This Is Your Subconscious When You Tell It "No Dessert!"

One of the keys to cooperation with Grok is to convince him that doing something healthy is good.  We want to get Grok on our side and keep him there.  What we don’t want is to try and fight our cravings through sheer willpower.  That way will work for a day or two and then we’re going to fail.  Remember, willpower is finite, cravings are infinite.  So how do we get Grok to believe that healthy also equals good?  The answer to that lies in some of the research now being done on how our brain makes decisions.

Just as I mentioned that most decisions are made by the subconscious brain with the conscious brain doing little other than providing justification, the same research shows that the subconscious doesn’t have much access to the facilities of the conscious.  That is, the subconscious mind doesn’t have access to our sense of vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch.  The subconscious has access to our thoughts and that’s about it.  Actually, think of it this way:

1. We walk into the kitchen
2. Our sense of smell and vision tell us that our wife just made a batch of brownies
3. Our conscious brain thinks “ooh, brownies, I shouldn’t eat those because I’m trying to be healthy”.
4. Our subconscious brain hears “brownies!” and makes a decision to eat them because it’s always craving more sugar
5. Our conscious brain justifies this decision with “well, I’ll work out extra hard tomorrow” or “well, I was healthy this morning so I think I’ve earned it”.
6. We eat a brownie
7. Our subconscious brain says “MORE!”
8. Our conscious brain justifies this by saying “well, I already ate one so the day is already ruined.  I’ll eat more of them and start being healthy tomorrow”.

Sound familiar?

The key here is teaching the subconscious that healthy is good. [Read more...]