How to Recondition Your Nonconscious Mind

We now know that The Secret oversimplified the process underlying the Law of Attraction.  It is not enough to simply set a conscious intention to attract what you desire.

John Assaraf has spent a lifetime studying how the human mind works,  and how successful people use their minds to attract wealth.  In The Answer, he explains why controlling your conscious mind will never produce the results you are seeking.

How the Brain Works

For all its brilliance, the conscious brain has very limited processing power.  This is the part of the brain we pay most attention to.  It controls key functions such as will, memory, perception, reasoning, intuition and imagination.  However, this accounts for less than 5% of your brain’s activities.

The nonconscious mind, which operates accordingto habits of thought and belief, controls 96 – 98% of perception and behavior. The nonconscious mind is present-oriented and remembers things forever.  That is why you don’t have to stop and think every time you get in the driver’s seat of your car.  Patterns of habit and thought kick in to let you drive down the road even if you’re thinking about the speech you have to give when you get to work.

Obviously, these patterns of habit and thought can be very helpful in our lives.  They permit us to carry out every day activities like walking, showering, dressing and eating without using up our precious conscious brainpower.

But habits of thoughts and beliefs can also hold us back from our dreams, without even raising our conscious awareness of what is happening.  Did you ever find yourself listening to an inner  voice that whispers, “You could never do that.  You’re not smart enough, good enough, rich enough…”

Those small inner voices are called ANTS (automatic negative thoughts).  If you don’t become aware of them and counter them with positive messages, they will control your destiny.

For example, did you ever feel that no matter how hard you work, you can’t get beyond a certain set income level?  That is called your “financial set point,” and it is controlled by your nonconscious mind.  It could be the amount of money your father made, or it could be the amount you thought was truly wealthy when you were ten years old. Whatever its source, it has become a self-limiting habit of thought and belief that the nonconscious mind will cling to unless you find a way to change it.

The only way to change your ANTS is to reprogram your reticular activating system…the network of neural pathways that filter sensory input.  Think of them as the guard to the doorway of your mind.  You want them to filter for what you want rather than some preconceived notion that has been imprinted on your brain since childhood.

Let me give you an example. I grew up in a family where money was a taboo subject.  Although they didn’t talk about it, I observed my parents worrying about not having enough money to pay the bills. The lesson I learned from that was that “money doesn’t grow on trees” and that I would have to work hard and struggle my whole life to pay the bills.

Even though I am now a successful professional, my nonconscious mind is always worried about being able to make ends meet.  I often sacrifice my dreams for “security.”  If I want to make the leap  to create my dream business, I need to change that nonconscious habit of thought to something more in line with my goals.

So how do you go about changing the habits and beliefs of your nonconscious mind?  You have to undertake a regular process of neural reconditioning.

6 Steps to Neural Reconditioning

John Assaraf offers a detailed 6-step process for changing out-dated habits of thought and beliefs.  By systematically introducing new messages to your nonconscious brain, you can eventually change your neural pathways and create new habits of thought and belief.  We have already completed the first two steps, but it is the later steps that really create a new belief system.

1. Create a new vision of your ideal life.  Make it emotionally rich and as crystal clear as possible.
2. Create powerful declarations and affirmations that support your vision.
3. Develop emotional anchors for neural linking.  This simply means connecting your vision of the future with emotionally powerful events in your past.  The nonconscious mind is much more receptive to emotion than to pure thought.
4. Prepare written, auditory and visual “imprinting” materials that you can use during the process of reconditioning.  You can write your affirmations on cards or record them onto audiotapes.  Some people like to create “vision boards” with images of places, people and things they would like to attract to their ideal life.
5. Spend a few minutes three times a day doing simple meditation, visualization and reading/viewing/listening to your imprinting materials.  The best times to meditate are just after awakening and just before going to sleep.  This puts your nonconscious mind in a receptive state for receiving new thoughts and beliefs.
6. Finally, there are various forms of neurotechnology (subliminal messages) available to reinforce these images throughout the day.

The key to neural reconditioning is to be consistent and to do it long enough to really impact your belief system.  We have learned from athletes and other top performers that it takes at least 30 days of consistent training to create a new habit.

That is why so many people get frustrated trying to implement the teachings of the Law of Attraction.  It takes time and it takes consistent action, but the results can change your life forever.