Discover why motivation can make you fail and how to achieve lasting transformation that will bust the blocks to your unstoppable success.
In a previous article (Are You Stuck on the Personal Development Treadmill?) I wrote about personal development junkies and how people get hooked on looking for the next silver bullet that will be the sure-fire route to their success. They're on a roller coaster ride of highs and lows as they become serial consumers of self-help and personal development products that fail to deliver the successful outcome they are searching for. The story is the same regardless of the area of life they want to improve – career, business, relationships, money, health etc.
Not only do many of these products (seminars, workshops, books, courses) fail to deliver the desired results, but they can actually set us up to fail even more!
Why? Because they deliver motivation, not transformation.
Let me explain.
Our present circumstances are the products of our subconscious belief system.
(Note: Here the terms subconscious and unconscious are interchangeable. Personally I prefer the term subconscious from the Latin word ‘sub' meaning beneath. Like an iceberg, the subconscious is below the surface and represents 95% of our mind power – far more than the conscious mind, which is like the tip of the iceberg.)
Subconscious Programming
From the day you were born you have been programmed in a way that strips away your power. So many of us are brought up using negative reinforcement – in other words you are punished if you do something wrong – rather than positive reinforcement which praises you when you do well. Even if your parents approached your upbringing in a positive way, the school system operates to create subservience, conformity and obedience.
We build our self-image based on our experience. So, if we repeatedly hear bad boy/girl, stupid boy/girl, you'll never (fill in the gaps), you're not good enough to (fill in the gaps again) and more negative remarks, we start to believe what we hear as the truth. So our subconscious mind is programmed with negative self-beliefs and we develop low self-esteem and self-doubt and create exactly what we believe in – our own mediocrity.
Is it any wonder that the most successful people didn't finish school and dropped out as soon as they could?
So, if our present circumstances are the product of our subconscious belief system, it follows that to change our circumstances we have to change our subconscious beliefs. Makes sense, doesn't it?
How the Conscious & Subconscious Minds Work
The conscious mind is where we do our planning, make decisions, and where our will power lives while the subconscious mind controls our habits & patterns, long-term memory, emotions, creativity and our protective mechanism. Our conscious thoughts bubble up from our unconscious mind and are the product of our long-term memory, our established habits and patterns and our self-protection. That is why our head fills with negative thoughts when we try to step outside our comfort zone – ‘danger, that's hard, I can't do that, I'm not good enough'.
The problem with motivation is that it only works on stimulating the conscious mind. You go to a motivational event, you get fired up to set goals, take action, be like the motivational speaker. What you also hear is the message that not setting goals and taking action will make you a loser.
At the time, you are determined you're going to do everything the motivational guru tells you. Then you get back home, and within no time you've slipped back into the normal routine because your subconscious still believes you're not good enough, it's too hard, they can do it but you can't. Plus, the old patterns of behavior are firmly established while the new intentions have got little more than a toe-hold and it takes a lot of conscious will-power to replace the old habits, which most people don't have. The trouble is that you've now labeled yourself as a loser and reaffirmed your negative self-belief because that's what the guru labelled the people who don't follow through, take action and achieve success!
It works like a shot of illegal stimulants – you get a temporary high and then the crash takes you lower than when you started.
Become Self-Motivated
Now don't get me wrong, we all need motivation to get us moving towards our goals. But, think about how you would describe yourself in your resume if you were applying for a job. You would describe yourself as self-motivated, wouldn't you? You wouldn't say I need daily doses of motivation from someone else. That would immediately move you to the bottom of the pile!
So, to change our circumstances we need to change our subconscious belief system. How do we do that?
First of all we have to identify our beliefs, and then we need to ‘transform' them from negative beliefs into positive beliefs so we become truly self-motivated and capable of taking empowered action.
The Success Equation
Lasting success is dependent on 3 critical elements, that are as simple as ABC:
-
- Action
- Belief
- Commitment
Of these three elements, only Action originates from the conscious mind – Belief and Commitment both originate in the subconscious mind and the ability to take action effectively and persistently depends on those other two elements.
Motivation stimulates the conscious mind and its effects are short-lived, so when the euphoria wears off and the old habits take over, it makes you feel even more of a failure because your life still hasn’t changed even after this latest ‘secret’ to success.
Transformation
Transformation occurs when you reprogram your subconscious mind to replace negative self-sabotaging beliefs with positive empowering beliefs that propel you forward to success.
Without transformation you continue to suffer the symptoms of your negative beliefs such as procrastination, lack of focus, discouragement, causing you to give up on your goals when the inevitable challenges crop up.
It is self-doubt, lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence and so on that get in the way of our success, yet few have a method of accessing those subconscious beliefs and changing them.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't – you're right.” Henry Ford
The Success Equation I teach in the “Creating the Unstoppable You” program is a highly effective method of reprogramming your beliefs, and it is one you can learn to use yourself.
The added advantage of the Success Equation method is that it not only reprograms your existing beliefs, it also provides immunity against the creation of new negative beliefs, and instills the positive mindset you need to carry out empowered and inspired actions to achieve your goals.
Identify & Change Your Beliefs
So your first job is to identify the negative beliefs that are holding you back. You can do this one by one, identifying them as they arise and then deal with them on the spot. The other way is to tackle them all at once. Think back over your life history and recall situations that left you with bad memories – incidents you associate with unpleasant emotions when you felt humiliated, stupid or embarrassed. It’s best to write them down so you can express them fully and review them one by one.
When I work with my clients I start by getting you to write your life story, concentrating on the memories that have emotional significance for you. Then together we work through each situation using Awareness and the Power of Neutrality to look at different interpretations of the same situation. This not only leads to a positive view of that situation but you also identify positive qualities that you have overlooked. The result is that you replace the negative interpretation with a positive one, turning your negative belief into a positive affirmation, reinforced by the new positive qualities we’ve uncovered.
Hey presto, the outcome is a new ‘empowered you’ with self-confidence, high self-esteem and self-belief that is not only sustainable but continually reinforced by using the same techniques of Awareness and the Power of Neutrality in your day to day life.
Jan Moore – The Success Alchemist, is a Spiritual Empowerment and Intuitive Success Coach. She delivers practical life and business strategies plus intuitive guidance, sprinkled with spiritual and metaphysical principles so you can create unstoppable success in life and business. Get your FREE copy of her Dream Achievers Success Kit or apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Success Strategy Session
