7 Ways to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind That Can Change Your Life

Have you ever taken a good look at your habits and behaviors, and wondered why, exactly, you do what you do? In examining these behaviors, you may determine that your undesirable habits emerge from your subconscious mind — which is why learning to control your subconscious mind is a critical component of lifelong success.

Here, we’re diving into what you need to know about the subconscious and identifying seven techniques you can use to reprogram it, take control of your life, and see your life change for the better.

What Is the Subconscious Mind?

While we sometimes overlook its power, the subconscious is a part of the mind that heavily impacts our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. The subconscious mind is constantly learning from the conscious mind, which luckily means it can be controlled and programmed — but programming the conscious mind takes intentional, conscious work.

On the physical level, your subconscious mind is always trying to keep you alive — no matter the cost or how much it might “get in the way” of changing certain behaviors in your life. For example, your subconscious mind might view a totally benign, normal activity as a threat that triggers your fight-or-flight response. Whether the trigger is a result of past trauma, a phobia, etc., your body is trying to keep you safe, even though in doing so, it might lead you to experience troublesome physical symptoms, such as panic or an anxiety attack.

On the mental level, your subconscious mind stores memories and habits that impact you and your body. It uses this knowledge and past stimuli to, again, attempt to keep you safe and feeling your best in the present.

On the spiritual level, your subconscious influences your inspiration, imagination, and creativity.

It’s easy to see, then, how powerful the subconscious is — so just imagine how empowering it could be if you stopped allowing your subconscious to control you, and you controlled your subconscious instead.

7 Ways to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind

Here are seven tactics you can try — Arootah favorites — to reprogram your subconscious mind.

1. Positive affirmations

If you find that your subconscious mind is constantly feeding you negative thoughts, or sending angry or pessimistic attitudes your way unbidden, it’s time to start counteracting that subconscious negativity with conscious positivity.

Choose a positive mantra you can begin using throughout your day especially when those negative thoughts or feelings pop up.

Pro tip: Make sure your positive affirmations are just that; don’t choose an affirmation based on any negative language (i.e., choose “I deserve happiness and peace in my life” over “I want to avoid strife and negativity”).

2. Visualization

Your subconscious mind learns from past experiences and, thus, attempts to replicate good experiences and avoid negative ones. However, this mechanism can get in your way.

To keep your subconscious mind from interfering with new experiences or experiences it might otherwise try to avoid, use visualization. By using frequent positive, detailed visualizations of the realities you desire, you can train your subconscious mind to believe that positive outcomes are possible — allowing it to let go of past beliefs it has built.

Pro tip: Even if you’re not trying to avoid a negative subconscious reaction, you can also use visualization to push yourself toward a desired goal. The more you visualize using your mind’s eye and accept an event or achievement as a potential reality, the more easily your subconscious will align with the behaviors you need to conduct to achieve that reality.

3. Hypnosis

If you struggle with visualization, you may want to try hypnosis. Hypnosis allows your conscious mind to take a back seat as you — or a hypnotist — directly influence the subconscious mind without your daily worries, anxieties, or otherwise rambling thoughts getting in the way.

There are plenty of professional hypnotists out there, or you can start by trying self-hypnosis first using one of the many high-quality, self-guided recordings on YouTube.

Pro tip: In order for hypnosis to be more effective, you’ll likely need to believe that the practice is beneficial. If you have doubts about the effectiveness of hypnosis right out of the gate, this tactic may not be suitable for your goals.

4. Subliminal audio and video

Similarly, you can use subliminal audio and video to tap into your subconscious mind with less work on your part. People use subliminal messages to produce a variety of desired effects; for example, some people claim that listening to foreign language audio during sleep helps them to implant the foreign language in their subconscious. This practice makes it easier for them to learn the foreign language when they’re awake.

Pro tip: When making positive changes in your life, the key to success is always repetition, and repetition means giving yourself time for self-care. Consider scheduling 30 minutes each day for at least four weeks — maybe when you lay down at night or first thing when you wake up — to practice using subliminal messages.

5. Meditation

Meditation helps you calm your conscious mind and better focus on the tasks you need to accomplish in a given day. As such, meditation pairs wonderfully with any of the other tactics on this list, such as visualization and positive affirmations, that require you to focus strictly on your conscious mind to make subconscious changes.

Pro tip: If you’re interested in using meditation to reprogram your subconscious mind, take some time to learn about the many different types of meditation in order to find the style that’s best for you. Once you begin a meditation routine, you’ll find that there are far more benefits to the practice beyond using it to influence your subconscious.

6. Controlling your will and habits

Sometimes, reprogramming your subconscious mind is simply an act of sheer willpower. You want to change your subconscious-empowered habits and so you resolve to do so.

Pro tip: Of course, this is much easier said than done. When attempting to change your subconscious-derived habits, try habit-changing tactics, such as habit stacking or using a habit tracker for the best results.

7. Autosuggestion

For an easy approach, consider simply telling your subconscious the results you’d not only like, but that you expect, to see. This is what’s known as autosuggestion, or self-suggestion.

For example, if you consciously tell yourself you’ll begin waking up earlier, you may start to see yourself doing just that, with enough conscious dedication.

Pro tip: Go beyond thinking about the results you want to see and begin writing them down. Document your statement and display it in places you’ll see it throughout your day — your bathroom mirror, the corner of your laptop, reminders on your phone. Read your statement out loud if you can, multiple times throughout the day.

The Bottom Line

Your subconscious mind is an extremely powerful tool you can reprogram to begin making changes in your life. By using these seven techniques, you can start reprogramming your mind today and training your subconscious to start working for you, not against you.

Do you need more support to begin implementing changes in your life? Reprogramming such an entrenched part of your mind can be difficult, but working with an Arootah coach can make it easier. Schedule a free introductory call now to see how our coaches can help you jumpstart your success.