There are so many people in the world who don’t seem to have what they want.
And when you ask them why that is, well, they are often talented at coming up with all sorts of excuses.
- “I have a family to provide for.”
- “I don’t have enough education.”
- “I don’t have enough money.”
- “I just don’t have good luck.”
- “It’s just not possible.”
The excuses sound rather nice in your head, I know. But when you really take a good look at it, it’s nothing more than an excuse.
What Is It You Want?
And I mean, what is it you really want?
It’s too easy to think within the box of what we think is possible. “I’d like a few more thousand per year.” “I’d like a slightly nicer car.” “I’d like a house that’s not too expensive.” Etc.
Even in our own way of thinking, we confine ourselves to a box. We chain ourselves down by our own self-concept of what is possible.
That idea of what is possible is nothing more than what your subconscious mind can fathom as the most you can hope for. But it’s not a hard limit. As with anything in the subconscious mind, it can be changed.
Lester Levenson would always say that we could have anything, if only we would think bigger.
But most of us are like those in the allegorical cave: chained by our own choice, not realizing that what we see before us is only a shadow of what is possible.
So what do you want?
Not what you think is possible, but what do you really want?
Let yourself admit it, just for a moment. You don’t have to tell anyone about it except yourself.
Own that desire. Accept that this is what you want.
Cool. Now the next question is:
Why Don’t You Have It Yet?
Seriously, whats in your way? What’s keeping you from getting this thing you want?
Perhaps you feel like the door is closed to this desire. There’s just no path leading to getting what you want.
But the obstacles you imagine are just that—in your imagination. Nearly all of them, when truly examined, are mere smoke.
The true obstacles are in your own subconscious mind. You haven’t allowed yourself to imagine that this is possible, so it never has been.
Remember, reality can only prove you right. It will never, ever, ever prove you wrong. It’s nice like that.
But when your own conclusions aren’t the conclusions you want to be holding, then it’s doing you a great disservice.
- If your foregone conclusion is that you can’t have that dream job, reality will prove you right.
- If you’re convinced that you can’t be wealthy, reality will prove you right.
- If you believe that you’re stuck in your current living environment, reality will prove you right.
Whatever you hold to be true deeply within yourself, that will be proven to be true for you, simply because you believe it.
You don’t realize the power you have, because you’ve been denying it for so long.
So if you don’t have what you want yet, it is entirely in your hands. That might sound like blame, but it is not. And in fact, it is incredibly empowering. It means that you have a choice. You simply haven’t exercised that choice yet.
Now if you want something really big, I’m not saying you can get it just like that in the blink of an eye. It does take work, and if it is an ultimate level goal, then it may take some time for your subconscious mind to make the necessary changes.
But, you can get there, if you accept that this is what you want and choose your goal day-after-day.
Your World Is Comprised of Your Thoughts
As I said above, your reality is simply a reflection of what you are thinking inside.
In actual fact, the world is a reflection of your subconscious programs, and your thoughts are also a reflection of those programs. But, observing the kind of thoughts you have day-by-day will give you a good idea of why your reality is as it is.
But the power of thoughts is that they are not only a reflection of subconscious programs. They are also the key to changing those very same programs.
Your subconscious mind prioritizes your thoughts. It has two basic criteria by which it evaluates the priority of any given thought: strength of focus, and intensity of emotion.
For example, you have a thought about how little money you have. You fixate on that thought, and it causes you great fear.
To the subconscious mind, this particular thought receives high priority, because you both focused on it strongly, and felt intense emotion in regard to it. Therefore, it strengthens the program that says, “I don’t have enough money,” and it makes it so.
It’s somewhat of a self-perpetuating cycle, because the reason you had the thought in the first place is likely because of the gravity, if you will, of that subconscious program.
You can think of subconscious programs as little vortexes of energy. Please don’t confuse this with the Vortex that Abraham talks about, because they are not the same thing.
I liken subconscious programs to a vortex because the stronger they are, the more they pull up other thoughts, emotions, and external events that support that program.
If you have a “not enough money” vortex active, it’s going to pull in more and more energy that strengthens it, and the more it pulls in, the stronger it gets.
So you’ll have thoughts about how little money you have. You’ll experience events that validate that you don’t have enough money. And it’ll just get more and more intense over time.
This vortex likely started in one of two ways: either through information you were given as a child directly or indirectly, or because of a traumatic event that hammered this belief into your subconscious.
Creating the Vortices You Want
The good news is that the process works the same way in the other direction. If you want a belief like, “Money is abundant and easy to receive,” you have to get that into your subconscious.
But, there are two basic steps for doing so:
1. Remove Any Contradictory Programs
The first step is to weaken the opposite program. Your subconscious mind needs to be internally consistent. If you try to create a program of abundance, your subconscious mind will just keep reminding you of that program of lack.
This is the cycle that many people get stuck in. They try to manifest something they want, but get stuck in this place of overwhelming resistance. Their subconscious mind is continuously reminding them of that negative program, but they simply don’t know how to tell the subconscious mind to let go of that old program to make room for the new.
The way you let go of the old program is by reversing the way you created it.
Recall that the subconscious mind prioritizes your thoughts based on (1) strength of focus, and (2) intensity of emotion.
So when you have one of those negative vortices active, and it pulls in a thought that matches the energy of that program, you’re naturally going to focus on it strongly, and feel intense emotion about it.
If you short-circuited that process, by not focusing on it and not giving it emotional energy, then it would weaken. You’re taking its energy source away from it.
Subconscious programs, while they seem rather stable, actually require a constant source of energy to maintain their strength.
This is, of course, only if this program is active—you could have inactive programs running for decades without knowing it. But if this program is causing you pain on a regular basis, then it is active in your subconscious, and requires a continuous stream of energy to survive.
If you disrupt that energy flow to these negative vortices, they must weaken and eventually die out altogether.
2. Build Up the Program You Want
Once you have done that, then you can start building up the vortex you want to create.
You install a positive program the same way the negative one was installed: through strong focus and intense emotion.
In actuality, it may not require that much inner work to install the new program once the old one is out of the way. Those who have been practicing the law of attraction for a while begin to notice that even their momentary thoughts begin to manifest, because there is no resistance to block their manifestation.
However, to make a noticeable mark on the subconscious, you will need both focus and emotion, especially if there is a remnant of the negative programming left over.
You can do this in basically three ways:
The first way is through daily practice. Take 5 minutes or so every day and imagine what it will be like to have your goal. Get into the emotion of actually having it in the present moment, not expecting it at some future date. I like to even put it into the past, like it’s already old news, because that makes it feel more normal.
The second way is through deliberately looking for things that feel sort of like your goal in your day-to-day life. If you find a penny, for example, you celebrate that as a sign of abundance. If you see someone who has the job you want, you take that as a sign of your dream job being on its way.
The third way is by finding experiences in the past that felt similar. Perhaps money is tight now, but there was a time in the past when you got a windfall, or things weren’t so tight. Tune in to that experience and relive it. In NLP we call it associating into the experience. Allow yourself to see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel what you felt in that situation.
One of my favorite hypnotists, David Snyder, says that whatever the nervous system has already experienced, it can experience again. So if you’ve already experienced abundance, then you can again, and if you can experience it again, you can have it in your life, too.
So get into a place where you can experience what your goal feels like, and focus on that daily, for at least a few minutes a day. That is the way to build up the program you want to install.
Be Aware of Your Thoughts
But this isn’t all you have to do. The subconscious doesn’t take change lightly. Much like a pendulum, if you push in one direction, it’ll attempt to reestablish equilibrium by pushing back in the other direction towards what it already knows.
So if you’re taking 5-10 minutes a day to focus on what you want, that’s not enough. That’s only the start.
The rest of the time is spent reprogramming your habits of thought.
Taking the money example, how do you react when you see something you want but which has a high price?
Do you think:
- “Oh, I’d love to have that, but I could never afford it.”
- “I’d love to have it, but life is just unfair. Everything I want, I can’t get.”
- “I’d love to have that, but it’d be irresponsible to spend that much on myself.”
Or do you think:
- “I’d love to have that. I can’t quite pick it up today but maybe I’ll save up and come back for it later.”
- “I’d love to have that! I can’t do it now, but if I focus on it enough, events will realign themselves to allow me to buy this item.”
- “I’d love to have that, and actually, I do have enough today and I deserve to buy it.”
If your thoughts are closer to the first points, then you’re strengthening that negative program of lack—allowing that lack vortex to get stronger and stronger.
Likely, though, your thoughts will be more in alignment with the negative thoughts outlined above at first. They are habitual. You’re used to thinking in that way.
So, you have to become aware of your own thoughts.
If you have a thought that doesn’t match what you want your life to look like, you have to turn it around, or at least not give it the energy it seeks.
Remember, each thought is just a recruiter for whatever vortex it is stemming from. It’s trying to get other thoughts like itself to join up, and even outer experiences if possible. If you dwell on that thought, you’re just helping its case.
So instead, you turn it around. You stop reacting to it. You are in charge of your mind, so you get to decide which thoughts get air time, and which do not.
Then, perhaps you try to reframe it to a thought that aligns more closely with what you’d like your life to be like. So, you focus on that thought instead, and let it get stronger, and let it recruit other thoughts like itself to join the abundance vortex.
But all of this requires self-awareness, and the knowledge that your thoughts are the cause, not the result, of your reality. Without that, you can’t change anything.
So as you go throughout your day, pay attention to the types of thoughts you are having. And ask yourself, “Is this thought indicative of the kind of life I’d like to live?” If yes, that’s great! But if not, then exercise your inherent power over your mind and change it.
As you exercise this power more and more, you will allow your mind to open to those big desires of which you were always afraid to dream. You know that the only reason you don’t have them yet is because you’ve developed subconscious programs that have held you away from those big dreams.
But just as you developed those negative programs, so you can remove them and install new, more positive programs in their place, which will support you in living the life you want to.
It just takes the willingness and the courage to admit what it is you actually want, and then the persistence to actually go after it, no matter how long it takes.
How About You?
Now it’s your turn. Have you allowed yourself to think big and go after what you want? Or must you become more aware of your thoughts and train yourself for greater success? Let me know in the comments.
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I really liked this post, Brandon!
I think the mistake most people make is doing Step 2 before Step 1, and then it feels like you’re fighting against the old belief/resistance and that never works.
Hi @Natasha,
Thanks for your comment.
I agree. I think it depends on how much resistance there is. Sometimes you can do both at once, and sometimes you just have to work through some resistance first.
I really liked this post, Brandon!
I think the mistake most people make is doing Step 2 before Step 1, and then it feels like you’re fighting against the old belief/resistance and that never works.
Hi @Natasha,
Thanks for your comment.
I agree. I think it depends on how much resistance there is. Sometimes you can do both at once, and sometimes you just have to work through some resistance first.
Hey Brandon,
Am AMAZED at the number of insights you pack into your posts!
Really cool 🙂
-S
Hey @Shibani__C, thanks so much. I appreciate that. 😀
Hey Brandon,
I have a question: At what point do I know if im being delusional or actually changing my subconscious structures? I’m asking as sometimes you see people who are narcissists who overestimate how goodlooking/intelligent/liked they are and genuinely belive they are more popular than they think. How do you differentiate between having that kind of delusion and actually affecting positive change to change your internal reality so that it reflects onto your outer one?
-S
Hi @S,
Delusion is easy: there’s no work involved. When you set a goal, you should have resistance. If you don’t, you’re either lying to yourself about the goal, or you aren’t moving anywhere.
So if you experience resistance, you know you’re making progress. There will be more about this in the podcast to be published next Monday, so look out for that as well. 🙂
I’m confused..I thought I was to try eliminate resistance and make it feel normal..embody it I mean..can you please clarify? Im missing something here…
@S, yes that’s the process, but you won’t be able to for quite a while. Resistance is part of the game. It’s going to be hard. Take a look at the podcast on the principle of homeostasis for more on this.
Essentially, this is out of your reach, and so when you reach for it, your subconscious mind fights back. And that’s resistance. Then yes, your aim is to reduce that resistance and make it feel normal, but that’s not going to happen right away.
Hey,
But what if ive had the goal for years? Like, Ive been wanting to drop weight for 5 years now..and now when i think of getting a trim body im just like blah..im just not affected by it at all or made happy/sad anything by the image of me slimmer..it feels unreal and really distant. How do i generate momentum/ resistance by creating subconscious structures to get this job done?
Then it’s too big for you right now. It’s not believable. Pair it down to something easier for you to believe and get excited about. A goal you can’t get excited about is not a goal you can manifest.
@S Sorry forgot to tag you. See reply above.
Hey Brandon,
Am AMAZED at the number of insights you pack into your posts!
Really cool 🙂
-S
Hey @Shibani__C, thanks so much. I appreciate that. 😀
Hey Brandon,
I have a question: At what point do I know if im being delusional or actually changing my subconscious structures? I’m asking as sometimes you see people who are narcissists who overestimate how goodlooking/intelligent/liked they are and genuinely belive they are more popular than they think. How do you differentiate between having that kind of delusion and actually affecting positive change to change your internal reality so that it reflects onto your outer one?
-S
Hi @S,
Delusion is easy: there’s no work involved. When you set a goal, you should have resistance. If you don’t, you’re either lying to yourself about the goal, or you aren’t moving anywhere.
So if you experience resistance, you know you’re making progress. There will be more about this in the podcast to be published next Monday, so look out for that as well. 🙂
I’m confused..I thought I was to try eliminate resistance and make it feel normal..embody it I mean..can you please clarify? Im missing something here…
@S, yes that’s the process, but you won’t be able to for quite a while. Resistance is part of the game. It’s going to be hard. Take a look at the podcast on the principle of homeostasis for more on this.
Essentially, this is out of your reach, and so when you reach for it, your subconscious mind fights back. And that’s resistance. Then yes, your aim is to reduce that resistance and make it feel normal, but that’s not going to happen right away.
Hey,
But what if ive had the goal for years? Like, Ive been wanting to drop weight for 5 years now..and now when i think of getting a trim body im just like blah..im just not affected by it at all or made happy/sad anything by the image of me slimmer..it feels unreal and really distant. How do i generate momentum/ resistance by creating subconscious structures to get this job done?
Then it’s too big for you right now. It’s not believable. Pair it down to something easier for you to believe and get excited about. A goal you can’t get excited about is not a goal you can manifest.
@S Sorry forgot to tag you. See reply above.
Internalizing that negative/fearful thoughts are actually a sign of forward progress can be a really hard thing. It can definitely feel like the universe is trying to block you (even though that isn’t what’s going on). As I’ve paid more attention to my thoughts, a couple times I caught myself asking why I’m having thoughts like that. I’ve been trying to switch to dissociating from those thoughts and then congratulating myself on my progress. Which I have had to do quite a bit today. It’s been the sort of day that would have wrecked me a couple months ago but I was able to stay calm and ride it out. I *finally* get that it’s not about being positive in the face of adversity … it’s just about letting it flow over you and not shake you from your center. I know you keep saying that but it finally clicked to the point where I’ve been applying it more consistently. I need to get a tattoo that just says, “Don’t panic.” ?
Hi @Chaucer,
Yes exactly so. 🙂 Just let it flow over you without effect. It’s so simple, and yet so many people miss it. I’m constantly asked for more techniques on how to release resistance, but there really are no better techniques. Just stand your ground and don’t react to it. 🙂
And don’t forget your towel. (Hitchhiker’s reference; couldn’t resist).
I was hoping someone would get the reference! ?
What finally helped me start to understand letting go of resistance was realizing negative thoughts don’t mean something bad will happen, *unless* I assign that meaning to it. Maybe having that much control scares people? Is it easier for people to believe that the universe or god is telling them no? I suppose it was a little mind blowing to realize that most of my “intuition” has been all me, believing deeply that something would happen. The idea that you can go against your initial reactions and change the outcome is a game changer. It’s as simple as choosing your goal in the face of doubt or dread or whatever.
On a totally unrelated note, what is the best way to emphasize text so it’s friendly to your screen reader? I’ve been opting for asterisks in the comments instead of caps because I don’t want it to literally yell at you. We’ve been covering accessibility in web design at work so it was on my mind and I hope it’s an okay thing to ask.
Hi @Chaucer,
Good points. Yes, that’s a hard one to recognize—that negative thoughts don’t mean bad things will happen, especially if you don’t put energy into them.
I do think it’s easier to just put the responsibility on some higher being, or on the Universe, but it’s also a bit mentally lazy I think—sorry for the harsh language, but it really does strip us of our own power, which I think is sad.
To answer your question, yes asterisks are the easiest. Technically on these comments you can use <em></em> to italicize, but my screen reader can’t tell the difference. It also doesn’t distinguish all caps. I can tell when things are in asterisks though.
Loving the nuggets of insight in this discussion 🙂
Congratulations, Chaucer! 🙂
Btw, I need the same tattoo. haha
Thank you!
I am actually drawing out a design for a “don’t panic” tattoo that I’m going to take to my local shop this week. I have loads of piercings but no tattoos, and I’ve always wanted my first tattoo to be something that would remind me to chill out. ? It’s not that much of a split second decisions because I’ve been considering it for a while.
Internalizing that negative/fearful thoughts are actually a sign of forward progress can be a really hard thing. It can definitely feel like the universe is trying to block you (even though that isn’t what’s going on). As I’ve paid more attention to my thoughts, a couple times I caught myself asking why I’m having thoughts like that. I’ve been trying to switch to dissociating from those thoughts and then congratulating myself on my progress. Which I have had to do quite a bit today. It’s been the sort of day that would have wrecked me a couple months ago but I was able to stay calm and ride it out. I *finally* get that it’s not about being positive in the face of adversity … it’s just about letting it flow over you and not shake you from your center. I know you keep saying that but it finally clicked to the point where I’ve been applying it more consistently. I need to get a tattoo that just says, “Don’t panic.” ?
Hi @Chaucer,
Yes exactly so. 🙂 Just let it flow over you without effect. It’s so simple, and yet so many people miss it. I’m constantly asked for more techniques on how to release resistance, but there really are no better techniques. Just stand your ground and don’t react to it. 🙂
And don’t forget your towel. (Hitchhiker’s reference; couldn’t resist).
I was hoping someone would get the reference! ?
What finally helped me start to understand letting go of resistance was realizing negative thoughts don’t mean something bad will happen, *unless* I assign that meaning to it. Maybe having that much control scares people? Is it easier for people to believe that the universe or god is telling them no? I suppose it was a little mind blowing to realize that most of my “intuition” has been all me, believing deeply that something would happen. The idea that you can go against your initial reactions and change the outcome is a game changer. It’s as simple as choosing your goal in the face of doubt or dread or whatever.
On a totally unrelated note, what is the best way to emphasize text so it’s friendly to your screen reader? I’ve been opting for asterisks in the comments instead of caps because I don’t want it to literally yell at you. We’ve been covering accessibility in web design at work so it was on my mind and I hope it’s an okay thing to ask.
Hi @Chaucer,
Good points. Yes, that’s a hard one to recognize—that negative thoughts don’t mean bad things will happen, especially if you don’t put energy into them.
I do think it’s easier to just put the responsibility on some higher being, or on the Universe, but it’s also a bit mentally lazy I think—sorry for the harsh language, but it really does strip us of our own power, which I think is sad.
To answer your question, yes asterisks are the easiest. Technically on these comments you can use <em></em> to italicize, but my screen reader can’t tell the difference. It also doesn’t distinguish all caps. I can tell when things are in asterisks though.
Loving the nuggets of insight in this discussion 🙂
Congratulations, Chaucer! 🙂
Btw, I need the same tattoo. haha
Thank you!
I am actually drawing out a design for a “don’t panic” tattoo that I’m going to take to my local shop this week. I have loads of piercings but no tattoos, and I’ve always wanted my first tattoo to be something that would remind me to chill out. ? It’s not that much of a split second decisions because I’ve been considering it for a while.