{"id":13314,"date":"2023-02-15T11:07:44","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T11:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/?p=13314"},"modified":"2023-02-15T15:33:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T15:33:30","slug":"stop-saying-these-phrases-that-keep-you-from-reaching-your-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/winter-2023\/stop-saying-these-phrases-that-keep-you-from-reaching-your-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Saying These Phrases That Keep You From Reaching Your Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stuart Lichtman<\/p><\/p>\n

\u201cI<\/span> just can\u2019t do it.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t ever get what I really want.\u201d \u201cMoney isn\u2019t meant for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sound familiar?<\/h3>\n

Most of us tell ourselves these things often, especially when faced with a challenging goal.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re far more than reasons or excuses for not succeeding. In fact, they are self-defeating unconscious habit patterns that, if left in place, sharply reduce our quality of life. I call them Blockers.<\/p>\n

You see, essentially everything we do, we do unconsciously \u2013 via an amazing number of unconscious habit patterns that operate completely outside our conscious awareness.<\/p>\n

For example, reading. You look at this page and instantly understand what I\u2019m communicating.<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t something you could do when you were a small child. Then, it probably seemed impossible to you. (If you don\u2019t remember how impossible that seemed, try reading a book written in Russian or Chinese if you don\u2019t know those languages and alphabets. You\u2019ll quickly get my point.)<\/p>\n

As a child, you had to master an immense number of things in order to read, and it probably took years to do that. In the process, you built numerous unconscious habit patterns.<\/p>\n

First, you had to learn that certain sounds were associated with certain people, things, activities, or experiences, and then you had to learn that they were called words.<\/p>\n

Then you had to learn that certain squiggles on paper were called letters and that each letter was associated with a sound.<\/p>\n

Next, you had to learn that groups of those letters were associated with words you knew verbally. And the process continued until you could hold a book in your hands and intuitively understand what was on the page.<\/p>\n

Through repeated trial and error, you formed a complex of successful unconscious habit patterns that now work automatically \u2013 from a conscious point of view \u2013 to look at a page and know what it says. What once seemed impossible is now commonplace.<\/p>\n

And just like reading, we have a tremendous number of unconscious habit patterns underlying all of our skills, including walking, talking, driving a car, and all of our other normal activities.<\/p>\n

In most cases, what seemed impossible to you as a child is commonplace and automatic for you now. And what may seem like an impossible accomplishment to you now can also become automatic.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve trained over 100,000 people around the world\u2014including CEOs and heads of state\u2014to achieve goals that seem, at first, to be beyond their wildest dreams by consciously managing their unconscious minds.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve taught them to create new successful unconscious habit patterns and to transpose existing successful unconscious habit patterns into new contexts to make them successful in ways they previously thought were impossible.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve taught them to easily and permanently change Blockers into successful unconscious habit patterns.<\/p>\n

You see, once formed, your unconscious habit patterns have remained unchanged. But you have changed, your circumstances have changed, and your life as a whole has changed.<\/p>\n

And some of those unconscious habit patterns have become out of place. What worked for you as an infant almost certainly doesn\u2019t work for you now. Yet your unconscious continues to express those out-of-place habit patterns whenever it thinks a current situation is similar to your childhood situation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how \u201cBlockers\u201d arise<\/h3>\n

Whenever you are experiencing anything other than success, love, joy, upliftment, abundance, fulfillment, enthusiasm, and such, it\u2019s due to a Blocker that\u2019s holding you back.<\/p>\n

Blockers are indications of disharmony – that what you consciously want or expect isn\u2019t what your unconscious thinks is right for you.<\/p>\n

In contrast, when harmony exists within your unconscious and between it and your conscious mind, you feel that you are very easily getting what you want. Your life flows smoothly, and your goals are met without much if any, conscious effort. In other words, you become far luckier.<\/p>\n

Thus, I say,<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cEasy is Good\u201d<\/h3>\n

The power to make your life easy and successful is in your hands, as I explain in Make Your Life a 10. I map out how to change Blockers into self-supporting and successful unconscious habit patterns by giving them new instructions.<\/p>\n

The first step is to identify them when they arise. Often, they are disguised\u2014for example, as everyday\nphrases. The seven most common are:<\/p>\n