A consistent finding in psychological research is a direct
correlation between self-confidence and success. For example, a study of over 700 athletes from over 23
different sports concluded that elite performers had higher and more stable
levels of self-confidence. The
conclusion was that confidence was a major differentiating factor between elite
and non-elite performers.
To develop your self confidence it is important to explore
how we think and how our mind works. It
may come as some surprise to you that you have not one mind but two! Or to be more precise, two spheres of
activity within one mind. These spheres
of activity are often referred to as the conscious and unconscious mind.
Your Conscious Mind
Your conscious mind is your reasoning, objective level of
mind. It is the mind you are aware of
when you are fully awake. Its role is to
take in information, analyse it and decide if some action should be taken. It is the mind that you consciously “think”
with.
If your conscious mind accepts some information as valid, it
is transferred immediately to the unconscious mind that accepts it. For example, as a small child you did not
know that a flame would burn your skin.
Either from actually burning yourself or by observing the terrified
reactions of your parents as you moved towards the flame, your conscious mind
realised that “Flame equals pain. Do not
touch flames.” This information would
then be passed to the unconscious mind that accepts it without question.
Your Unconscious Mind
Your unconscious mind is your automatic, subjective level of
mind. It operates below your level of
conscious awareness. It maintains all essential like maintenance systems such
as digestion, breathing, eyelid blinking etc
It can be likened to a vast memory bank. All of your life experiences pass through the
conscious mind and are stored in the unconscious mind. All experiences are stored be they positive
or negative. These experiences are not
just passively stored but are actively stored.
This stored data persistently floods your conscious mind with feelings
and emotions that affect your thoughts.
The famous hypnotherapist Ormond McGill has said that each
of these memories and experiences stored in the unconscious mind are “forming a
thread in the texture of our personality, the total of these impressions being
the nature of the individual.”
The role of the unconscious mind is to make sure that you always
think, behave and perform in a manner consistent with the information you have
accepted as true with your conscious mind.
Your unconscious mind is concerned with your survival. It
maintains a constant vigil. It never sleeps. No psychologist or scientist has
ever been able to give a full description of its abilities or activities. It is universally accepted as a very
powerful force in our lives.
Your unconscious mind concentrates on maintaining what is
known as your “world-view”. This is your unconscious mind’s map of the
world. Your world-view is a powerful
survival tool. For example, your
world-view tells you that if you step off a cliff you will hurt or kill yourself. This aspect of your world-view protects you
from danger by preventing you from having to experience the danger of falling
every time you are on a cliff top!
Once your unconscious mind has established a coherent
world-view it is reluctant to allow any data in that conflicts with it. It will therefore accept or reject information
depending upon other information that it holds.
In the process of growing up we will all have experienced
our share of “positive” and “negative” events.
All of these events are stored in your unconscious data bank. You have probably consciously forgotten many
of the actual incidents, but their unconscious effect continues.
If a new idea is now presented to you, you will either
reject or accept it depending upon your stored date. In addition to this your unconscious mind
influences your emotions, thoughts and attitude. You may not be consciously aware of this but
it does have a powerful influence over your life.
It is important that you realise that the unconscious mind
does not rationalise. It does not enter
into logical debate. It just controls. Your unconscious mind does not necessarily
work to provide what is logically best for you.
It works to provide what its stored data tells it is best for you.
It does not care if you are “happy”. It does not understand
happy. It does not think in the
conscious sense of the word. It
instructs automatically based upon its stored data. If the data it holds is negative then it
could actually be working against what you desire.
Simon Hazeldine
Founder
Increasing Life: Dedicated to Your Health, Wealth, Success, Happiness and Freedom
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