“What percentage of your mind is unconscious?”
This is a question I often ask people in our training programmes. The answers vary. But there are usually a few people who get the question right – 95% to 98%.
What this means, in reality, is that around 95% of the time you are unconscious!
Every thought you think. Every belief you have formed. Every emotional response you have created. Every behaviour is an unconscious one.
You respond to life in ways that are automatic. Are habitual. Are conditioned. Like the mainframe of a computer, everything you are doing is controlled by a set of mini programmes.
And unless you have an awareness of those programmes. And rewire those programmes, you’ll keep doing what you have always done.
Not only that but everything you experience in life is filtered through those programmes.
Think of something that occurred recently at work. A situation where you got hot under the collar. Where you felt frustrated or annoyed. A situation which you were still stewing about days later.
I guarantee your response to that situation didn’t come from external circumstances. I know it seemed that way to you at the time!
Your reaction to the event came from something much deeper.
Your perceptions. Your thought structures. Your beliefs. Your conditioned emotional reactions.
Every time you react to an external situation, in the same way, you reinforce those structures. Structures which are running the show without you even thinking about it.
This is why resilience training is not enough!
You can give your employees all the tools in the world to manage stress and develop resilience. But the real lasting change is not going to come from these tools.
Real lasting change has to begin with self-awareness.
After all, you can’t change something you’re not aware of in the first place!
What is self-awareness?
The journey into self-awareness starts by looking at your beliefs. The stories you’ve been leading. Your judgements of others. The identities you’ve formed about who you think you are. Identifying habitual thinking and behaviours and how they impact how you show up.
When you begin to recognise how restrictive and limiting your thinking is. And how much time and energy you have spent nurturing these thoughts, it’s a game changer! Understanding the nature of thought and how 99% of what you think is made up is even more powerful.
There’s a sense of liberation. Of freedom. Of empowerment.
You see when it comes to resilience, the truth is, you have an innate resilience within you. And while the tools shared on resilience training can be helpful.
The true source of your resilience is already there. Within you.
P.S. If you’d love to take your employees on a journey of self-awareness and long-lasting change, get in touch 👉 [email protected]
Sara Maude, a seasoned Solution Focused Psychotherapist, Transformational Coach, Hypnotherapist, and EFT Practitioner, brings over a decade of mental health expertise to global organisations. She specialises in workplace wellbeing training, employee health and wellbeing programs and mental health training for managers. Sara’s proficiency also extends to wellbeing consultancy and wellbeing strategy, contributing significantly to the enhancement of employee wellbeing in the workplace.