The Power of the Unconscious Mind
The greatest impediments to changes in our traditional roles seem to lie not in the visible world of conscious intent but in the murky realm of the unconscious mind.
—Augustus Y. Napier
At this point, you must be wondering why I put so much emphasis on the use of metaphors. While it’s true that metaphors can help simplify complex ideas and make them more usable in daily life, they can do so much more in helping us to change our behavior and the direction of our organizations. Like you, I have watched and listened to the media report on many successful people who have done absurd things and shipwrecked their lives. In some cases, their behavior has destroyed the lives of many people around them too, and even destroyed the organizations they faithfully served. People such as Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Rod Blagojevich, Lindsey Lohan, Jerry Sandusky, O. J. Simpson, Bernie Madoff, Dennis Kozlowski, Jim Bakker, David Sokol, Jimmy Swaggart, and Bernard J. Ebbers all engaged in undesirable behaviors that shocked everyone. I suspect that even they themselves wondered how they ended up in their particular situations. Every one of these people are gifted, talented, well-educated, with the potential to be strong, contributing members of society. Each of them, at the pinnacle of their careers, fell from grace by deviating from the norms of society and getting caught in the act. Lest ye cast the first stone, however, consider that every one of us has the potential to fall into behaviors that we would not be proud to speak of.
How did these successful people end up the way they did? I have to believe they love their families and friends, and that they had career and personal goals that were honorable. They all worked hard to get where they were. But why is it they seemed to forget the differences between right and wrong and choose a path that led each of them to destruction? What is the problem?
Limiting Behaviors
Have you ever done something without thinking, and later wished you hadn’t? Almost immediately afterward, you regret your words or actions and begin a process of self-criticism and self-condemnation. You know you’ve hurt someone with your choice of words, but at that moment you felt almost unable to control what came out of your mouth. Have you ever failed to achieve a goal that you so desperately wanted to achieve? Sometimes it is due to a lack of motivation. Sometimes, due to a lack of focus or self-discipline, we allow distractions to divert our attention away from the things we should be doing to achieve our goals. Oftentimes when we fail, we blame it on someone else or on our circumstances rather than placing the blame where it really lies: on our own behavior.
Sometimes we find that just when we are supposed to receive a promotion or award, we say or do something that sabotages our efforts. I call these limiting behaviors. These are actions that seem to come from some deep dark place in our inner person that erupt in those most inopportune times. These limiting behaviors spew forth like the spray from a shaken bottle of soda when we pop the cap off. It shoots out everywhere, sticking to everything that it comes in contact with. We feel helpless to control these actions as if they have a mind of their own. In one sense they do. They have become habits that are triggered by cues or events that cause us to fall into a routine that is often debilitating. These habits are automatic, deeply imbedded in our unconscious mind, ready to leap out given the right cue or event.
Research into how the mind works has come a long way. Freudian concepts have been examined and redefined, and in some cases thrown out altogether.1 Although experts may disagree, most contend that the unconscious mind controls somewhere between 90% and 95%2 of our daily actions and reactions. This is a staggering thought. Just when we felt we were in control of our lives, we discover that our unconscious mind is actually at the helm. Perhaps we are not the captains of our own ships after all.
We are constantly influenced by our biases—thoughts and feelings that have taken root over time as influences have gone to seed in the fertile soil of our minds.3 These influences come from all around us, through friends, family, news media, entertainment, print media, music, and images. As we are bombarded with input, the conscious mind is only able to handle about 40 bits of information per second, while the unconscious mind can handle up to 20,000,000 bits of information per second.4 It’s like looking at a photograph where the only part that is in focus is the very center. This is the information that the conscious mind can process. But the unconscious mind is able to see and comprehend every pixel of the photograph in complete clarity.5 The work of the unconscious mind “allows” the conscious mind to deal with the elements in view that it focuses on. However, the unconscious mind also works to filter what the conscious mind chooses to see or comprehend.6 Unfortunately, the unconscious mind does not always behave as we want it to. It will make choices for us that we are not aware of and can cause us to accept, focus on, and respond to things in ways that would be contrary to choices that we might make if given the time and clarity to weigh out all the facts. In addition, the unconscious mind will often “enhance” our thoughts with elements that may or may not be true.7
The conscious mind is where our short-term memory, and planning and analytical processes reside. This is where we weigh out pros and cons in decision-making. However, even here, bias exists. The unconscious mind is where emotions, feelings, habits, patterns of behavior, addictions, creativity, developmental stages, involuntary bodily functions, spiritual connections, and intuition reside. All of these are operating in the background of our daily mental processing.
Gaining Control
In order for us to gain some sense of control over our unconscious mind, we need to better control our inputs and change those things that influence us.8 This process includes changing the words we hear, the images we view, the music we listen to, and the voices we allow to enter our realm of sensory input. This process requires the desire to change, the faith to believe we can change, and the discipline to follow a process that requires repetition of “good” inputs over time until our actions and reactions have rehabilitated themselves so that they truly represent our desired values. This can be accomplished through the use of metaphors, images, and sounds.9,10
Metaphors and sounds, such as music, create mental images that can imprint themselves on our minds by establishing cues. Repeated imprinting solidifies the image and the emotions that are associated with it. This creates an unconscious awareness that can emerge in various situations where the image is relevant to the situation at hand. The conscious mind receives the output of the unconscious mind that brings forth the image and the associated emotions and applies them to the situation by way of a routine or habitual behavior.11 If this is the first encounter, in many cases it does not represent truth but instead represents our current reality. In a conversation between two people, this process is continually occurring.
Both parties are at the mercy of their unconscious minds and how they see the situation unfolding. Each cue causes various routines or habitual behaviors to be enacted with associated rewards. If the behavior is in response to a cue that appears confrontational, the behavior may be defensive, and the reward is the emotional satisfaction of having successfully defended itself. For example, if one party raises his voice, the other party may fall into the habitual routine of raising his voice too, and attacking the other person with personal insults. One classic example is the situation of two boys in a schoolyard who get into an argument, only to have it quickly elevate into derisive remarks about each other’s mothers. The original raised voice may not have been meant to be threatening but it was received that way. Both parties may be from very different backgrounds and have very different perspectives, which can unfortunately cause significant differences of opinion leading to misunderstandings. Only through an awareness of this unconscious process can we begin to change the outcome.
Another way of dealing with poor habitual routines generated by certain cues is to change the routine and the reward. If someone raises her voice, and the routine is for you to immediately try to increase the volume of a response, thereby gaining the reward of having taken control of the conversation; an alternative routine might be to bring your voice down softer and lower. This still provides you with the same reward—control of the conversation—but also causes a de-escalation of the conversation, which results in a more rational discourse with better outcomes all around.
Questions to Consider
1.Can you recall a time when you said or did something that you regretted later?
2.Did you do anything to rectify the situation?
3.Do you find yourself repeating the same mistakes over and over again?
4.What bad habits or unproductive routines have you witnessed in your organization?