Can You Really Train Your Mind to Succeed – Auto-Suggestions

The average adult processes over 60’000 separate thoughts every 24 hours, of which 90% take place subconsciously.

Thoughts are automatically created by our subconscious mind and continue to influence us without the participation of our conscious mind. So much of what we do on a daily basis happens without us actually consciously thinking about it.

These automatic thoughts are those that come to mind involuntarily and effortlessly taking place in our subconscious minds as an automatic response to stimuli in our environment.

The most dominant of our thoughts, the ones we repeat continuously, the ones we dwell on, get absorbed into our subconscious mind, will be so firmly in the front of our mind and influence us becoming an integral part of who we are, what we believe and how we behave. These are the thoughts that ultimately determine whether we fail or succeed in reaching our personal goals.

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to think we are similar, and don’t like to live like a robot, where much of what we do is automatic. By not being in charge of my thoughts, my thoughts must be in charge of me. Being a goal led human being, I felt this placed limitations on me, and could hold me back from achieving the personal growth I desired, and perhaps would restrict my ability to achieve my most important goals in life. When we are living on automatic pilot, we are allowing all our bad habits, and unwise, unthought-out actions to lead us. These automatic thoughts determine our thought patterns, attitudes and behaviours. These will block our success, preventing us from progressing in areas where we want to succeed.

So here is the good news. We can stimulate our subconscious mind to hold certain thoughts that can help our personal development and growth. By taking certain thoughts and repeating them over and over again we can give them power.

Suggestions operate powerfully when an idea is presented to the mind from within. This process has been given the name Auto-Suggestion. Auto-suggestion can be defined ‘as a self-imposed narrowing of the field of consciousness to one idea, by holding a given thought in the mental focus, to the exclusion of all other thoughts’.

Autosuggestion is a process by which you instruct your subconscious mind to believe something. This is achieved through repetitive, constant self-affirmations, by presenting one’s mind with repetitive thoughts (negative or positive), until those thoughts become internalised.

“The autosuggestion technique helps you precisely with this. It is a technique that when learned and applied correctly, has the power to influence the subconscious mind according to our instructions. In other words, autosuggestion helps the subconscious mind believe a specific affirmation with an intended goal”. Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich.

An individual who wants to change his or her life or the actions they take can do this through auto-suggestion.

Autosuggestion is most commonly accomplished by bombarding the mind with repetitive thoughts until they are self-accepted by ones mind. It can be both a conscious process or unintentional process. Visualising the manifestations of a belief, verbally affirming one, and thinking one using one’s “internal voice” are typical means of influencing one’s mind via repetitive autosuggestion.

The auto-suggestion needs to be made over and over again, repeated mentally not with a sense of stress, but calmly and with belief. The best time for using auto-suggestion is preceding sleep or following waking. This is when the mind is most impressionable. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and with this you need to be persistent. Don’t set yourself up for failure by expecting instant results. Change takes time, but positive change is worth persisting with.

Applications of autosuggestion are intended to change the way one believes, perceives, or thinks, acts, or is composed physically or physiologically. An example may be an individual reading nightly aloud a statement he or she has constructed that describes how he or she would like to be, then repeating the statement in his or her mind until he or she falls asleep. People have attributed such a nightly routine or similar employment of autosuggestion with changes like increased confidence, the conquering of life-long fears, heightened mental faculties , achievement of goals, and so much more.

I’m now going to show you a wonderful way to take control over your thoughts. When using this technique, decide what your goal is, be very clear. It must also be something you strongly desire. Hold that goal so firmly in your mind that you can actually see what it looks like. You need to be able to visualise it. Get into a quiet spot where you will not be disturbed early in the morning or just before bed and relax yourself. Once you’re relaxed – state your affirmation / autosuggestion out loud. Picture yourself as if you had already attained that goal. Remember that the purpose of the exercise is to give commands to your subconscious mind.

Choose a quiet place where you will have a minimum amount of disturbance.

• Choose one of two postures:

• Sitting down with head, legs, and arms well supported (armchair)

• Reclining with head raised, arms at side

• Now stay very still and quiet, with no distractions around. Your body should be comfortable and relaxed.

• Stare at a point on the ceiling (when lying down) or on the facing wall (if sitting), until they start to feel heavy, so that they begin to shut.

• Turn your entire attention and focus to your breathing. Allow yourself to breathe naturally. Don’t try to adjust your breathing. Don’t consciously try to make any changes. Just let yourself breath. Keep observing your breath.

• Feel the whole of your body, including the places where it contacts the surface of the seat. Notice how your body feels at this precise moment. Observe which body parts feel tense and which ones feel relaxed.

• You are now going to use the five deep breath method., where you breath in and slowly five times.

• Breathe in … mentally repeat “This tension is all….” breath out … mentally repeat”….going away”.

• Breathe in … mentally repeat “This tension is all….” breath out … mentally repeat”….going away”.

• Breathe in … mentally repeat “This tension is all….” breath out … mentally repeat”….going away”.

• Breathe in … mentally repeat “This tension is all….” breath out … mentally repeat”….going away”.

• Breathe in … mentally repeat “This tension is all….” breath out … mentally repeat”….gone away”.

• Now let the feelings of relaxation overcome you and spread throughout your body.

• Mentally say the following statements several times each at a slow, steady pace:

• My eyelids are getting heavier.

• My eyes are feeling heavy and weary and they can no longer stay open.

• My eyes are closing.

• Return to your natural breathing.

• Repeat mentally: ‘On every breath, I am becoming more relaxed’.

• Feel yourself getting more and more relaxed

• Now focus on your muscles, and simply repeat 3 times the following phrases.

• My hands are becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My arms are becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My shoulders are becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My neck is becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My face is becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My head is becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My chest is becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My stomach is becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My back is becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My legs are becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• My feet are becoming relaxed and heavy. (3X)

• Then, mentally repeat:

• Every breath I take, the feeling of heaviness gets more and more.

• Take a deep breath and upon the inhale, say, “I am”, exhale, and say, “calm”. Repeat 3 times.

• NOW REPEAT YOUR GOAL. VISUALISE IT. FEEL IT’S ACHIVEMENT. SEE YOURSELF WITH THE SUCCESS IT BRINGS. HEAR YOURSELF TALK ABOUT IT. STAY HERE FOR 5 MINUTES.

• To exit this exercise say to yourself “I am now coming back to full awareness’’.

• Start to count slowly from one to ten. 1 … 2 … 3 .. 4 … 5 … 6 … 7 … 8 … now open your eyes, 9 … 10 … I feel great in every way, feeling better than before!

• You now feel fully awake and totally alert. Stand up, stretch out, and feel great.

Your mind is like a garden. If you tend it and plant good useful seeds, you will reap a harvest of positivity in your life. I encourage you to add this technique to your self development tactics arsenal. Learn it and practice it on any area of life, from day to day living to more elaborated and bigger life goals. As you practice and get better at it, you’ll become more and more amazed at the results you can create!

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