Much of the time when a new idea comes to us, we handle
that idea and move on, without ever becoming consciously
aware of the process. During the times when we are
consciously aware of the process of handling a new idea, we
often reject that idea without understanding why we
rejected it, or sometimes without even understanding that
we did reject it.
 
How can this be?
 
To understand this, lets briefly review a few of the
mechanics of how our minds work. When a new idea comes to
us, it comes into our conscious mind. It can be as a result
of our own thinking, or it can be from an outside source.
Immediately, and sometimes before the new idea is even
properly formed, our sub-conscious mind starts to evaluate
that idea.
 
Now this evaluation is happening in our sub-conscious mind.
That means that we are not consciously aware of it, but it
is happening anyway.
 
So how does our sub-conscious mind evaluate an idea,
sometimes before the idea is complete, and without us being
aware that this is going on. To understand this we need to
understand a characteristic of our sub-conscious mind.
 
Our sub-conscious mind has no ability to reason. If that is
so, how can it evaluate a new idea? Well one way is to ask
itself, does this new idea fit with what I already 'know'.
If it does, then the new idea will not be immediately
rejected. If it doesn't then the sub-conscious mind will
send a message to the conscious mind to say that this new
idea doesn't fit. Usually at this point, the conscious mind
will believe what the sub-conscious mind is saying to it,
and reject the idea.
 
There are a number of problems with this. What if the
information that the sub-conscious mind is evaluating the
new idea against, is wrong?
 
A common example of this is when a new idea comes into our
conscious mind, and our sub-conscious mind starts to
evaluate it. The sub-conscious mind says, 'I already know
that'. Now that 'I know that' message is sent to the
conscious mind, and what happens then?
 
Often the conscious mind stops considering the new idea at
that point, and moves on to something new. But did the
sub-conscious mind really know that? Maybe sometimes, but
often the new idea is not even properly formed yet, so how
could the sub-conscious mind be sure that it 'knew' that.
 
Unfortunately when the conscious mind gets the 'I know
that' message, it usually stops receiving or processing the
new idea, and that means the opportunity to learn something
new is lost.
 
Why would our sub-conscious mind act in a way that stops us
from learning? To answer that, and to understand in detail
how this process works, you will have to attend my 'Power
of the Mind' training, or perhaps wait for another article
in the future, but I do have space to briefly discuss what
we can do about it.
 
How can we interrupt our sub-conscious mind so that it does
not stop us learning from new ideas, when we are exposed to
them. I suggest that there are two easy ways.
 
Firstly, when we hear our sub-conscious mind saying 'That
doesn't fit', or 'That can't be right', or something
similar, we can simply say to our sub-conscious mind
'Thank-you for that information'. This means that we have
decided not to act on the message that our sub-conscious
mind was sending. Our conscious mind is then free to
continue considering, reasoning and thinking about the new
idea.
 
The second thing we can do is ask our conscious mind to
think about the new idea in a way it may have not done
before. Usually our conscious mind thinks 'Is this idea
right?', or 'Is this idea wrong?'. Instead of those
questions we could ask 'Could this idea change or improve
my life in some way?'.
 
This allows us to look at a new idea in a completely fresh
way, without being influenced by all the things that we
have learnt before, or that we already 'know'.
 
It was Will Rogers who said many years ago that "it's not
what people don't know that hurts them. It's what they do
know that just ain't so."

Tony McGlinn