I think all of us have desired to change a specific behavioral pattern within our lives that just doesn't seem to want to change, despite conscious effort on our part. Nothing can be more frustrating than wanting change, acquiring the knowledge required to change and then failing to maintain the desired change consistently within our lives. Why does this happen? Why do we seem to thwart our own progress and automatically revert back to our old habits?
This is simply due to a lack of understanding, and application, of how our brain functions operate in the course of day-to-day activities. The funny thing is, what I am about to discuss is common knowledge. The failure to apply the knowledge lies within the way our brains have been taught to process information. I get into this in my post on the [Trivium](https://steemit.com/trivium/@jayanarchon/lights-camera-action-the-trivium). **In school we are simply taught to obey, memorize and regurgitate.** Our modern education systems have programmed us over the years away from holistic thought process and application of acquired knowledge. **We are not taught to understand, process and directly apply knowledge.**
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# You Know This Already
How many of us already understand the fact that 90-95% of our body functions are carried out subconsciously and unconsciously? Breathing, blinking, heart-rate and every other body function is carried out by our unconscious mind. Even more complex actions such as walking and driving are predominately done subconsciously and even unconsciously. Amazing athletes do not consciously plan every move. A skilled tradesman can produce quality work while thinking about his love at home... the actions that can be carried out by the sub and unconscious minds are complex and limitless.
It's pretty uncommon to find a person who does not understand this basic concept. The number of people you will find who do not have consistent success creating lasting changes within their lives will be much, much higher. The main contributing factor in not achieving goals is the lack of correlating knowledge, in other words: **we are not taking knowledge we've learned from one source or at a specific time/place, then relating it to knowledge we acquire from another source or at a different time/place.**
# Let's Correlate
When we try to change something in our lives we typically make a conscious effort to do so. We are now in what seems like a constant battle with ourselves to achieve even mundane change, such as quitting smoking or eating healthier. If we correlate the information we already know with our own behavior, we must now realize that we are using our 5-10% cognitive (conscious) brain function to attempt to override the 90-95% of our sub and unconscious brain activity. We are literally battling a force within ourselves 19 times our size! So what's the answer? **Work with this knowledge and use our conscious to reprogram our sub and unconscious!**
We need to stop battling ourselves, understand basic human physiology and psychology. This is detrimental to success in any path. When we achieve success without this basic understanding, our desire for attainment has caused us to effect the change to our sub and/or unconscious minds, **sub and/or possibly unconsciously!** This is how powerful our sub and unconscious minds are. When you learn to consciously program and reprogram our own sub and unconscious, we transfer this power to effect change to the conscious mind.
<sup>[Source](http://www.selfimprovementtraining.com/mind-power/8-tips-on-how-to-reprogram-the-subconscious-mind/)</sup>
# Reprogramming
There are several methods to reprogram our own sub and unconscious that are widely available on the internet. Audio while you sleep, meditation, EFT, NLP, etc. I will discuss one that I have very recently begin working with. It is called **the pain pleasure principle**. There are many different sources and names for this principle. It is based on the fact that we sub and unconsciously choose the action which will produce the most gratification or least amount of pain. In a situation such as smoking cigarettes at an unhealthy rate, you are unconsciously associating more discomfort with not smoking than with having a cigarette. It may be short sighted but this is how your sub and unconscious minds work to assist you in moment-to-moment survival.
To use this principle to reprogram your sub and unconscious, simply reward yourself **immediately** after committing your desired act. Using the same smoking example; if you feel the urge for a cigarette and resist it, instantly give yourself a square of organic vegan chocolate or listen to one of your favorite songs, whatever seems rewarding to you! That's it... before long you will have reprogrammed a new behavioral pattern into your unconscious mind by linking gratification to the action you have performed. What's better is it will be a pattern that **you** chose to put there. This is a great tool for teaching children as well.
<sup>Thanks for reading, I hope you have been able to take away some information that will help improve the world around you. Feel free to check out my blog @jayanarchon for many more freedom, health and cannabis related posts.</sup>
### Peace Everyone