The Conscious Mind

The Conscious Mind

Before we can fully appreciate the power of the subconscious mind, it’s important to understand the characteristics of the “conscious” mind.

Even though this Blog is about the power of the subconscious mind, in no way do I mean to diminish the marvelous nature of the conscious mind, because the human conscious mind is an awesome and spectacular creation.

The most basic description of your conscious mind is that it’s the part of your mind you are aware of.

It controls your voluntary thoughts and functions. For example, right now I want you to raise your left hand in the air. That’s a voluntary function, which is controlled by your conscious mind.

The conscious mind is also the logical portion of your mind. It’s the part of your mind that has the ability to think through a situation logically, to analyze it, and to make a decision based on the facts. Likewise, when you evaluate past mistakes and learn from them, that’s your conscious mind at work.

When you go through the process of setting goals for the future, that’s another example of your conscious mind at work. Sometimes you might hear someone say, “I made a conscious decision to do that.” That’s the power of the conscious mind.

It gives us the ability to consider the situation, evaluate the facts, analyze the risks, and determine what we believe is the best course of action.

It also gives us the ability to put together a thoughtful plan to implement the course of action we have decided upon. But as marvelous as the conscious mind is, it also has some inherent limitations. For one thing, the conscious mind has a limited memory.

How often have you had trouble remembering someone’s name, or even remembering where you put your keys? Those are examples of the limited memory of the conscious mind. Another limitation of the conscious mind is that it can do only one thing at a time. If it tries to do more than one thing at a time, it has to switch back and forth very rapidly.

An example might be reading while someone is talking to you. At any given instant, your conscious mind can focus on what you’re reading, or it can focus on listening to what’s being said to you. But it can’t focus on both at the same time.

As the word “conscious” implies, the conscious mind can’t do anything that it’s not “consciously” focused on at any specific moment. And that’s where the subconscious mind comes into play. So let’s switch gears and look at the subconscious mind in the next Blog.