Overcoming Life Threatening Unconscious Choices

In the post Choices impact Success of Life, we have emphasized on the positive effects of  making right choices. We have also quoted that we are free to make any choice in our life; however we don’t have control over its consequences. Whenever we make a choice, we have to think upon its consequence. We have to relate our choice with our goal. If our goal is to live a healthy lifestyle, then one of our choices should be intake of healthy diet. Ones we have made a choice, we have to consciously work on it - keep a track of our present habits, note the required changes to be made and then slowly but consistently adopt the changes to achieve the desired goal.

The Bright Side Of Unconscious Choices

Unconscious actions do not assign extra tasks to mind. The answers to what, when, where is already fitted in. Actions are carried out without any conscious process. They form habits. Habits as we know avert conscious decision making through routine selection of the same choices every time. Our unconscious mind can guide us right through routine decisions without consciously realizing what’s going on.

Do you remember the early childhood days? Our parents taught us to thank God and receive His blessing as soon as we woke up each morning. They told us, 'God answers morning prayers more than other prayers at any other time'. Folding hands for prayer was a conscious act then as we were learning and inculcating a new habit. Now, we are habituated. We do not have to remind ourselves that it's time for prayer. Our unconscious mind does its work. Isn't it a good habit? Obviously, it is a good habit. In other words, we consciously learned the ‘right’ choice a long time ago….and we still make the same decision regularly. 

We first make our habits then our habits make us

My Grandpa was a great self - disciplined personality. He woke up regularly at 4 am to water plants in our garden. He would spend nearly three hours in nature's beauty watching birds, planting trees and gardening. One day, while working with him, I punched a question out of my childish brain, "Appa, you already have lots of work the whole day around. Then why do you do all this work? We have a gardener, wouldn't he do this?" Do you know what he replied? He gently said, “These trees give all of us fresh air to breathe. Then isn't it everyone's responsibility to take care of them?"  I realized the importance of his conscious effort behind gardening. His hobby of gardening and a well balanced diet routine helped him live a fit healthy life.

Unconscious Choices Aren’t Always The Best Ones…!!

The consequences of many unconscious decisions are often dreadful. For example, some unconscious decisions result in death. The unconscious decision making process works against us when we’re unconsciously carrying out orders that are presently doing us harm.

Smoking and alcohol consumption, for example, are daily decisions many don’t think much about, consciously. And the consequences are usually threatening in the long run.

How Can We Alter Such Unconscious Choices?

One of the best solutions for revising the life threatening unconscious choices is to think consciously about the daily decisions which can seriously damage our health. Developing good habits will help us achieve our work, health and relationship goals quickly and easily whereas continuing with bad habits will likely cause us pain, frustration and disappointment.Given that 95% of our thoughts, feelings and actions are habitual, it is important to learn how to set aside bad habits and adopt new empowering ones.

We can follow these steps to make or break any habit: 

Step 1 – Develop Self Awareness

Self awareness is very important to help us break bad habits. We have to identify bad habits we need to break and good habits we want to create. We need to observe our habit for a week or more to know when, why, how and where we do our habit. This will give us an idea of current behavior. Now, clearly define the problem, likely consequences and the essential solutions.   

Step 2 – Define outcome

We need to decide what we want instead of our current habit. For example, if our bad habit is eating junk food on daily basis, our new habit goal may be “eating junk food ones in a month”. Our outcome needs to follow SMART goal setting rules of being Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound.

Step 3 – Get Motivated

To execute our new behavior consistently for a longer time until it becomes a habit, we need to be sufficiently motivated. Because changing a deeply ingrained habit can be difficult, it is important to have daily motivation to successfully change the habit. We have to be clear on the benefits we will enjoy by making the change.

For example, why would we want to skip smoking?

• Avoid the health issues
• Feel better about ourselves
• Impress our partner
• Responsibility of family

We also need to think about the consequence of not following the new improved behavior. Where will we be in 6 months, a year, 3 years from today if we continue our bad habit?  On the contrary, what will be the long term benefits 6 months, a year, 3 years from today if we adopt a positive new habit?

Step 4 – Planning & Strategy

Now that we are motivated to change, we need to create a plan and strategy for overcoming our bad habit or developing a positive new habit.

We need to plan in detail exactly how we are going to implement the new behavior. For example, if our habit is to quit smoking, we will

• Set a quit date
• Tell family, friends, and co-workers that we have planned to quit
• Remove cigarettes and other tobacco products from our home, car, and work
• Talk to our doctor about getting help to quit.

To ensure success, develop a winning strategy for overcoming smoking habit visit How to Quit Smoking

Step 5 – Mental Preparation

To successfully change a habit, we need to work on our thoughts and beliefs as well as our physical behavior.  It is important to deal with negative beliefs surrounding our habit because if we don’t another negative behavior might emerge to replace it.

For example, it will be difficult to control smoking if we believe with all our heart that we can never quit smoking or great deal of sacrifice and pain is involved to quit smoking or we can’t become fit and healthy even after we quit smoking.

Instead, we need to reinforce images of success and imagine ourselves doing the new habit with pleasure and ease. We can create affirmations and declarations to renew our mind. 

Step 6 – Implementation

To successfully condition a habit we will need to perform the habit every day for 21-30 days. During this time we will require both conscious focus and willpower. We will have to ‘consciously focus’ and ‘remember’ to do the new behaviour rather than the default behaviour.

Step 7 – Record, Refine & Review

To make sure we get the result we want, it is essential to record our progress and refine and review our habit at appropriate intervals. Seeing our accomplishments written down will enable us to feel the progress we are making in moving closer and closer towards our goal. No doubt it may take some time to achieve our ultimate goal, we will gain encouragement from seeing that we are moving in the right direction.

I would conclude this article with a positive note: