Accepting New Ideas
Much of the time when a new idea comes to us, we handle that
idea and move on, without ever becoming consciously aware of the
process. During the times when we are consciously aware of the
process of handling a new idea, we often reject that idea
without understanding why we rejected it, or sometimes without
even understanding that we did reject it.
How can this be?
To understand this, let's briefly review a few of the mechanics
of how our minds work. When a new idea comes to us, it comes
into our conscious mind. It can be as a result of our own
thinking, or it can be from an outside source. Immediately, and
sometimes before the new idea is even properly formed, our
subconscious mind starts to evaluate that idea.
Now this evaluation is happening in our subconscious mind. That
means that we are not consciously aware of it, but it is
happening anyway.
So how does our subconscious mind evaluate an idea, sometimes
before the idea is complete, and without us being aware that
this is going on. To understand this we need to understand a
characteristics of our subconscious mind.
Our subconscious mind has no ability to reason. If that is so,
how can it evaluate a new idea. Well one way is to ask itself,
does this new idea fit with what I already "know". If it does,
then the new idea will not be immediately rejected. If it
doesn't then the subconscious mind will send a message to the
conscious mind to say that this new idea doesn't fit. Usually at
this point, the conscious mind will believe what the
subconscious mind is saying to it, and reject the idea.
There are a number of problems with this. What if the
information that the subconscious mind is evaluating the new
idea against, is wrong?
A common example of this is when a new idea comes into our
conscious mind, and our subconscious mind starts to evaluate it.
The subconscious mind says, "I already know that". Now that "I
know that" message is sent to the conscious mind, and what
happens then?
Often the conscious mind stops considering the new idea at that
point, and moves on to something new. But did the subconscious
mind really "know" that? Maybe sometimes, but often the new idea
is not even properly formed yet, so how could the subconscious
mind be sure that it "knew" that.
Unfortunately when the conscious mind gets the "I know that"
message, it usually stops receiving or processing the new idea,
and that means the opportunity to learn something new is lost.
Why would our subconscious mind act in a way that stops us from
learning? To answer that, and to understand in detail how this
process works, you will have to attend my "Power of the Mind"
training, or perhaps wait for another article in the future, but
I do have space to briefly discuss what we can do about it.
How can we interrupt our subconscious mind so that it does not
stop us learning from new ideas, when we are exposed to them. I
suggest that there are two easy ways.
Firstly, when we hear our subconscious mind saying "That doesn't
fit", or "That can't be right", or something similar, we can
simply say to our subconscious mind "Thank-you for that
information". This means that we have decided not to act on the
message that our subconscious mind was sending. Our conscious
mind is then free to continue considering, reasoning and
thinking about the new idea.
The second thing we can do is ask our conscious mind to think
about the new idea in a way it may have not done before. Usually
our conscious mind thinks "Is this idea right?", or "Is this
idea wrong?" Instead of those questions we could ask "Could this
idea change or improve my life in some way?"
This allows us to look at a new idea in a completely fresh way,
without being influenced by all the things that we have learnt
before, or that we already "know".
It was Will Rogers who said many years ago that "it's not what
people don't know that hurts them. It's what they do know that
just ain't so."