Key Takeaways:
- Your subconscious mind will find evidence for whatever you focus on. If you focus on problems, it will find more problems.
- Shifting your focus from problems to solutions will allow your subconscious to start finding solutions instead. Even a slight reframe can have a big impact.
- Focusing on problems creates stress and limiting beliefs. Focusing on solutions creates possibilities and expansiveness.
- This isn’t about fake positivity or bypassing problems. It’s about assuming there are solutions and directing your focus toward finding them.
- You have the capacity to find solutions to anything. Refocus your awareness and intentions on solutions, and your subconscious mind will uncover them.
So today I want to talk about the fact that the problem that you think you have is not actually the problem. So bear with me. The way that your subconscious mind works is it’s going to find evidence for whatever it is you set it on, whatever it is that you direct it towards.
So your subconscious mind, just to give you a quick little primer, your subconscious mind wants to keep you safe. Your subconscious mind operates outside of your awareness, and it is making you run away from that lion back in evolutionary times or whatever, before you can even think about like, gee, there’s a lion, I better run. And you are running, right? So it does stuff before you’re even consciously aware of why it’s doing stuff, wants to keep you alive, wants to keep you breeding.
It wants to make you allow you to live on and make babies. So your subconscious mind wants to keep you alive. So when you say, I have a problem, the subconscious mind goes and it looks around like, problem, problem.
I got to find the problem. I got to keep aware of the problem. And it creates stress.
It creates stress in your body, it creates stress in your mind. It creates more stress in your business and your life, et cetera. The subconscious mind is also like a little bloodhound.
Think of that movie like Shawshank redemption where they stick the prisoners like sweaty outfit in front of the nose of the bloodhound. And that bloodhound can smell everything. But that bloodhound is absolutely focused on finding the scent of that prisoner, and it will track it down no matter what.
Well, your subconscious mind is going to track down whatever it is that you stick in front of its nose. And so if you stick in front of its nose, I’ve got a problem, I’ve got a problem. I’ve got a problem.
Guess what? Your subconscious mind is going to find a problem. It’s going to find another problem, and then it’s going to find another problem, and then it’s going to find another problem. And if you say, what’s wrong with me? Guess what? It’s going to find something that’s wrong with me.
If you say to your subconscious mind, this is never going to work, it’s going to believe that and it’s going to find reasons that it’s never going to work because the subconscious mind. So essentially what’s going on here is we’re taking in 3 billion bits of information at any one time. You are taking in so much information that you’re not even aware of, that you’re not even aware of how unaware you are, of how much information you’re taking in.
I know that sounds confusing, but think about it this way. Feel your butt on your chair. Yeah.
When was the last time you thought about or consciously were aware of the feeling of your butt on your chair? Probably. It’s been a while, but you are actually taking in that data all the time, constantly. So how is it that that is happening? That you’re taking in that data, that sensory data, but you’re not being aware of it? It’s because the subconscious mind filters it down to a very small, select, filtered chunk of information.
It goes from 3 billion bits of information down to 300 bits of information. And so your narrowed focus is like that prisoner’s outfit in front of the bloodhound’s nose. You’re asking your subconscious mind, pay attention to this.
This is why I can say, pay attention to your butt. And you can tune into your butt, you can shift what it is that you’re paying attention to. And so when we are focused on problems, when we are focused on what’s wrong, when we are focused on what’s the matter, what’s wrong with me, what’s going on, all of these things, guess what? Our subconscious mind is going to narrow our focus down to the pieces of information that show us what is wrong, that show us problems, that show us the things that need to be healed, that show us the things that need to be fixed instead of focusing on the solution.
So if the problem isn’t the problem, what is the problem? The problem is we’re not focused on finding solutions. We’re focused on finding more problems. When we are focused on finding more problems, like I said, you find more problems.
But when we are focused on finding solutions, the exact same process happens. But it happens in this generative, expansive way. Suddenly, where we are then finding the answers to our questions, we are then finding the doorways of opportunity.
We are then finding all of these things that we didn’t even know were there because we were focused on finding more problems. Now, you might be like, Dr. Ash, that sounds cool and stuff, but what the heck does that actually mean in reality? What the heck does that actually mean? Like in my life, how do I just focus on solutions when I’ve got a problem? Like my bank account doesn’t look the way I want it to? Like my launch failed, my income is inconsistent.
What the heck? Those are real problems. Yes, they are real problems. However, is focusing on my income is inconsistent.
This month I’m making twenty k. The next month I’m making two k. Is focusing on that actually providing me with a solution.
No, what’s happening is focusing on that. Focusing on the problem is actually creating a stress response in my body. It’s making me feel chronic tension.
And as you guys know, 80% of the nerves in your system believe it’s your peripheral nervous system. Go from your body to your brain, and only 20% go from your brain to your body. What this means is that your body is constantly giving your brain feedback on whether or not you are stressed.
Your subconscious mind reads stress as a threat to your survival. And so when you feel stressed in your physical body, it’s giving your brain, your subconscious brain feedback. You’re going to die, even though you’re not going to die, and it’s going to hold you back from whatever it is you want.
It’s going to make it a big deal. It’s going to make it something that’s a threat. It’s going to make it something that will have you throwing on the handbrake.
So as you’re focusing on problems, you’re creating this stress response, which then creates a feedback loop, which creates more limiting beliefs, which creates more out of whack emotions, which makes you believe that you’re the kind of person who can’t succeed, you can’t scale your business, you can’t have all the income that you want, all of these bs beliefs, and then you get stuck. And you wonder why because your subconscious mind is throwing on the handbrake to try to keep you alive because it thinks this stress is telling it that you’re about to die because you’re focused on problems. So let’s go back to the inconsistent income month thing, right? So you’ve got this inconsistent income month.
One month you’re making twenty k. The next month you’re making two k. Oh, no.
And you’re wondering what to do because of course I got to focus on this problem. I got to solve it, I got to get over it. I got to figure out where the core of it is.
I got to pull it out by the roots in which we do need to pull it out by the roots. But I’ve got to find out what this problem is. Why does this keep happening to me? It, if we can even just gently, just gently nudge over into the side of, well, if this is happening, and I’m considering this to be a problem due to the law of polarity, due to the fact that there is always an opposite, that means that there’s a solution.
So what I’m going to do is I’m going to assume that there is a solution to this. That there is an easy way for me to have consistent income months to get off of the feast or famine. Oh, my God.
Entrepreneurial roller coaster that makes me feel out of control and makes me feel like this is scary and I’m instead going to rest my heart, mind, body and soul in trust and in belief that I can find the answer to anything. I can find the solution to anything. There is always a solution to every question I ask.
So the question isn’t, how do I fix it? The question is, how do I create what I want? There’s that gentle nudge. Just a slight tweak in your wording can be pretty powerful. Are there other aspects of this? Sure.
Dismantling the limiting beliefs, the layers of limiting beliefs that can exist beneath the surface that are motivating you to throw on the handbrake. Yes. Understanding the stress response, calming the nervous system, all of that.
Yes. Really being the person who can have the things. Yes.
But when we go back to sometimes these simple, simple shifts, they can have a profound impact. And so just saying to yourself, something as simple as changing it from I’ve got to figure out what the problem is, why I have these inconsistent income months to, you know, what I would love is having consistent income months. And I just know that there’s just such an easy solution to this.
And I’m totally open to it. I’m totally open to discovering the way that this can just be easy and fun. I am totally open to a radical answer that just doesn’t even seem like an answer because it just seems too simple.
I’m just totally open to having consistent income months just be normal. I can just feel my body relax saying that my income months are normal. My consistent income months are normal.
And finding ways to make that happen is easy to achieve. Now, I want to address something that’s really important here, because you might think what I’m suggesting is the fake it till you make it thing. Just pretend that everything’s okay.
No, this isn’t any Pollyanna Bs here. This isn’t any fake it till you make it bullshit. Where we try to pretend everything’s okay and we go into bypassing, where we ignore reality.
No, it’s not about that. What it’s about is assuming there’s a solution. Assuming that you have the capacity to figure out anything and everything and that the answers are always available to you.
That’s not fake. That’s not bullshit. That’s not bypassing what that is is.
That’s like planting a garden and assuming that the garden will grow, we know a garden will grow. If it gets sunshine, water, and it has soil, some of those seeds are going to sprout. It’s just inevitable.
It’s inevitable, right? What’s the name of the podcast? Inevitable success. It’s inevitable. And that’s what belief is.
That’s what confidence is. And so when we can say the solution is inevitable, that is true. That’s not bs, fake.
I’m going to ignore that. There’s an issue that’s saying this is available to me, and I know that I can claim it by focusing that awareness on the solution instead of the problem. Because suddenly my subconscious mind is focused on the case is like that bloodhound, and now I put in front of that little bloodhound subconscious mind, doggy in my brain on the scent of the solution instead of the problem.
And what happens is my brain, outside of my awareness, is now going to filter all of that information that I’m getting at all times and finding more solutions and finding more ways out of the pickle that I find myself in at the moment. And that, my friends, is the power of harnessing your subconscious mind and knowing that there’s always a solution available to you at any time, and that you’re never freaking stuck in a problem unless you decide that that’s where you want to rest your awareness, and that’s where you want to rest your intention and attention, because your attention equals your intentions. And I know that your intentions are not to find more problems.
Oh my God. Who wants more problems? Thinking of that Jay Z song, 99 problems. No, I don’t want problems.
What I want are solutions. What I want are ways to put things together that are unique to me and that make sense and that feel good, because that’s when I know I’m winning. It’s not that we never encounter problems in our life.
Like I said, it’s not this Pollyanna bypassing thing where we ignore the fact that there are problems in our lives or in our society or anything like that. It’s that we refocus our attention, our awareness, and our intentions on finding and discovering solutions, and then our subconscious mind finds them. That’s how powerful you are.
How exciting is that? Now, I’d love to hear from you about what you’ve taken from this podcast about what you’ve discovered in terms of your relationship with finding more problems and discovering those solutions that have always been available to you at any given moment. Shoot me a DM on Instagram. I’m Dr. Ashlee Greer. And I would love to hear from you and hear more about how this has made a difference in your life.
