3-Minute Mental Hack to Take Control of Your Subconscious

Summary

This insightful video explores the power of the unconscious mind and its influence on our most significant brain processes, such as creativity and problem-solving. The speaker, a top competitive programmer, shares personal experiences and strategies to harness this mental force for success. By identifying primal emotions like happiness and fear, viewers learn to condition their unconscious mind to care deeply about their goals. The video offers a simple daily habit to associate tasks with key motivators, encouraging the unconscious mind to work actively in the background, ultimately leading to improved performance and achievement.

Takeaways

• 🧠 The unconscious mind is a powerful background process that controls many vital brain functions, including intuition, creativity, and much of our thinking.
• 💡 Successful people are adept at harnessing the power of their unconscious mind to focus on their goals, often by thinking passively about problems during everyday activities.
• 🤔 The speaker, a top competitive programmer, attributes their rapid rise to the top to the unconscious mind's investment in their success, constantly generating ideas and improving problem-solving skills.
• 🔑 To control the unconscious mind, one must get it to care deeply about a task, which can be achieved by associating the task with strong emotions like happiness or fear of failure.
• 💭 The unconscious mind is likened to an ultra-powerful computer, with consciousness acting as the keyboard, directing what the computer does.
• 🔍 The process of getting the unconscious mind to focus involves breaking down complex tasks into simpler parts that the unconscious mind can handle.
• 🔗 The concept of 'chain of motivation' is introduced, where one must trace back their motivations to fundamental primal emotions to truly engage the unconscious mind.
• 🎯 To condition the unconscious mind, one should visualize success and happiness or the dread of failure while performing a task to create a strong association.
• 📈 A daily habit of a few minutes is suggested to reinforce this association, which involves understanding one's key motivators and linking tasks directly to them.
• 🚫 The speaker warns against artificial motivators like money or prestige, as the unconscious mind does not inherently value these and will not be engaged by them.
• 💪 Ego can be a powerful motivator, and taking failure personally can drive the unconscious mind to work towards success.

Q & A

What is the primary function of the unconscious mind according to the video?

The unconscious mind controls many powerful brain processes such as intuition, insight, creativity, and most of the thinking that occurs in the background without conscious awareness.

How does the video suggest successful people utilize their unconscious mind?

Successful people are described as being able to focus the power of their unconscious mind on their goals, even during passive activities like showering or skydiving.

What is the speaker's claim to expertise in the video?

The speaker claims to be one of the world's best competitive programmers, attributing their success to the unconscious mind's investment in their problem-solving abilities.

What does the video suggest is the key to controlling the unconscious mind?

The key to controlling the unconscious mind is to make it care about something deeply, which can be achieved by caring about that something with strong emotions like love or fear of failure.

What is the 'chain of motivation' concept mentioned in the video?

The 'chain of motivation' is a method of questioning why someone wants to achieve a certain goal, tracing back through their motivations until reaching a fundamental, primal emotion that the unconscious mind recognizes and cares about.

How does the video describe the relationship between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind?

The conscious mind is likened to a keyboard that tells the unconscious mind, an ultra-powerful computer, what to do. The goal is to give the unconscious mind tasks that it will be motivated to help with.

What is the habit suggested in the video to keep the unconscious mind focused on a task?

The habit suggested is to spend a few minutes a day conditioning the unconscious mind by associating the task with key motivators, such as happiness or fear, through visualization and emotional association.

How does the video recommend associating tasks with primal emotions?

The video recommends visualizing success or failure while performing the task to create an association between the task and the emotions of happiness or dread, respectively.

What is the role of ego in the speaker's personal motivation chain?

In the speaker's personal motivation chain, ego plays a significant role as a motivator. Success boosts their ego, and failure makes them feel worthless, which strongly motivates the unconscious mind to contribute to their success.

What pitfalls does the video warn against when trying to condition the unconscious mind?

The video warns against feeling entitled to success, as this can lead to a loss of interest in the goal and disengage the unconscious mind. It also advises against creating artificial happiness or avoiding hard tasks for the sake of easy dopamine hits.

How does the video suggest maintaining the association between tasks and key motivators?

The video suggests maintaining the association by consistently performing the conditioning habit daily, which will help the unconscious mind recognize and care about the goal more effectively over time.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 Harnessing the Power of the Unconscious Mind

This paragraph introduces the concept that the unconscious mind controls many powerful brain processes, including intuition, insight, creativity, and most of our thinking, which occurs in the background. It suggests that successful people have learned to harness this power. The speaker, a top competitive programmer, shares personal experiences of how the unconscious mind contributed to their success. The paragraph also explains the unconscious mind's role in automatic bodily functions and its potential to aid in complex thinking if the task is engaging enough. The speaker proposes a habit that can be practiced daily for a few minutes to focus the unconscious mind on desired goals, emphasizing the importance of making the unconscious mind care about the task at hand.

05:02

🔗 The Chain of Motivation and Conditioning

The second paragraph delves into the 'chain of motivation', a method to identify and understand what drives an individual at a primal emotional level. It uses the example of studying computer science to illustrate how one might trace their motivations back to fundamental emotions like love or fear. The speaker advises focusing on these key motivators and associating tasks directly with positive or negative emotions to condition the unconscious mind. The concept of Pavlovian conditioning is introduced as a strategy to create a direct association between task progress and emotional responses. The habit suggested is to spend a few minutes each day reinforcing this association by visualizing success or failure while performing the task, aiming to make the unconscious mind care about the task by linking it with primal emotions.

10:02

🚀 Maintaining Motivation and Avoiding Entitlement

In the final paragraph, the speaker discusses the importance of maintaining the conditioning to associate tasks with happiness and avoiding the trap of seeking artificial happiness through easy tasks. They caution against feeling entitled to success and emphasize the need to continue working towards goals. The speaker also shares personal insights on how ego can serve as a powerful motivator and encourages taking failures personally to spur the unconscious mind into action. The paragraph concludes with advice to keep the associations strong and to avoid letting them fade, suggesting that this practice can significantly impact one's life. Additionally, the speaker reflects on the style of the video and their intention to present new content.

Keywords

💡Unconscious Mind

The unconscious mind refers to the part of the mind that operates automatically and outside of conscious awareness, controlling many powerful brain processes such as intuition, creativity, and much of our thinking. In the video, it is emphasized as a significant force that can be harnessed for success. The script mentions that successful people know how to focus this 'incredible source of brain power' on their goals, highlighting its importance in achieving success.

💡Intuition

Intuition is the ability to understand or know something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. The video suggests that the unconscious mind plays a key role in intuition, which can be a powerful tool for problem-solving and decision-making. It is one of the processes that the unconscious mind handles, often leading to insights that can be crucial for success.

💡Insight

Insight in the context of the video refers to the sudden understanding or realization of something, often coming from the unconscious mind. The speaker shares a personal experience where their unconscious mind provided a solution to a difficult problem through insight, demonstrating how the unconscious mind can work in the background to solve complex issues.

💡Creativity

Creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas to produce something new and valuable. The script implies that the unconscious mind is a major contributor to creativity, as it is responsible for much of the background thinking and idea generation that leads to innovative solutions and creative works.

💡Conscious Mind

The conscious mind is the part of our mind that is aware and in control of our thoughts and actions. The video contrasts the conscious mind with the unconscious mind, suggesting that while the conscious mind is weaker, it acts as a guide for the more powerful unconscious mind. The script uses the analogy of the conscious mind being like a keyboard, directing the 'ultra powerful computer' of the unconscious mind.

💡Habit

A habit is a routine or behavior that is regularly performed and usually unconscious. The video proposes the development of a habit to keep the unconscious mind focused on desired outcomes. The habit involves a few minutes of daily practice to condition the unconscious mind to associate tasks with key motivators, such as happiness or fear.

💡Motivation

Motivation in the video is described as the driving force behind actions and behaviors. It is essential for getting the unconscious mind to focus on and invest in a task. The speaker introduces the concept of 'key motivators' as primal emotions that the unconscious mind recognizes and responds to, such as happiness, fear, and survival.

💡Pavlovian Conditioning

Pavlovian conditioning, named after the psychologist Ivan Pavlov, is a learning process in which a neutral stimulus comes to evoke a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally triggers that response. In the video, the speaker suggests using a form of Pavlovian conditioning to associate tasks with positive or negative emotions, thereby influencing the unconscious mind to focus on those tasks.

💡Ego

Ego in the context of the video is a person's self-esteem or sense of self-importance. The speaker discusses ego as a powerful motivator that can drive the unconscious mind to succeed. They share that their unconscious mind is highly invested in their success because any failure feels like a threat to their ego, which in turn, compels the unconscious mind to contribute to achieving goals.

💡Success

Success in the video is portrayed as the achievement of one's goals or tasks. It is closely tied to the concept of motivation and the unconscious mind's investment in those goals. The speaker suggests that associating success with happiness or positive emotions can help focus the unconscious mind on achieving those outcomes.

💡Failure

Failure is the inability to achieve a goal or the falling short of an expectation. The video discusses the importance of associating failure with negative emotions such as fear or dread. This association can motivate the unconscious mind to work towards avoiding those negative feelings, thus driving focus and effort towards the task at hand.

Highlights

The unconscious mind controls many powerful brain processes such as intuition, insight, creativity, and most of our background thinking.

Successful people know how to harness the power of their unconscious mind to focus on their goals.

High achievers can think about complex problems passively during everyday tasks, keeping their unconscious mind engaged.

The speaker, a top competitive programmer, credits their success to the unconscious mind's investment in improvement.

The unconscious mind is a background process that operates without conscious control, handling tasks like body regulation.

The unconscious mind is incredibly powerful and can assist with complex thinking when engaged.

Consciousness acts as a keyboard directing the unconscious mind, an ultra-powerful computer.

To engage the unconscious mind, one must care deeply about a task, evoking primal emotions like happiness or fear.

Artificial motivators like money or prestige do not inherently engage the unconscious mind; they must be tied to primal emotions.

The 'chain of motivation' is a method to identify primal emotions that can drive the unconscious mind.

Visualizing success and associating it with happiness can help the unconscious mind focus on a task.

Pavlovian conditioning can be used to associate tasks with positive or negative emotions to drive focus.

A daily habit of a few minutes can condition the unconscious mind to associate tasks with key motivators.

Understanding personal motivation and using it to condition the unconscious mind is crucial for success.

Ego can be a powerful motivator, driving the unconscious mind to avoid failure and preserve self-worth.

Avoiding feelings of entitlement and maintaining a strong association with goals is key to harnessing the unconscious mind.

The video introduces a new style to address the issue of originality and engage the audience.

Transcripts

hi your unconscious mind is absolutely

cracked seriously it controls so many of

your most powerful brain processes

intuition Insight most of creativity and

basically the vast majority of the

thinking you do all goes on in the

background some have claimed your

unconscious mind is hundreds or

thousands of times more powerful than

your conscious mind and I would say one

of the biggest advantages that

successful people have is that they know

how to focus this incredible source of

brain power on whatever they're trying

to accomplish there's a famous post by a

former world number one competitive

programmer that claims the same thing

the best people are all able to think

about things passively even during

random tasks like showering or skydiving

and keep their unconscious mind focused

on the tasks they're trying to figure

out so you may be asking now how do you

do this too how do you control the raw

power of your unconscious mind and get

it to listen to you and I'm going to

offer you a habit something easy in fact

something you only have to do for a few

minutes a day to keep your unconscious

mind focused on what you want but

despite its Simplicity it'll work very

well because it draws upon what drives

your unconscious mind in the first place

and that sounds really nice it is really

nice so enjoy the video but first let me

tell you who I am all my points are

going to be logical but it'd be good if

you can trust my experience too so I'm

one of the world's best competitive

programmers that means problem solving

and I had an extremely quick rise to the

top and probably the biggest reason for

this is that my unconscious mind was

extremely invested in My Success because

even when I wasn't consciously thinking

about problems my unconscious mind was

churning out ideas in the background and

constantly rewiring itself to get better

and better at problem solving because it

cared so much about Improvement and the

hardest problem I ever solved in a

contest was solved through Insight which

is when you're unconscious mind out of

nowhere gives you a really good idea in

fact I personally kind of lost interest

in the problem I thought it was too hard

for me but my unconscious mind stayed

focused and cooked up ideas in the

background eventually gave me a really

good idea that ended up being correct so

my unconscious mind is very much on my

side and after this video you're going

to learn how to set that up for yourself

too but before we start that let me give

a bit of info on what the unconscious

mind is and does for us and I'm not

going to make the sciency so don't worry

about technical stuff just some basic

facts so what's important for this video

is that your unconscious mind is a

background process something you don't

have conscious control over so by

default it's doing random things like

regulating your body temperature and

making sure you're still breathing that

you're breathing manually now that I

mention it you're welcome and it's

unbelievably powerful just think about

how much your body does automatically

things you don't even realize are

happening even a fraction of that raw

power can be incredibly helpful to you

like let's do a speed test add two and

three that was instant right probably

before I even finished the sentence

that's because the task was so simple

your unconscious mind just decided to

handle it for you now add these two

numbers probably not so instant right

you can break it down into a bunch of

easy parts to your unconscious mind can

handle but it probably can't do the

whole thing and that's because you

probably don't have the addition

algorithm ingrained in your head so what

you had to do is consciously perform the

steps of addition with carrying and such

and feed those smaller tasks to your

unconscious mind to handle but that was

orders of magnitude slower because your

conscious mind is weak so you want your

unconscious mind to do as much for you

as possible and it's capable of a lot of

complex thinking such as offering

insights and intuition but only when

it's interesting enough and there's a

comment on my Android social media that

summed up all my points better than I

could basically your unconscious mind is

this Ultra powerful computer and your

Consciousness is like the keyboard

telling that computer what to do and

that's pretty much what's Happening Here

your goal is to give your unconscious

mind the task of helping you with

whatever you're trying to do you may

have to simplify your task you may have

to break it into smaller pieces But

ultimately you want your unconscious

mind to focus its power on your task and

the tricky bit is it's usually not

necessarily just try the task for some

people it is and we'll cover why very

soon but for most people you have to do

some extra work to get your unconscious

mind really invested in it and finally

now we'll talk about how you do that so

now the question becomes how do you

control your unconscious mind and give

it a task for it to focus all its power

on and the key is to get your

unconscious mind to care about something

and this will sound very dumb but to get

your unconscious mind to care about

something the only thing you have to do

is to care about that something but I

don't just mean caring I mean caring

like loving something so much that just

doing it brings you significant

Happiness by default or on the other end

of the spectrum caring so much that if

you fail at something you feel like

you're very survival is threatened you

feel genuinely afraid of failure and

these are things that your unconscious

mind can recognize happiness fear

survival very basic Primal fundamental

human nature emotions that results from

your caring your unconscious mind wants

to be happy if you get good at your task

or even just do your task you'll be

happy Therefore your unconscious mind

will focus on the task doing what you

love is one easy way to accomplish that

if you fail the task your survival will

be threatened your unconscious mind

doesn't want that so we'll focus on not

failing the task and nothing artificial

will work there's no inherent Primal

value in money or Prestige or success or

any of the things that motivate most

people your unconscious mind just

doesn't care and therefore I won't try

to help you so if that's what you're

working for you're gonna have to turn

these artificial motivators into Primal

emotions that your unconscious mind will

care about so let's get into exactly how

you do now let's start with an idea I've

dubbed the chain of motivation so let's

imagine a conversation with someone

who's studying computer science they'll

say I want to study computer science

I'll ask why they'll say something else

if their answer is that they love it

then they've already won over their

unconscious mind but they probably won't

say that so let's imagine what else they

can say for example they can want a good

job and I'll ask why and they can say so

they can earn a lot of money and I'll

ask why and this can again Branch you to

a bunch of different reasons let's

imagine a common scenario they would say

they want to support their family so I

can again Ask Why and maybe this is the

point where it becomes about happiness

or love or emotional connections or

whatever eventually it will reduce the

sum set of Primal emotions or nothing at

all and if it reduces to nothing then

you should seriously consider why are

you doing this at all what's the point

if there's no benefit are you really

just wasting your time if you don't get

anything out of your thing this method

won't help you but at the same time if

you don't get anything out of it the

thing might not be helping you at all so

really consider that but if it does lead

to some Primal emotions then your goal

should be to focus on those and let's

call these Primal emotions your are key

motivators things that your unconscious

mind recognizes and will focus on in the

ideal scenario you love what you're

doing and therefore your key motivators

are right next to you that means your

unconscious mind is by default focused

on those key motivators and therefore

also on the thing you're trying to do so

you win but if you're watching this

that's probably not the case your case

probably looks like more like the

hypothetical CS student so you want to

turn your case into the ideal case and

how do you do that well as an example

try to visualize yourself achieving your

goals for example having a lot of money

being able to buy nice things Etc it's

nice right probably brings you good

feelings just think about how happy

you'd be if things worked out for you

let that happiness bleed into the

present so what you ultimately want to

do is associate your task directly with

those good feelings skip the long chain

of because this is what I want this task

is how I get there nothing in between

burn that Association into your head

you've probably heard of pavlovian

conditioning by using a metronome to

Signal the arrival of food Pavlov got

dogs to salivate just by hearing the

metronome since ultimately they form the

associate station between the metronome

and the food that's ultimately your goal

here you want progress on this task for

example a success to directly associate

with happiness and your unconscious mind

will recognize this Association since it

has to do with the key motivator and on

the other end you can also try to get

failure to associate with negative

emotions and this is a risky game

because you can make yourself unhappy

but it will probably let you be even

more focused since your unconscious mind

will work on avoiding those negative

emotions so I promised you a habit

something you can do for only a few

minutes a day what can you do to make

this conditioning happen and the first

thing you have to do is figure yourself

out so on day one take some time out to

figure out how your motivation Works

have the why conversation with yourself

inspect your motivation chain like

literally draw out this diagram if you

need to understand what drives you

figure out what your key motivators are

and on the rest of the days you can work

on this conditioning you want to get rid

of the stuff in the middle so Embrace

Pavlov start doing your task and while

you're doing your task think about

whatever your key motivator is Imagine

success imagine yourself getting what

you want imagine happiness or imagine

failure and Dread if you don't succeed

in the task make yourself feel these

positive or negative emotions while

you're doing the task so that those

emotions get associated with the task

again nothing in between ignore the rest

of the motivations in the chain just

your task and the key motivator

condition yourself to recognize that

your task will directly lead to your key

motivator in a similar vein you can

reward or punish yourself for success

and failure doing that will give

yourself a direct short-term way of

feeling those emotions as a result of

your task and also visualize that reward

or punishment while doing the task so

you can associate those emotions with

progress and that's the Habit spend a

few minutes a day conditioning yourself

you don't need to do it for a long time

there are diminishing returns anyway you

can do it multiple times a day or as

often as you feel like and the more time

you put in the faster your unconscious

mind will recognize your goal but you

don't have to do it that often for it to

work just do it consistently and that's

all you really need to do convince your

unconscious mind to Care by associating

your task of Primal emotions that it

cares about mental change is achieved

through repetition so do this daily and

you'll see results fairly quickly just

as Pavlov did some other things to note

ego can be a very good key motivator so

let's do out an example what's my

motivation chain how does this work for

me so why do I do competitive

programming there are a lot of reasons

for one I love problem solving and I

also love coding so there's two good

things but there's another reason that

trumps both those and that's ego I did

this problem solving stuff ultimately

because I want to prove I'm smart so any

success is a decent ego boost and any

failure makes me feel basically

worthless so obviously my unconscious

mind has an incentive to contribute here

and I've sort of done this conditioning

automatically but I take any failure

very personally it hurts to fail like

physically it hurts I would say I'm that

guy that equates failure with

threatening my survival so my

unconscious mind is very invested in My

Success it's not exactly the healthiest

setup but it works very well and you

should take failure personally too for

example suppose you can't learn

something or you can't get good at

something or whatever how can you let

this minuscule task make a fool out of

you it should bother you that you can't

accomplish this I mean others probably

have you should take it personally take

it as a hit to Your Ego then your

unconscious mind will want to preserve

your ego so it'll help out a couple

other things get this conditioning set

up and make your task associated with

happiness but then don't waste it don't

like go out of your way to do easy tasks

to get quick dopamine hits you should

still do hard things do what you would

normally do and do the tasks normally

but just add in this conditioning every

once in a while don't try to game your

own system and create artificial

happiness because that's not productive

and won't get you anywhere and finally

one easy trap to fall into is feeling

entitled to success but don't no matter

what you still have to work for your

goals if you feel entitled you'll

naturally lose interest in the goal and

so your unconscious mind so block those

feelings out don't give them any space

in your mind stay focused on your task

and your goal okay to finish up not that

much to say like I said you can do this

for a few minutes at a time you can do

it multiple times a day probably for

better effect but you don't have to do

it for that long at a time and you

should do it for a while keep the

association strong and don't let it go

away this will make a world of

difference in your life so keep it up if

you happen to already be doing what you

love this won't help you because if you

love it your unconscious mind will love

it too but I suspect that's not the case

for the vast majority of people and

that's why this video exists to help

those with other forms of motivation

recognize that they need a more direct

connection for their unconscious mind to

get involved

uh what else this is a different style

of video or at least the title is I

realized that a large issue with my

recent videos has been originality so

I'm trying this out to present something

new for everyone and I hope it works but

we'll see and I suppose that's it so

that's all goodbye