At one time or another, we have all heard of the subconscious mind yet very few people understand how to use it. Many people even disregard its existence because they cannot see it, touch it, hear it, smell it, or taste it. The successful individual not only knows of its existence, but knows how to “program” the subconscious mind for success.

Our mind, as we know it, can be said to consist of two levels of activity: conscious and subconscious. Your conscious mind is where we find the logical, reasoning portion of your mind. It uses the five major senses to gather information and come to logical conclusions by both deductive and inductive reasoning. To be brief, just about everything we know of as “thinking” is done with the conscious mind.

Here is the really interesting part—most of your mental activity is subconscious. This is the “work done” that you are not even aware of. The subconscious works 24 hours a day with no breaks. It is the part of the mind that controls your autonomic bodily functions such as breathing, digestion, and the beating of your heart. It is the same part of the mind that takes over activities once they become “second nature” to you, like riding a bike or doing simple math.

In terms of success, the subconscious mind is like a computer program that controls our thoughts, habits, beliefs, and convictions. Most people do not like the fact that they can be “programmed” like a computer or a robot, nor do they like the fact that the subconscious mind can control their actions and thoughts. However, we ultimately control our subconscious mind, and we have the ability to reprogram it for success.

Our programming started early in life when our parents, friends, teachers, siblings, TV and media wrote our initial program. These same influences continue to program most people today because most people are not aware of their powerful influence. Advertisers certainly are. A perfect example is beer commercials. They begin with beautiful people frolicking in slow motion on a white sandy beach on a perfect day. The people all appear happy, healthy, successful, and sexy. Then the name of the beer is displayed on screen. Now almost everyone who watches these commercials are reasonable enough to know that drinking beer is not going to bring them all of those things seen in the commercial. So why do they work so well? The subconscious mind cannot reason. It interprets images, words, and feelings literally. The commercials do exactly what the advertisers want them to do—associate positive feelings and images with their products. This is mind programming.

We can program our own subconscious minds for success simply by doing the same things: associate great feelings with all of the things we want from life. Use positive, successful statements when talking and thinking while avoiding negative talk and thought.

Throughout this course, we will be discussing detailed techniques for programming your subconscious mind for success. Understand the power of the subconscious mind, and you will be an expert “programmer” before you know it.