June 2009 - What’s Blocking Your Dreams?

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How many times have you set a goal or made a decision about achieving something, just to give up almost as soon as you started? If you answered, “So many times I can’t count”, you’re in good company. That is more common than you might think. You start off excited and highly motivated, just to lose steam and give up.

You may think that the biggest block keeping you from creating the life you want, attracting more money, meeting the right lover, losing weight, landing an awesome career, is due to your limiting and self-sabotaging beliefs surrounding these goals. And, to an extent many of your beliefs may be blocking you from success, and these beliefs may have been with you for a very long time, as far back as childhood, or in the womb or even before that. But there’s something more basic than any of these limiting beliefs that is keeping you stuck.

In fact, after I share with you what the biggest block is, releasing these self-limiting beliefs is the next step.

The biggest block you have is far more primal, and it is located in your subconscious or unconscious mind. You unconscious mind has one very important role and that is to keep you safe, physically and emotionally 24/7 behind the scenes. It is designed to keep you alive, and if not done with 100% success, it could literally mean a life or death situation. In runs the whole show when you’re not consciously paying attention. In its numerous responsibilities, your unconscious mind automatically takes care of life critical functions like keeping you breathing, pumping blood through your body, communicating with every organ and body system and much more. Bottom line, if you stop breathing or pumping blood, it doesn’t’ really matter what else happens. Safety and survival is the name of the game for your unconscious mind. If your safety is in jeopardy, or even perceived jeopardy, your unconscious kicks into full gear and does everything it can to assist you in remaining safe.

To keep you safe, your unconscious mind views everything you do through this filter, that’s what it does. So guess what happens when you announce you want to try something new or set a new goal?

It asks: “If I allow this to happen, will I be safe?” And, the only gauge it has is to look to the past. What were your previous experiences when you tried something new? What happened before when you set this same or similar goal? Your unconscious looks at past events to determine if this is a good idea or bad idea based on past experiences and consequences.

Have you ever wondered why you find yourself doing the same things over and over, or why you keep repeating the same patterns, or keep coming up with the same problems? The reason is, even if something doesn’t completely work for you anymore, your unconscious is comfortable with what the projected outcome will be. It’s familiar. It feels that you are still “safe” relative to living versus dying, and therefore it’s an acceptable behavior.

Have you found that whenever you have tried to make changes that you feel a lot of resistance and fear? For this reason, you may have found yourself easily slipping back into past behaviors even though the new behavior is what you want.

Part of the problem is, there are no guarantees that the new behaviors, or achieving a particular goal will bring you happiness, or be truly better than your old way of being. That can be kind of scary. It takes faith, confidence and courage to move forward into the unknown. And one more piece that’s really important here: are you truly inspired to achieve this goal or make this change, or are you doing it because society, your family or others will give you kudos for achieving it? In other words, do you want it for the right reasons? If the change you desire is about acceptance or fitting in, there’s not going to be a lot of self-motivation or inspiration, and without it, it’s even more difficult to overcome the primal fear of change.

As you’re thinking about the changes you want to make, make sure you ask yourself if this truly inspires you? Does this goal excite you? Is it authentic to who you are? Are you wanting this for the right reasons?

So why do you keep creating more of the life you don’t want? It would seem that no one would consciously choose that; however, when you look at if from the perspective of your unconscious mind, which is about safety, familiarity and comfort, it makes more sense. It’s comfortable and predictable and you already know the outcome.

Here’s a question; if you were given a choice and you could swap problems and challenges with someone else, would you do so? If you’re like most people, the answer is, “No.” Most people would rather keep their own problems or issues simply because they’re use to them. At least you know what to expect and even though you consciously want to change, there’s a concern that maybe taking on someone else’s life issues would be far worse than yours. In the end, this is the same fear you feel when you think about making change or choosing to go for your dreams. It also explains why you might start out full tilt and excited, but lose steam almost as soon as you begin, returning to the same old, same old.

Now you understand why this is the biggest block to really creating the life you love. Knowledge is power, so here is what you can do.

By seeing and understanding your unconscious mind for what it is, and that is a survival machine and a control freak, a little humor there, you can begin to make more conscious choices and whether you really want to listen to the mindless fear mongering chatter of your unconscious mind. It’s simply a readout machine that never shuts up. Its parameters are pretty limited, life and death, quite black and white. So, ask yourself do you want to continue to allow such a primal and limited program to run your life or affect your life choices? Look at it as a wild animal that simply needs to be contained. It’s doing its job and it likes having something to do. That’s your first step.

Here’s the second step. If you look at your life goals, you could use the symbol of a ladder. It’s unlikely that you’re going to feel comfortable going from the first step directly to the top, but you can start with smaller goals and changes that you feel are more comfortable, that inspire you. Otherwise, making too much change too quickly may cause you to resist the change you desire. You also can’t conquer fear by ignoring it or resisting it, but simply notice it. There’s a saying that says: “That which you resist persists.” Taking positive steps through the fear is what gives you courage and confidence. With each achievement you gain more confidence to take the next step on the ladder.

In reality, the safest step you can take is to take back your power, knowing that nothing can stop you from achieving the life of your dreams, and you can learn to contain the wild animal known as your unconscious mind.

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