Tuesday night, 11:38 PM. I’d finally closed my laptop after hours of trying to solve a problem for a client project. Frustrated and tired, I gave up and went to bed. At 4:17 AM, I shot straight up – the solution appearing in perfect clarity, as if someone had whispered it directly into my ear.
This wasn’t luck or coincidence. It was my subconscious mind working quietly behind the scenes while I slept.
The subconscious mind is like the engine room of a massive ship – you rarely see it, but it powers everything. It’s constantly working, processing, and connecting dots in ways our conscious mind simply cannot. And understanding what the subconscious mind is might be the most important thing you’ll ever learn about achieving your dreams.
The Subconscious Mind: Your 24/7 Success Factory
Let me clear something up right away. Your subconscious isn’t some mystical, woo-woo concept. It’s a very real part of your brain that neuroscience continues to study and validate.
Think of your conscious mind as the tip of an iceberg – the small part you can see above water. It handles your awareness, rational thoughts, and decisions. But below the surface? That massive chunk of ice represents your subconscious – storing everything you’ve ever experienced, every belief you’ve formed, and every pattern you’ve established.
It processes about 11 million bits of information per second while your conscious mind handles only about 40-50 bits. Not a typo. MILLIONS versus DOZENS.
Your subconscious never stops working. Even right now as you read this, it’s regulating your breathing, heartbeat, digestion. It’s accessing memories, forming associations, and running countless programs in the background.
What’s wild is that it doesn’t distinguish between what’s real and what’s vividly imagined. This is why visualization practices work – your subconscious treats strong mental images as actual experiences.
And here’s the kicker – this powerhouse is programmed primarily through repetition and emotion. The thoughts, words, and images you repeatedly expose yourself to, especially with feeling attached, become its marching orders.
Warning: Your Inner Computer Has Old Software
The problem? Most of our subconscious programming happened when we were kids.
Between ages 0-7, our brains were primarily in theta brainwave states – highly suggestible, absorbing everything without filters. We picked up limiting beliefs like “money is hard to earn” or “successful people are just lucky” without even realizing it.
These beliefs now run in the background like outdated software, creating results we don’t consciously want. Sharon and I see this all the time in our coaching – people consciously desire success but subconsciously sabotage it.
Your subconscious isn’t trying to hurt you. It’s actually trying to protect you based on old programming. If you were once embarrassed when speaking up in class, your subconscious might now hold you back from sharing ideas at work, trying to “keep you safe.”
This explains why so many ambitious people hit invisible walls. Their conscious goals conflict with subconscious programming, creating an internal tug-of-war. And guess which one usually wins? The subconscious – every time.
Think about it. Ever set a New Year’s resolution only to abandon it by February? That’s not lack of willpower. It’s your subconscious running its familiar programs while your conscious mind tries desperately to override them.
How Your Subconscious Actually Communicates (Not How You Think)
I spent years frustrated because I thought my subconscious wasn’t listening to what I wanted. Turns out, I was the one not listening.
Your subconscious doesn’t speak English or Spanish or whatever your language is. It communicates through:
1. Images and symbols 2. Emotions and feelings 3. Physical sensations 4. Dreams and intuitions 5. Synchronicities and patterns
That gut feeling before making a big decision? Subconscious. That recurring dream about being unprepared for an exam years after graduation? Subconscious. The sudden inspiration that seems to come from nowhere? You guessed it.
It’s constantly sending signals. Most of us just haven’t learned to interpret them.
The subconscious also responds powerfully to stories. This is why parables, myths, and even modern movies affect us so deeply. They bypass our logical defenses and speak directly to our subconscious in its native language.
And weirdly, it loves repetition. While your conscious mind gets bored of hearing the same affirmation or visualizing the same goal repeatedly, your subconscious actually needs this consistency to accept new programming.
What Is the Subconscious Mind Looking For? Safety First
Your subconscious has one primary directive: keep you safe and alive.
This explains a lot about our seemingly irrational behaviors. Why do we procrastinate on important goals? Why do we self-sabotage when success is within reach? Why do we stick with the devil we know rather than risk the unknown?
Because change represents potential danger to your subconscious. Even positive change.
I remember coaching someone who kept getting promoted at work only to mysteriously “screw up” right before each advancement became permanent. His conscious mind wanted success, but his subconscious – programmed by a childhood where standing out led to criticism – kept pulling him back to safety.
The subconscious equates familiar with safe. Even if the familiar is painful or limiting, it’s known territory. Your subconscious would rather keep you in a mediocre but predictable situation than risk an amazing but uncertain one.
This is why personal growth can feel so uncomfortable. You’re literally rewiring deep neural pathways that have been reinforced for decades.
Talk to Your Inner Partner (Without Sounding Crazy)
So how do we actually work with this powerful but stubborn part of ourselves?
First, understand it’s not your enemy. It’s more like a well-meaning but overprotective friend who needs updated information.
Second, learn its language:
Visualization works because your subconscious processes images more readily than words. When you vividly imagine your success with sensory details, your subconscious begins accepting it as reality. Do this consistently enough, and it will actually help create that reality.
Emotions matter enormously. Your subconscious pays special attention to anything with feeling attached. This is why emotional experiences – good or bad – create such powerful programming. When visualizing or affirming, the feeling you attach is far more important than the words themselves.
The state between waking and sleeping (hypnagogic state) offers direct access. Those drowsy moments right before falling asleep and just after waking are golden opportunities for reprogramming. Your brain is in theta waves – the same state when your original programming was installed as a child.
Repetition is crucial. Your subconscious learns through consistent exposure. This is why habits are so powerful – they’re essentially subconscious programs running on autopilot.
And here’s something few people realize: physical movement can bypass conscious resistance. Activities like walking, dancing, or even nodding your head while affirming new beliefs can help embed them more deeply.
As Napoleon Hill discovered in his research for “Think and Grow Rich,” the most successful people intuitively understand this partnership with their subconscious mind. They learned to speak its language, respect its power, and gradually align it with their conscious goals.
Do you need to understand every aspect of how the subconscious works? Nope. Just like you don’t need to understand how your smartphone processes data to use it effectively. But knowing the basic operating principles makes all the difference.
So tonight, try this: before sleep, spend 5 minutes visualizing one goal with as much sensory detail and positive emotion as possible. Do this for a week and watch what happens. Your subconscious is always listening – it’s just waiting for instructions it can actually understand.
Your inner success partner is ready whenever you are.