By Self Help Books Author Denise Turney

Decision – It’s the one act that’s fueled with power. Regardless of the situation you’re in, you have the power to decide, to choose. Also, whether you recognize (or accept) it, throughout the day you’re making decisions.

Decisions That Are Creating Your Life

The sooner you accept that you are, indeed, developing your own life decision by decision, the sooner you can change your life. Here’s a test. When you wake up, write down your first impulses. It could be the impulse to go to the bathroom, revisit an emotional experience from the previous day, exercise, check your mobile device or eat or drink.

Years could pass before you clearly recognize that you are choosing to have these impulses, and not only that, but that you’re choosing to have these impulses when you experience them. Fortunately, your desire to own the power of a single decision is enough to motivate you to focus until you become aware of the choices you make.

How Do You Feel When You Wake Up?

Those studying the empirical sciences, pioneers¹ like Sigmund Freud, John Henry Brodhead, Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner and Mamie Phipps Clark, discovered some of the mind’s power, particularly regarding the power of the unconscious mind. Discoveries of how the unconscious mind functions pulled a thick cover away from the ability to understand oneself and each other.

Before you continue, it might be beneficial to learn more about your subconscious. Why? The mind never stops. Even as you sleep, it’s working.

Which is why you wake up feeling different emotions. Depending on what your subconscious focuses on as you sleep, you may wake up feeling energized, hopeful, loved, confident, depressed, angry, unloved or afraid.

Good-Bye Past

Here’s the thing. Past experiences and memories are huge reservoirs that the subconscious taps into to make present-day decisions. Well shares that the subconscious “keeps your experiences, concepts, insights, and perceptions long after your conscious mind has forgotten them. From here come the feelings and notions that rule your conscious self, behaviors, habits, decision-making, and mindset.”²

Sure. This brain functioning removes a lot of work from your conscious. It also puts you on autopilot, which goes back to early impulses you feel when you wake up.

Pay attention and you’ll see that your life experiences as well as emotions you feel – repeat.

Becoming Aware of Patterns and Repetition

If you’re serious about awakening and experiencing the power of a conscious decision, you might find it helpful to write down the first thoughts and feelings you have when you wake up. A simple journal is enough to jot down the thoughts and feelings.

Do it for a month and see if you don’t spot patterns, repetition. Also, write down your night dreams. After all, it’s during night dreams that your subconscious speaks. You might be tempted to think that dreams, thoughts and impulses are coming from outside you.

They aren’t. Instead, they are coming from a part of you that you have disassociated from. Now you don’t recognize it, but your lack of recognition or willingness to accept what you’re doing doesn’t stop the whole mind from putting the power of a single decision into action.

And not just once or twice – but hundreds or more times every single day.

Oh. The power of a single decision.

What Is Your Mind Doing?

Because the mind is split, you’ll have to find ways to become aware of what your whole mind is doing. This can allow you to make better decisions, the type of decisions that develop the life you want, a life filled with joy and peace.

In addition to writing down your first thoughts and emotions when you wake up and writing down your dreams, to become aware of what your whole mind is doing:

• Write down repetitive actions, thoughts and emotions you experience during the day and before you go to bed. Simple journaling could reveal a lot of this.
• Be honest with yourself. Refuse to lie to yourself.
• Let the idea that sacrifice is good – go. Just let it go.
• Say good-bye to repression. When you repress thoughts and feelings, you hide things from yourself. What you hide is still at work in your subconscious. Keep repression and you could enter a state where you engage in behaviors but don’t know why you do what you do. Speaking is behavior. What you choose to say is behavior.
• Speak positive affirmations throughout the day to reprogram your mind. The more emotion that’s attached to the affirmations, the better. Creating your own positive affirmations could also be more effective than reciting affirmations someone else made.

How To Start Thinking Differently

Here are more actions you could incorporate into your day to become aware of how your mind works. Even more, these actions could help you reprogram your mind so that what you think is increasingly beneficial:

• Visualize yourself experiencing the good that you want. Daydreaming doesn’t count. Use your conscious mind to visually experience what you want to happen. Be diligent and persistent. However, don’t press. Stop should feel anxious, fearful or discouraged.
• Breathe deeply one to three times a day. Simply stop and take in and release 10 deep breaths one to three times a day.
• Engage in three love-rooted activities that cause you to feel joy and peace, a welcomed lightheartedness, every day.
• Try a new approach, activity or path at least once a week. Again, pause or stop should you feel fearful, anxious, pressured or discouraged.
• Read about people or talk with people who changed their lives in good ways. This will build your memory bank with “real” life experiences that show the power of a single decision.

The Power of a Single Decision

The power of a single decision might be realized with just one thought. Depending on how your mind functions and your programming, it could take weeks, months or years of decisioning to experience a major shift.

Time doesn’t diminish the power of a single decision. To gain more from a decision, take smart actions. It’s like rubbing sticks together to start a fire.

As you start to experience the power of a single decision, you’ll see the importance of desire. Plainly stated, if you don’t really want what you have decided to pursue, you’ll probably quit. Therefore, avoid hiding thoughts, impulses and emotions from your conscious.

Become aware of what you really want.

Continue to discover how your mind functions, your whole mind.

Then, speak love-rooted affirmations, visualize, meditate and journal to reprogram your mind. Keep at it until your thoughts, emotions and impulses change, until your life in this world changes.

Believe it or not, you’ve already done this. Look back and see how much you’ve changed since you were a kid. Those shifts didn’t just happen. Your mind created the change.

You can do it again, changing and improving your life with the power of a single decision.

Resources:

1. History of Psychology – Psychology (wsu.edu)
2. How Your Subconscious Mind Controls Your Behavior (well.org)