‘Becoming The Real You’ – Toni Daly

If you can dream it, you can have it

Have you ever realised how amazing it is that we have an imagination? We are able to understand the world around us as it happens but also think into the future and imagine how it would feel to happen.

Pretty cool, huh? This is down to the way our minds are constructed of both consciousness and unconsciousness (also sometimes referred to as the subconscious).

Only 10% of our brains run consciously meaning from the part of the brain that helps us think logically about things it’s where our short-term memory is stored and is the part of the brain that helps us with willpower to create change. 90% of our brain runs unconsciously and is truly amazing. It is the part where it helps preserve our bodies.

Ever think about how to breathe or do you just do it? That cut on your hand? I need you to consciously think about sending your white blood cells to the cut so that they can help form a blood clot and scab over the wound so no infection can get inside the body… oh wait you don’t! The subconscious does that for us.

The thing with the subconscious however, is that it doesn’t understand what is happening right now or what is perceived to have happened. This is why some dreams can feel extremely real or when you imagine something happening you can really get into the finer details and you can almost touch what you are imagining.

If I said to you, I want you to go down into your kitchen and in your kitchen, you have a fruit bowl.

In that fruit bowl are big oranges from Seville. Limes and big juicy lemons from Sicily. I want you to pick up one of the lemons get the sharpest knife and cut through it… I bet your mouth starts to water as you can imagine the sharpness. This all happened in our minds, there was no lemon, but our subconscious didn’t know that.

Now we understand how our conscious and subconscious mind works why don’t we have some fun with it and start to create the life we want and who we want to become.

Human Excellence

Aristotle described excellence as learning to live our lives in an ideal way achieving a balance of moral virtue and righteousness and has been recognised as a learning process. How do we achieve this? We start to look at people who we believe have it already.

Remember it’s all down to perception. Who you think of as amazing may differ for different reasons due to our own values.

A few ways we can do this is by:

Modelling

John Grinder (professor of linguistics) and Richard Bandler (a psychology student from the University of California) had noticed that even though people who had similar upbringings, education and backgrounds the life they were experiencing was hugely different.

As they tried to understand why this was, the form of ‘modelling’ was created and it literally what it says on the tin. Model the behaviours that are held by someone you want to be.

Vision Boards

Vision Boards are a great way of putting down what’s in your mind into the physical dimension. You google (other search engines available) images that represent the goals or actions that you want to achieve.

For example, you might have a picture of a gym or healthy foods if fitness is one of your goals. You might have a picture of a cheque that’s been written to you for the desired amount of income you want to receive, a new car or a new house.

It’s YOUR vision board to anything goes and it’s a little bit of fun. The only rule with this is to have it visible to you throughout the day so hang it in your office or have a digital version on your desktop. This is us tapping into the subconscious and telling It is real and achievable.

Higher-Self

Your Higher-Self is you, in the future who has already achieved the life you desire. She IS that mum who looks flawless at the school gates who does Pilates on a Wednesday afternoon drinking green tea. It’s YOU.

So, check in with her regularly and start to take action to show up or make decisions as her. Now, this isn’t a case of fake it until you make it but rather closing the gap of where you are now and where you want to be. Is there anything today that you could do that your higher self would? My higher self, drinks water before caffeine in the mornings it’s a non-negotiable but easy to do and helps me feel more aligned – try it.

Changing states

This is where you ultimately start changing your psychological state from Effect to Cause. The Effect of something is the reasonings behind it. The Cause is the result. Start trying to shift your mindset from Effect to Cause. Don’t be the reason a change doesn’t happen be the result of that change.

If you’ve got this far, you’ve already taken action to start the changes you want to make and so you should celebrate that! Most people don’t. I can’t wait to meet your Higher-Self, I heard she’s POWERFUL!