the end, fail to achieve them? One of the main reasons people fail to achieve greater success in life is because they don’t know how to reprogram their subconscious for success.
You have to understand that what you want is one thing, and having it is another.
You can set goals to become financially free, but subconsciously, if you’re not programmed for financial success, then guess what, you’ll never achieve your financial goal.
No matter what it is that you want to achieve in life, money, relationship, career, business, etc., as long as if your subconscious mind is not in alignment with what you want, you will sabotage your success and then fail.
I know you want to achieve success in life, everyone does. But you need to ask yourself:
- “Am I worthy of getting the results I want?”
- “Do I deserve the success I want?”
- “Am I the right person to attract the success I want?”
It is not about working on the success you want; it is about working on yourself so that success comes to you.
Conscious VS Subconscious Mind
We all have been conditioned to believe what we see.
We, humans, operate with 2 minds: the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. And most people only aware of their conscious mind.
Whatever you see, you believe. That’s your conscious mind in operation.
Your subconscious mind, however, operates without a filter. It will accept whatever that you throw at it…
When your father told you that making money is hard, you believe it.
When your mother told you that rich people are greedy people, you believe it.
When you saw your uncle went bankrupt because his business failed, you believe that starting a business is risky.
That was how most of your beliefs and subconscious thinking were created.
Everything that happened around you or things that you have experienced, will shape your beliefs through subconscious conditioning.
You have to understand that it is your subconscious mind that runs most of your life. You may consciously think that you are the one who is consciously making the decision and are in control, but it is not.
Your subconscious mind is in control. And the life you are living right now is the proof of this.
Conscious mind: I want to get married and build a loving family.
Subconscious mind: Love leads to pain and suffering.
Result: Failed relationships and being single.
Conscious mind: I want to start my own business and make a lot of money.
Subconscious mind: Rich people are greedy, money is evil, and building a successful business means having no time for fun and relax.
Result: Failed in business and broke.
Conscious mind: I want to drive a luxury car.
Subconscious mind: Driving a luxury car means arrogant and showing off.
Result: Still driving an old car.
Can you see the difference between your conscious and subconscious mind now?
In order to achieve the success you want, your subconscious thoughts must be in harmony with the results you seek.
When there is a conflict between your conscious and subconscious mind, your subconscious mind will always win.
When your subconscious beliefs are not in alignment with what you want, 2 things will happen:
- You will not let yourself achieve it, or
- You will have it, but you will sabotage your success and lose it again.
If you want to build an internet business, you can attend seminars, workshops, buy as many courses and training, but if you don’t believe you can do it, you will never get the results.
If you want to climb the corporate ladder, you can learn project management, leadership, and other related skills, but if you don’t change your subconscious belief, guess what, nothing will come true to you.
You can learn whatever skills you want or take whatever actions and work as hard, but if your subconscious mind isn’t working in harmony with what you want, success will never come to you.
Learn to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind for Success
Think about it, if you associate that having money as something bad, do you think you’re going to have a lot of it? No.
Similarly, when you don’t believe that something is important, you will never have it too. If you think that money isn’t important, you’ll never have it too.
The good news is that nobody was born with a subconscious belief. You picked it up as you grew up.
You watch your parents quarreled about money, and hence, it made you believe that money is the root of all evil.
You watch the TV of a cool guy who smokes, it made you believe that smoking is cool, and you started smoking.
Do you see how you picked up your subconscious beliefs?
That means, if you can adopt/develop a subconscious belief, you can also get rid of the bad/negative one and replace it with a good/positive one.
Below are 10 methods on how you can retrain your subconscious thinking to achieve extraordinary success in life…
1. See it with your mind
What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.
Buddha
One of the most powerful ways to reprogram your subconscious mind is through visualization. As Buddha said in the quote above, “What you imagine, you create.”
Do you know that your mind can’t tell between what is real and what is being imagined? When you watch a horror movie, you feel eerie and had goosebumps. It is just a movie and it isn’t real, but your mind makes it so.
The same goes when you imagine cutting a big yellow lemon into half, and then squeeze the juices into your mouth. Immediately, your mouth is full of saliva.
Again, it isn’t real, but your mind makes it so.
Hence, create a mental picture of what you want, and see yourself working to get there.
Jack Canfield, my favorite success teacher, is an advocate for visualization. You should check out his step-by-step guide on how to use visualization to attract amazing success.
2. Watch who you spend the most time with
You’re the average of the five people spend the most time with.
Jim Rohn
I know, you’ve heard about this over and over again, but are you doing something about it?
Take a minute right now and think about the people you mix with most of the time. Who are they? Are they the people you want to become in the future?
When you’re young, you picked up habits from your parents. As you get older, you picked up habits from the people you associated with.
And you don’t pick up only habits, you become as they do. You think and act like the people you spend the most time with.
It is simple. If you want to become an eagle, don’t swim with the ducks. If you want to be successful, you can’t mix with mediocre people who always complain and talk bad about others.
You have to make a conscious change to change your subconscious thinking. When the people you surround change, the way you think changes too.
Check out this article from Dr. Roopleen on the 9 types of people you must surround yourself with.
3. Change your belief system
A belief system is nothing more than a thought you’ve thought over and over again.
Wayne W. Dyer
Do you know that your beliefs are not real? You believe in something because you have conditioned yourself to be so.
For instance, do you think you’re someone kind? If you do, why do you believe so? If you don’t, why?
When you dig deeper, you will understand your beliefs are merely a thought that you repeated long enough that it becomes a belief.
You can change your subconscious beliefs by getting rid of the dis-empowering ones and then develop the new and empowering beliefs that support you.
I bet you’ve heard the story of how the gigantic elephants learned to believe they couldn’t escape whenever there’s a chain on their legs.
Your beliefs work the same way. You have been conditioned to see what you believe and act according to your belief system.
And if your beliefs are not helping you in getting what you want in life, you can change them.
Here are a couple of interesting guides on how you can get rid of negative beliefs and build the empowering ones that will lead you to success:
- Mental Conditioning: How Most People Get Trapped By Limiting Beliefs
- How to Change a Belief
- How To Change Your Beliefs To Change Your Life
4. Build a winning environment
You are a product of your environment. So, choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back?
W. Clement Stone
Your surrounding can influence your thinking too. If you want to live big, you should move to a more decent or luxury neighborhood, why? Because your environment plays an essential role in influencing your thinking.
Imagine you are working in a blue-collar job and receive a $1,000 salary every month. You have never tried Starbucks before, and you have never bought any shirt above $50.
But one day, you walk into a branded store and all the shirts there are at a minimum of $200 per piece. How do you feel?
You will feel uncomfortable because the branded shirt is expansive. And secondly, the decoration and renovation of the luxury shop will make you feel uneasy.
I’m not trying to say that you should buy branded items. All I’m implying is that your environment can shape your life.
This is why you should immerse yourself in a supportive environment that will transform you into who you want to be.
When you take lunch in a more upscale restaurant, it expands your comfort zone. And if you do it often, it will change your subconscious belief that you are “used” to that kind of environment.
Check out my guide, How Your Environment Affect You and Your Success in Life and learn to manage your environment so that you set yourself up to success.
5. Identify your inner motivation
If an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. If broken by an inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from the inside.
If you want to reprogram your subconscious mind for success, you need to find out your inner motivation. What motivates you to achieve what you want?
I’m not referring to physical items like cars or money or houses, instead, I’m referring to your inner motivation. Why do you do what you do?
- Do you want to prove something for wanting to buy your dream car?
- Are you passionate about your career or business right now?
- Do you want to make your parents proud?
- Or you want success because you are trying to prove to someone that you can do it?
These are some of the questions you should ask to find out your inner motivation.
Most of the time, you want the car not because you want the car. Instead, you want the feeling that the car gives you. Maybe you want people to look up to you when you drive the car.
Think about all the goals and the success you want. Why do you want to achieve them?
Knowing your inner motivation helps you understand what drives you subconsciously.
Read: Why Your “Why” Matters and It’s So Important to Your Success
6. Change your self-talk
Be mindful of your self-talk. It’s a conversation with the universe.
David James
Like visualization, your self-talk can influence the way you think. You become what you think about most of the time. And that’s your self-talk.
You can change your mindset by constantly conditioning your subconscious mind through positive self-talk, which can also be known as affirmations.
When you face a problem in life, there are a couple of ways you can talk to yourself, below are 2 common examples:
- “Gosh, why does this always happen to me? I’m such a useless guy.”
- “Good, now that I have to learn how to handle this so that I know what to do in the future.”
Your self-talk will determine your action. And it is one of the most powerful techniques you can master to change your life.
However, self-talk/affirmation isn’t easy to master. You have to repeat it with conviction so that the idea sunk into your subconscious mind.
I shared the 5 rules you must follow to make your affirmations and self-talks work for you. You can read the article here.
7. Focus on gratitude
Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.
Zig Ziglar
Another powerful method you can use to retrain your subconscious mind is through the practice of gratitude.
During an interview, Tony Robbins asked Sir John Templeton, a billionaire investor, what is the secret to wealth.
And do you know what Sir Templeton told Tony? He said that wealth is gratitude. If you’re grateful for what you have, you feel wealthy. But if you’re not grateful, you will feel poor even if you have a million dollars in the bank.
In order to change your subconscious mind so that you will attract more success and wealth, you need to be thankful for all that you have right now.
Be grateful for everything you have in your life. The more you feel grateful, the more you will attract.
If you want to learn how to practice gratefulness, you need to check out this amazing guide from VirtuesForLife.com:
20 Ways to Practice Gratitude for a Happier Life
8. Set goals and write them down
Nobody ever wrote down a plan to be broke, fat, lazy, or stupid. Those things are what happen when you don’t have a plan.
Larry Winget
When you set goals, you are telling your mind what you want to achieve. You are trying to focus on living an intentional life.
Imagine living life aimlessly. You don’t have a direction and you don’t know what you want out of your life. You become reactive by responding to everything that comes to you.
But if you set goals, you become intentional. You tell your subconscious mind what you want to achieve and what you need to do to get there.
Rather than waiting for things to happen, you become proactive and make things happen.
Plus, when you write down your goals, you tremendously increase your chances of achieving the goals.
Yes, just write down your goals. But sadly, most people don’t do it. When you write down the things that you want, you are directly telling your subconscious mind that your goals are important, and that is why you are committed to writing them down.
Contrary, if you don’t write down your goals, you are also sending a message to your subconscious mind, telling it that your goals aren’t important, that’s why you don’t bother to write them down.
Therefore, set goals, give instructions to your subconscious mind about what you want out of your life, and let it show you what you’re capable of.
I strongly recommend you take my course: Goal Setting Formula. You will learn how to find out what you want to achieve, take charge of your life, and achieve real success through setting empowering goals.
9. Focus on repetition
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle
Don’t expect you can change the way you think immediately. It doesn’t happen overnight, it happens over time.
Thus, commit and focus on repetition.
You can’t just practice visualization or affirmation once and then hope your life will change for the better.
You can’t just write down your goal to drive a luxury car, go to bed, and hope that your dream car will appear in your garage the next day.
Success isn’t a miracle. It is science. Meaning, if you follow the right path, take the journey, you will definitely arrive.
Hence, don’t get discouraged when you don’t see the result you want. Instead, just focus on progress and make it a habit.
If you want affirmation to work, you need to work on it, repeatedly. And if you want the vision of the success you want to come true, you need to constantly visualize yourself as if you are already living a successful life.
You don’t hit the gym and exercise once and then have 6 pack abs, right? It doesn’t happen overnight. You do it and repeat the process consistently.
And eventually, you will get there.
Read: 10 Amazing Methods How to Be Consistent in Achieving Your Goals
10. Rewrite your story
Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that does not make you who you are, it is the rest of it – who you choose to be.
Kung Fu Panda 2
This is the most interesting way to change your subconscious mind. By rewriting your story, you are predicting and creating your own future.
First, you need to identify the story that you have been telling yourself. Usually, this story is all about the reasons why you can’t be successful.
You need to find out all the excuses you have been telling yourself why you can’t achieve the success you want or why you fail.
These are the dis-empowering stories you want to get rid of your subconscious mind.
Next, you want to create all the reasons why you believe you can achieve the success you want.
Start writing your own success story and tell yourself why you deserve to be successful.
Write down all the empowering reasons such as you’re hard-working, you’re passionate about what you do, or you have a stable job that allows you to build the successful side business you want. Whatever.
And then every day, reread your story.
It works like affirmations, just that this time, it is a full story of how you want to live your future life.
Hence, take your time to envision the future you want. Write it down, read it every day, and believe in it until your story becomes your success.
Conclusion
Mastering and reprograming your subconscious mind are not an easy task. But that doesn’t mean it is impossible.
As long as you have the commitment and the determination, and if you follow the 10 tips I shared above, you should be able to recreate a new way of thinking that serves you, not against you.
How do you change your subconscious thinking? Do you find these tips useful?