[00:00:00]
All of these fears, keep you hidden from opportunity. All of the limiting beliefs that you have, keep you from what you actually want consciously because subconsciously it does not align with your bigger vision.
Welcome to the Make Up Your Mind podcast. I'm your host Jahleane Dolne, and I'm here to help you make up your mind - literally and figuratively. I'm a motivational speaker, content creator, subconscious mindset coach, and the founder of The Postgrad Playbook- the only coaching platform and resource center for post-grads and 20 somethings to release mindset blocks and take action towards their chosen career , no matter how, quote unquote, unconventional that might look.
As an expert recognized by Afrotech, LinkedIn news,, and more, I help you identify what you actually want, release what's keeping you stuck, and have a game plan to take action with clarity, confidence, conviction, and ease. Here we cover all things, paving your own way and how that looks personally and professionally. Get ready to finally make up [00:01:00] your mind.
Let's get started.
Hi, happy Wednesday. And welcome back to another episode of Make Up Your Mind, I'm your host, Jahleane Dolne. And today we're getting into all things. Self-sabotage your subconscious mind and how to finally get over it. I was inspired to create this podcast episode after reading a comment on a reel that I posted on the app, the post-grads playbook, Instagram account.
The post was about pursuing your purpose and what you actually want to do with your life.
And the comment said, while I answered these questions and damn, I've always known what I wanted to pursue, but there's always that, but IDK in the back of my head crying face emoji. And then doc dot doctors, there's more to the comment.
I decided to talk about this today because a lot of us struggle with that, but IDK.
Even though the by IDK. IDK seems to be a very nonchalant ending to that. And also a very weightless phrase I feel like it's actually pretty loaded with a lot of history behind [00:02:00] it, because there are a lot of things that have to happen in our lives to get us to the, I know I want to do this, but I don't know if I should have phase, which is what we're going to be talking about today.
And how we can take the first steps to unloading what all of that quote, unquote baggage is per se is through analyzing our subconscious mind. Over the last few episodes, we touched base on what that subconscious mind is, but I really want to drive home. The fact that the limiting beliefs that live in our subconscious minds are the driving factors between so much of our self sabotage and why we do not move forward.
It is so clear to me in my personal life that I have a subconscious block. Whenever I avoid doing one thing or there is one area of my life there. I have not made progress in even though I think about it all the time. Let me know if the cycle sounds familiar to you, you think about a really fun and expansive and exciting idea that you have, then you maybe take some steps to actually pursue it. But then after it gets a little too good, or after you make a little bit too [00:03:00] much progress, you suddenly forget or you fall off and then maybe a week again, you start the process over and you try to remain consistent, but you end up in the cycle of starting thinking about it, getting scared of falling off, starting thinking about it, getting scared, falling off and so on and so on.
And so on.
Once again, that's an indication of a subconscious block. I completely resonate with this.
I consider myself a pretty hard worker and a diligent worker. so when I wasn't able to remain consistent in certain areas of my life, I knew that I had a subconscious block that had to be broken.
Sometimes it can be very easy to blame a lack of consistency on just being lazy or just not being motivated enough.
But at the same time, it's very easy to just not identify with that, considering that you might not inherently be a lazy person, especially when it comes to getting tasks done for other people, for your work, for your job, there might be other areas in your life where you can prove that you are and diligent and hardworking person.
But in this one, you just fall short. And breaking commitments to yourself.
Not only is it absolutely [00:04:00] heartbreaking, but it also leads to a complete lack of self-trust and agency where the point to the point where you don't even believe that you're capable of making the progress that you seek, even though that's not true.
Robin Sharma said at best potential unexpressed turns to pain. And that's what happens when we're navigating these subconscious blocks and aren't able to move forward. We're are the ones who suffer at the end.
If we don't do the work to reverse them.
So how do you identify what the subconscious block is? What is the subconscious mind? How do you get over it? What are some symptoms of self sabotage? We're going to be going over all of that. It's about to get a little science-y in here. I'm sure a lot of us haven't taken a biology class in some time. But when I was getting my coaching certification and this, I figured some really good analogies that will hopefully make this as simple as possible and easy to understand
so to start it off with a breakdown of what is your subconscious mind. So your mind is split into your conscious and your subconscious, your conscious mind is about a five to 10%, and that runs your critical thinking, your logical thinking, your [00:05:00] willpower and so on. Whereas your subconscious mind is about 90. to 95% of your brain and that is responsible for your beliefs, your creativity, your self identity, your imagination, intuition values habits, emotions, you get gist of it. So if you're thinking about it like an iceberg, The tip of the iceberg, which is your conscious mind is right above the water which is very small. And then the body of the iceberg, which is that 90 to 95% in the subconscious mind is deeply submerged.
So since it's your subconscious, you are not consciously aware of all these things happening beneath the surface.
There are several rules at the subconscious mind. Always, always, always abides by the number one rule, being that the subconscious mind wants to keep you safe. And to that safe means familiar. Familiar in the sense that it can always predict the outcome of the situation that you're going to be putting yourself in.
So that's when you are in familiar environments, familiar situations and so on.
It [00:06:00] prioritizes safety even though a situation that you might be putting yourself in might not consciously be what you want. So, for example, like we talked about in this, how to quit your job episode, if you had a job that you were looking to leave, sometimes your subconscious might make you suddenly forget to start looking for jobs where you might not take the action that you want to be able to find a new situation, because a finding a new situation, you can't accurately predict the outcome of what that job will be.
Like. You don't know exactly what the work environment will be like. You don't know exactly. What you'll get paid. There are a lot of what ifs that are associated with that new outcome. So your subconscious might want to keep you safe and in the current job that you are now, which is why sometimes it might take people along with a lot of other reasons, but one of the reasons why it may take some time for someone to leave a bad situation.
Second role of the subconscious mind is that the brain is unable to tell the difference between real and imagined experiences.
So if you're off daydreaming or if you're thinking about imagined scenarios enough, the brain actually thinks that that is [00:07:00] something that is really happening to you.
This is one of the reasons why vision boarding and visualizations work so well. It's because if your brain can see it happening, it will start to create that outcome in your reality.
The next is that your subconscious always works in any way possible to conserve energy. What does that look like?
You can really see this happening in the habits that you take part in day in and day out. So it takes a lot less energy for you to move forward with a habit you're already accustomed to rather than developing a new habit.
For example, let's say when you wake up every morning, the first thing that you do is you grab your phone.
Your subconscious mind is always going to want to conserve energy. So it's a point of want to reinforce that habit. And since it's already established that you're waking up every day and grabbing your phone and scrolling social media, that's what you will continue to do.
However, it's harder to instill new habits because that requires more energy for you to consciously make the decision every morning until that becomes a new habit to not be [00:08:00] scrolling your phone and be on social media.
Another rule, the subconscious mind is that it always, always, always takes what we say and everything it hears as truth. That's one of the reasons why people are always saying, be careful about the music that you listen to be careful about the people you hang out with. Be careful about the words that you speak, because your mind will take it as truth.
So if you're constantly saying, things never work out for me. , you will start to see more and more evidence of this happening all around you. Because your subconscious also will never make you a liar. It wants to reinforce what you say is true.
So, how does this fit into the grand scheme of self-sabotage?
Like we discuss self-sabotage leads you into an entire cycle where you are starting something making progress, falling off, and then maybe getting back on the horse and moving through it all over again. Or maybe you just don't start what you want to at all, because there's so conscious block there.
And there are many of the examples that this might show up as. So it might look like procrastination on the tasks that [00:09:00] you wanted to do. It might look like fatigue. So maybe when you really want to. Start applying to new opportunities. You suddenly get really tired and decided that you need to take a nap. It might also show up as a forgetfulness, so forgetting to do the task overall. Potentially even worrying and obsessing over it and the wet F's and what might happen. A subconscious block could also look like blame and criticism and constantly. Looking at the negatives of the situation.
This could also show up as turbulent in the relationships around you. So a part of your life becomes unstabilized.
Not keeping significant agreements to yourself, or maybe there's an email that will help you sign off on an opportunity.
And you really procrastinate on sending that email out to confirm, because you weren't sure if you necessarily want it on a subconscious level. And lastly, it can look like even rejecting compliments. For example, if you did really good on a presentation but you don't really have a belief in yourself that you're able to show up that way or speak up for yourself confidently. If someone [00:10:00] compliments you, you might point out the things that you did wrong.
Little things like that, that indicate a much bigger problem. So all of these little things that show up on the surface are deeply, deeply wedged into your subconscious
. As deep rooted fears and are probably the main indicators of self-sabotage. which I'm going to highlight right now.
The first is a fear of failure.
It's pretty self-explanatory what happens if I fail? So I won't even try, or it can look like if I don't try, I cannot possibly fail so I won't try at all.
I've also seen this show up very creatively as quote unquote, fake productivity. So it's showing up in a way where you do a lot of stuff, but you don't actually do the things that will move the needle.
For example, let's say you're building a business and instead of posting on social media and doing the marketing you spend all your time, building a website, looking at brand colors, looking at fonts when you know that that really won't move the needle. And what you have up already is good enough.
This could be focusing on a lot of [00:11:00] things that are not inherently revenue generating activities and don't lead into any of the goals that you have set for yourself.
On the flip side of a fear of failure is a fear of success, which is very interesting. Like why would anybody. Be afraid of success. That sounds very silly. Almost. But this idea stems from the upper limit by gay Hendricks. And essentially the premise is that when we reach a certain level of success, that's when it is too good. So the other shoe has to drop. The other shoe has to drop because we in our subconscious minds do not believe that that kind of success is for people like us.
So then we do things to take us out of that success. I E the procrastination, the fatigue , even though we've just reached milestones and so on.
The last fear that I'm going to be talking about is a fear of being perceived or seen. And I personally think that this is the one that affects so many people in our generation specifically, because even though we are very out there and on social media, I think that being known is one of the scariest things that [00:12:00] people can do because when you're out and you're known and yourself and people criticize you. There's nothing else to turn back to.
It is a very vulnerable experience to share yourself with the world, or even to show your face and to be known on a public level. And I think that there've been so many examples of people getting public canceled or publicly dragged that you may look at that and say, I never want that to be me and stray away from it aggressively.
So sometimes when it comes to posting on social media , getting up and speaking in front of other people, the idea of being perceived and seen an, a version of you that you are. Not always consciously in control of, because it lives in someone else's mind where it's up to interpretation.
It's up for criticism is a very scary experience .
If you have anxiety, or some of this resonates with you, I would encourage you to journal on this and be like, if I did X, Y, and Z, what feelings are coming up in my body, go back and listen to the intuition versus since it episodes to talk about being in tune with your body and also tapping [00:13:00] into yourself. So that way you can be. Clear and align of what you have to do. So understand what's showing up in your body and what you think might happen.
If you go all in, if you do exactly what you want to do to pave your own way.
All of these fears, the fear of being seen the fear of success, the feeling of failure , all of these fears, keep you hidden from opportunity. All of the limiting beliefs that you have, keep you from what you actually want consciously because subconsciously it does not align with your bigger vision. So your nervous system and your goals are incompatible your goals and your subconscious mind are incompatible.
And that's why you're not able to make progress. This aversion to progress and aversion to what you consciously want is rooted a fear of some change.
And that specific change differs from person, a person.
A lot of times we don't change because of how our world were changed around us.
What will our family think about us? What will our friends think about us? What will society as a whole think about us. Well, I think about myself. How does this challenge? My perception [00:14:00] of myself?
Change is.Absolutely scary, but it is the only constant. So we have to learn how to navigate it the best way we can. And when you finally get to the root of that issue, whether it's, you don't think your friends will be your friends anymore, if you reach X level of success or you don't know if you'd be able to trust yourself with how much money you have in your bank account. All of that. That's there can be rewired. Through multiple different methods through EFT topping through hypnosis. Subliminals. Visualizations.
EFT tapping a tapping technique that mixes Chinese acupuncture with modern day American psychology. That's really risen in popularity over the last couple of years. Basically how it works is that you tap on certain Meridian points in your body people have used EFT tapping for mental and emotional and physical distress. And when you're considering the subconscious blocks that you have EFT tapping is a great way to get over them. And the sensations that might come up in your body after having them.
[00:15:00] Affirmations. We all know that this works. Affirmations have been scientifically proven. If you tell yourself something long enough, you start to believe it, but then also embodying the version of yourself that has what you want before you actually have it is incredibly powerful because you do need to be the person before you have the thing.
Visualization and have hypnosis are techniques that you can use to rewire the subconscious mind through actively creating in your mind's eye, a vision of what you want so that it's not as scary to your subconscious and like we talked about you're so conscious, cannot tell the difference between real and imagined experiences, which is why this works so well to rewire and penetrate your subconscious mind and ease the fear that might come with these big dreams.
Lastly sleep affirmations, which is something that I learned about from Haley Hoffman Smith, who is a creator on Instagram and TikTok, just hears a lot of really great content. And the premise of sleep affirmations is as you're falling asleep, you can program in your own voice, what you would like to think instead of the subconscious limiting belief that's [00:16:00] there already after your journaling, and you've identified it.
As you're falling asleep, your mind is a lot more open to suggestion as you listen to affirmations to this time, it will help you rewire overnight so you're passively working on your mindset just as you fall asleep.
All of these techniques together are extremely powerful. Understanding where your self-sabotage is coming from, understanding the pain that you feel when you're not able to commit to the promises that you make for yourself and understanding how to rewire it and take agency, back into your life. As you're moving forward and you're paving your own way new subconscious blocks will pop up every single turn and having these techniques in your toolbox will be an absolute game changer for making it and also sustaining your success.
There are so many methods that you can do to actively change the narrative so that you can move forward and so your goals can be consistent with your conscious and your subconscious mind, and then you can finally skip the self-sabotage.
Once again, the biggest thing is getting to the root cause of this problem.
I'm so happy to be [00:17:00] offering a 14 question PDF full of questions that you can ask yourself in journal on. So that way you can get to the root of the problem , identify the subconscious block and also take steps to start to rewire. All you have to do to be able to receive that PDF is listen to this podcast episode screenshot and review that you've made on apple podcasts and send it to me on the app, the post-grads playbook, Instagram account.
And I'll go ahead and send you a link that you can't find anywhere else to get that PDF. So thank you so much for listening and whether you are on the podcast app or you are listening on YouTube and subscribing there, I'm really happy that you spent this time with me today. And as always, I'm correct for you and I will see you next week.
Bye-bye.
