There are a lot of very smart, successful people who believe that the subconscious mind is the guiding principle behind their success methods. A Wiki article states, “. . . techniques such as autosuggestion and affirmations are believed to harness the power of the subconscious to influence a person’s life and real-world outcomes . . .”
There are some serious drawbacks to this concept of a “powerful subconscious mind.” Some of the proponents of the power of the subconscious mind go so far as to say the conscious mind gets in the way of the subconscious mind. If that were true, then while we humans are all tangled up with our conscious mind getting in our way, animals would rule the earth. After all, they don’t have this advanced consciousness getting in the way of their success. If indeed the subconscious mind is the root of success, then the higher the consciousness, the lower the rate of success!
This is obviously not the case. Considering that we don’t really have much in the way of natural weaponry (strength, speed, agility, claws, fangs, poison, etc.) it appears that the only reason mankind has achieved any kind of dominance at all is because of our superior consciousness. The Physics of Success describes levels of consciousness, just as there are levels of awareness, and goes on to suggest that the ability to control your success is dependent entirely on your conscious mind.
Unfortunately, most of the time we operate on autopilot (which is described by psychologists as the unconscious mind, not the subconscious mind). The analogy to this is accepting all of the defaults. That may work out for you, and it may not. If you are born into affluence, you can’t imagine poverty; you will visualize and expect affluence. The reverse is true if you are born into poverty. Of course, poor people can imagine affluence a lot easier than the reverse because society actually advertises affluence. Even when a celebrity crashes and burns they can somehow manage to do it while wearing fancy clothes as they get into expensive cars and seem to always have enough money for lawyers, doctors, publicists and spokespersons.
And how do affluent people crash and burn? Well, mostly by accepting the defaults, which is to squander resources on whatever feels good at the moment. For the less affluent, or those in poverty instead of “whatever feels good“, we might say “whatever feels best.” Also, the less affluent don’t have as far to fall, so it’s not as spectacular. It’s very unlikely you will see a news story about a particular middle-class person taking a cut in pay.
The only way for anybody, whether they are poor, affluent, or anywhere in-between, to be certain that things will work out for you is to not accept the defaults, which means you can’t really allow yourself to float through life on autopilot. Success Principles actually focus your conscious mind on the end game (the achievement you desire).
