How To Get The Rules Of The Mind To Work For You

The Rules of the Mind were developed over a hundred years ago from observations made while working with the mind and specifically the unconscious mind. They explain how the mind works and how beliefs, within the unconscious mind, impact our life day to day. Understanding these rules and how to harness their impact is a powerful way to create the life that you want.

There are 10 Rules of the Mind - I have chosen 4 of my favourites which I want to share with you and explain how you can get them to work for you.

Your unconscious mind is doing these things whether you’re aware of it or not, so the more you can use it in your favour, the better. I want your unconscious mind supporting you rather than working against you.

1.    Law of Expectation

The Law of Expectations states that what you expect is what appears in your life – commonly thought of as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe the world is full of opportunities, your mind will recognise opportunities everywhere and bring them to your conscious attention. However, if you believe that the world is full of failure, your mind won't recognise opportunities. If you can't see an opportunity, you can't act on it so what you expect will become your reality.

How you can work with this rule of the mind:

Firstly, start to notice how you expect life in general and specific situations to go. Do you generally always look at what could go wrong or what could go right. You might notice you don’t bother applying for a job because you think “I won’t get it so what’s the point”. Do this from a place of zero judgement – awareness is the first step to change so allow yourself to become more aware then actually start to shift your expectations. Instead of assuming the worst, how can you expect a more positive outcome.

You might recognise that you can fall into the cycle of asking so many what if questions… what if it doesn’t work out? What if I fail? What if I hate it? It almost becomes paralysing because it creates more overthinking, anxiety and worry. If you notice this try to think of some positive what if scenarios, what if it is amazing and you love it? What if you learn so much and grow as a person?

This also links to your beliefs, as they feed into the thoughts that you have so ask yourself in order to achieve all the goals, I would love to achieve what do I need to believe. Having beliefs that support and empower you in life, will automatically help you to expect more positive outcomes.

2.    Law of Reverse Effect

The unconscious mind is there to protect you and as you go through life your mind learns certain behaviours that prevent you from getting hurt. This happens a lot during your childhood and then becomes your automatic response. So any similar event will trigger the same response which reinforces it.

The Law of Reverse Effect means that any attempt to change this automatic response will be strongly resisted as it doesn't want to abandon this learnt behaviour and you to get hurt.

The harder you try, the less you will succeed – so when you apply lots of pressure to change these automatic responses your unconscious will resist it more and more. The best way to create change is using the mind's own process: creative visualisation and emotional association.

How you can work with this rule of the mind:

Instead of just forcing your mind to change or getting frustrated that it’s not shifting in the way you want it to, use the ways your unconscious mind actually likes to change. Think about the situation /response you want to change and visual how you would like to be/respond instead, as you do really focus on breathing calmy and deeply to keep the body in a calm state. Visualise how you’re going to feel while you’re doing it and afterwards too - really connect with the emotions, how happy, proud, fulfilled, joyful you feel.

If your mind isn’t changing as quickly as you want it to, be kind to yourself and recognise how it is trying to protect you. If you’re struggling with making the changes you desire on your own always know that you can get support. For more information on how I could support you have a read here.

3.    The Law of Persistence

The more you use an idea or belief the stronger it becomes. Every time it is used it becomes more embedded in your unconscious mind, and the longer it is used, the more reinforced it gets and the more opposition there is to changing it. For example, if you don't think you're worthy, your mind will constantly be trying to prove that this belief is true. Every time it does, it reinforces this belief and makes it stronger and more difficult to shift.

How you can work with this rule of the mind:

We are unconscious of so many things we do in life – we just go into autopilot and don’t recognise how our beliefs are impacting what we do, so I want you to start noticing your proof points. There are two ways that you can do this, identify experiences in your past that back up positive and empowering beliefs in your life, for example, you may think you’re not confident and you’re trying to shift this to believe you are confident, so I want you to think about all the times in the past you have been confident – and it doesn’t just have to be big examples! Your ego wants you to discount all the small examples as not good enough but include those too!

Then moving forward, recognise how your empowering beliefs are playing out in your life. For example, if you’re feeling stuck and at the moment you just keep telling yourself I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Then you make a decision to shift this because you want to start believing you get to live your dream, passion and purpose. Every time you take action related to that belief you can consciously remind yourself this is my living passion and purpose, this is me getting closer to my dream life.

4.    Law of Incrementalism

Repeating a suggestion makes it more powerful and every time you act on a belief it is reinforced and creates strong neural pathways. Once the mind accepts that a belief needs to change, it starts to build new pathways. To make these new pathways stronger, you need to use this new belief again and again so it becomes the reinforced response.

How you can work with this rule of the mind:

Repetition is incredibly powerful. When you decide that you want to believe something (for example, I am worthy, everything is working out perfectly, I can do anything I set my mind to), repeat it to reinforce it within your unconscious mind so it becomes the automatic response in any situation.

If I want to introduce new beliefs into my unconscious mind, I set myself a challenge to repeat it every day for 30 days. Depending on you and the belief, it can take longer or less time for it to become cemented within your unconscious. Be kind to yourself and know that every day it’s getting stronger.

I really hope you found this helpful! I know it can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, learning about the unconscious mind and trying to implement these things, so choose 1 thing to focus on for the next 30 days, then come back to this and try something else.

Elyssa x