What The Conscious Mind REALLY Is

Do you want to know what the conscious mind REALLY is and how it can make you super efficient and powerful at everything you do?

Read on to know the answers to this question.

You’ll become a different person for the better after reading this post.

Guaranteed.

It’s a Mindful Observer and Messenger

The conscious mind is like a police dog guarding the area to protect his or her owner.

Let me explain.

Picture yourself at a bar and you are debating whether or not you should have that drink.

You already had 2 drinks and you know that if you have a 3rd, you might need to get a cab for the night.

It’s really common sense to skip the drink.

Or is it?

What a lot of people will do is they know they shouldn’t be drinking, but they do anyway because they let their emotions get the best of them.

The conscious mind squashes this scenario if you handle it correctly.

It is your self-conscious mind in that you gain consciousness of what you control and don’t control.

Hence, you have self-control over your life.

What will happen is the conscious mind will take what it knows and what could happen and tell your instincts that this activity shouldn’t be pursued.

In this situation, the conscious mind will take the activity of having one more drink with the possibility of you getting drunk and say to your instincts “Hey, tell (insert your name) that he shouldn’t be having a drink. It will end up bad.”

As a result, your gut will generate a warning inside you to not engage in more drinking (even though the decision is yours to make) and it will be a super strong urge that you feel near your heart (literally).

It’s intense and it’s like you know the answer already without even thinking about it.

Actually, this is what it is.

You know the answer without even thinking about it.

Have a moment to soak that in.

If you are still confused, consider this scenario:

The police dog barking at you is like the conscious mind informing your gut on what’s happening.

Your gut is like seeing what is happening for yourself and making a decision on what to do.

This is when you take action; when the situation is completely evident.

This is what we mean by knowing the answer without thinking about it.

Using the conscious mind allows you to take action correctly because you can see what is going on in the moment and the answer on what to do becomes apparent to you.

When you use your unconscious to make decisions, you are merely speculating without looking into the matter and seeing what the actual situation is.

Hence, you exercise little to no judgment in your decision making.

With the conscious mind, you get the message.

You get the memo.

You know and you don’t hesitate on what needs to be done.

And that’s how you need to approach things.

With a clear perspective.

When you have this clear perspective, you can take full advantage of what the conscious mind also does extremely well, which is this:

It’s a Deep Thinker

I want you to envision 2 people for a second.

The first person is someone who makes a quick snap decision on something without thinking about what they are doing.

They just go.

It’s kind of like someone who hits the gas and goes from 0-60 miles per hour in 2 seconds without even looking at the speed limit and the next thing you know, the guy gets a speeding ticket 2 minutes later.

Yes, this story actually happened (my father with me laughing in the background, per my mother).

The second person is the one who stops before he or she does something and takes a look at the situation from a clear point of view free from noise, distraction and the oh so enchanting propaganda machine that is the news.

The conscious mind is like an engineer.

After knowing what it is he/she is dealing with, a good engineer will ask the question “Why?”

And once the “Why” is understood, your conscious mind will churn out ways to solve problems in the best way possible, not necessarily the most common way.

This is what separates the great thinkers of our day from those who do not think beyond what they are seeing and, rather, accept the situation for what it is without doing anything about it.

In essence, the conscious mind is like the catalyst to the chemical reaction.

Without the catalyst being put into the substance, it will not change into the substance you want it to change into because it is not there.

Let me explain a situation that I was in where I had to use my conscious mind to solve the problem and as a result, it put me ahead of everyone else.

I was taking a test one time in college and there was this question that showed up which I had never seen before.

I tried solving with all of the techniques I was learning in the class, but they didn’t cut it.

I was still on square one.

At this moment, I made a judgment as to how I needed to approach the situation.

Luckily, I remembered the professor saying something like this: “There will be one question where I will find out who is really thinking and is a cut above everyone else.”

I realized right then and there that this was the question the professor wanted to “really” test people on to see if they were paying attention.

I thought about it deeply and I used some outside of the box thinking along with common sense in order to solve it.

Instead of approaching the problem from the conventional approach of plugging in my formulas and seeing if it was the right solution, I stepped aside and said “What if it’s not that? What if I go outside of the problem’s picture and work my way back in to get what I need?”

From then on, I connected the dots to get what I needed.

Obviously, I knew the math required to answer the question, but it wasn’t the math used in the class.

It was math I had seen before.

When I walked out of the test, I felt good about my answer even though I didn’t know if it was correct or not since it wasn’t covered at all.

A few days later, I got an unexpected email from the professor saying this:

Right then and there, I knew I got the correct answer.

How did I get it?

Using common sense coming from the conscious mind, which was the first to alert me of not using something that seemed obvious and instead, advised me to go a different route to solve the problem.

And hence, I won.

And everyone else?

No acknowledgements for them.

Granted, this was only a college test, but the fact of the matter is that this technique of using the conscious mind to take your next steps will steer you away from all of the propaganda thrown at you that you can’t do it and you must follow this way in order to achieve success.

Let it be known that you should not follow the herd and just do what everyone else says just because everyone is doing it.

You need to step back and see “Is this the correct way to go? What does my intuition and conscious mind say about how I need to solve it?”

Distinguish your conscious and unconscious minds and you will think clearly on what to do and where to go.

And right then and there, you do what you need to do.

How To Use The Conscious Mind To Unleash Your Brain’s Inner Genius

Now you know what the conscious mind is.

You might be asking “How do I use the conscious mind to benefit me?”

You will learn this right now.

• Clear Your Emotions

Your emotions are your biggest enemy if you don’t use them correctly.

Using your emotions incorrectly is like having a bad girlfriend or boyfriend.

He/she tricks you with her attractive body so you can go to him/her and he/she charms you with his/her personality so that you trust him/her.

But once he/she has you in his/her grip and you can’t get away from him/her, he/she ruins you.

One thing you can do is take a walk outside so you can clear your mind from all of the day’s clutter and focus on what’s important: yourself.

Research has shown that walking outside improves your memory by 20%.

That way, you come in with a clear mind of what you are supposed to do instead of falling for shiny object syndrome that stops most people from getting what they want.

This is according to a University of Michigan study comparing two groups of people who were instructed to walk under city lights and nature.

The group who walked outside in nature had a 20% improvement in memory as a result of walking in nature.

Immediate gratification and dopamine are extremely powerful motivators that throw people off track.

Another phenomenon people fall for is something called moral licensing.

Moral licensing occurs when you stop working hard on a task after doing what you are supposed to do for a while even though you know you haven’t accomplished your goal.

I’ll give you an example to prove my point.

In sports, a lot of players do something called “choking,” which is when you have a big lead, but blow it because you got too comfortable or let pressure get the best of you.

Moral licensing deals with the first case.

The team with the lead tricked themselves into thinking that because they have such a big lead and did so much already, they have permission to “slack off” even though the job isn’t done yet.

As a result, they lose more games than they should.

You might’ve fallen for this.

You might’ve completed a large part of, say, a big essay or a big report that you needed to complete and you only need to complete 1 more part that should take you no more than a week to complete.

There are 3 weeks left until the paper is due.

You decide to hold it off for 1 week because you have gotten so much done already.

You are now down to 2 weeks.

You work super slowly up to the deadline because you tell yourself that you can “relax” and go slower.

You turn in your work.

What happens next?

You get a bad rating.

The reason?

Because you gave yourself “permission” to relax, you overlooked everything you needed to do to keep your lead like editing, proofreading and verifying your facts.

Hence, time won the battle against you.

This is dopamine taking over for your conscious mind in the area of self-control.

When dopamine takes over, it isn’t going to end well if you have a job to do.

You will lose focus and you will get a lackluster result.

That’s why it’s important to go outside and workout if you can to clear the air in your mind and “let it breathe” so it can think clearly and your conscious mind can view everything from a crystal clear perspective.

You’ll achieve better results in your daily life this way and make the other steps in this mini how-to guide work properly.

You can read more about moral licensing here in an article from the Association for Psychological Science and a research study on moral licensing here if you wish.

Remember, distinguish between your conscious and unconscious mind to see this clearly!

• Adopt Common Sense

There is a disease spreading around and it’s not the Coronavirus.

It’s called “Analysis Paralysis.”

Have you heard of many people overthinking things when you know they shouldn’t be overthought?

This is the problem in Corporate America and Government.

Just like taking action too quickly is bad, not taking action quick enough is even worse.

That’s why you get missed deadlines, angry customers, terrible use of taxpayer money (along with too many taxes in a lot of cases; yikes!), legislators who don’t get things accomplished and overall disappointment in the end.

Common sense keeps everything simple.

When you adopt it, you seek the truth above everything else and you do everything necessary to seek it and to act on it instead of running around in circles with no clear direction.

In short, seek to know the truth about your specific situation.

And distinguish between your conscious and unconscious mind to see this clearly!

Which brings us to the next point:

• Follow Your Gut

Once you know the truth about your situation, follow your gut when it’s time to make a decision.

If you don’t follow your gut, you are overthinking the situation and you will end up extremely disappointed with your outcome.

Your conscious brain knows what’s true right before you thought about it (in most cases).

When it does this, your gut finds out and you have a hunch as to what you need to do.

When this “hunch” comes, you act immediately on it.

You don’t hesitate.

You just go like the grown man or woman that you are.

And you win.

This is the most important step in any situation you are in.

Your hunch is your best friend.

It will guide you through the good times and bad.

Every person who has achieved massive success in what they do attribute a large portion of their success to following their gut/intuition when they needed to.

Sure, they are experts at what they do, but it’s the gut feeling that drives them to get the knowledge they need and to make the decisions they make.

You can see this article here for more details.

Yes, even Albert Einstein used his gut to create the theory of relativity.

The gut is that powerful.

It can turn you into a genius overnight if you use it correctly.

I kid you not.

And yes, distinguish between your conscious and unconscious mind to see this clearly!

And now for the 5 step process to making great decisions about things you do in life:

• The 5 Step Process

• Research

• Plan 

• Commit

• Execute

• Monitor Progress, Refine and Repeat When Necessary

This is what it takes to get anything done.

Research

Most people fail at what they do because they fail to do the research required to undertake a task and the cost and benefits of such tasks to them.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that not doing research into what product to buy along with what college major to major in, verifying demand in the marketplace for products and services to figuring out who to marry and even something fun like going on a vacation can cause plenty of dissatisfaction with choices in life.

And that is a fact.

It’s like studying for a test for college.

Did you do well on a test if you didn’t do the reading beforehand?

How about when you did the reading?

Exactly.

Research is the first step in anything you want, even if that research consists of listening to your gut and the conscious mind about a choice in life.

Plan

Would you ever go on a boat with a captain who did not plan their course of action prior to sailing?

That’d be the most ridiculous thing any captain can do if they have somewhere to go!

Sometimes, life is like a captain who failed to do his homework.

You go into something on a whim, even though you need to chart out the course beforehand, and lo and behold, you crash and burn.

There is an old cliché that says that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

A plan is like a recipe you should follow except you are the one who makes it (in most cases).

Assuming that you know what you are doing, if you follow it, you will succeed because there is no second guessing as to what to do.

You just follow it and you will get through.

Not having a plan pulls you in so many directions that you eventually get confused and SUPER disorganized.

This is what leads to mental clutter and your situation will not end pretty as a result.

As a result, you don’t follow your gut, and in turn the conscious mind, you don’t take time to employ common sense and you give up your self-control.

This is when you know failure is bound to happen.

With a plan, you eliminate this guesswork.

You have certainty, clarity and above all, a vision for how you want things to pan out.

This is the foundation for a successful project.

And if the plan doesn’t work out, don’t despair.

Learn and grow and you will get better.

But at least you followed the process, which is key.

Eventually, you will get it right.

Commit

This step is extremely underrated, but it rings true with everything you do.

When you truly commit, you have your heart into what you are doing and you do it with a passion and a fire that no one ignores.

When you truly commit, you pledge yourself to greatness and you do what it takes to become great at what you do.

Without full commitment, you will never be great at what you do nor achieve what you set out to achieve.

Period.

This is what your gut and the conscious mind tell you that you have been ignoring for a long time.

It is the key to being a cut above everyone else.

Think of a sport or an art in which you participated in and reflect on who was the best in those sports/performances when you were participating in them.

If you saw them prepare, did they show up more than everyone else?

Did they put in more time than everyone else?

Did you notice that they wanted it BAD enough to the point where it was an obsession?

If you noticed these things, it’s because they were truly committed to being great at what they did.

That’s what you need to be a champion at what you do.

Execute

This is the one thing people know they need to do, but don’t.

Procrastination is a contagious disease that eats up the potential of many people who would be great otherwise.

It is the other reason as to why most people do not get what they want.

They sit around making excuse after excuse after excuse instead of getting their ass into high gear and MOVING.

Society rewards those who get up, move and provide value.

And you can only do that if you EXECUTE on what you want and you are relentless about it.

Nobody is going to get up for you.

YOU are the one who has to get YOU up to do the work.

Of course, you might not be perfect, but at least you moved.

Don’t wait another second to achieve a goal you want to achieve.

Start researching what you need to do starting today and make a note of every detail that you see.

Scrutinize everything with as little error as you can.

Once you research what you need to research, plan out what you will do and follow it.

Know deep down that you want it BAD enough and you will drive yourself to follow through on what you want.

And once you fully commit to what you want to do, execute the plan.

Monitor Progress, Refine and Repeat When Necessary

Adjust your plan if need be.

Let your gut and the conscious mind be the captains and do what they say.

Repeat step 4 once you adjust and continue going to step 5 if you need to adjust again until completion.

Eventually, you will get to where you want to go.

And that is what the conscious mind is all about.

Common sense and getting stuff done and achieved.

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Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: Comment below with what you got out of the post. It’d be great to know what results you got from it!

PPS: Remember once more, distinguish between your conscious and unconscious mind to live your best life!