The Unconscious Can Block Change

Many of us know what we need to do in order to succeed or improve, but somehow we are unable to make or sustain the required change in our behavior. We may want to manage our time more efficiently, negotiate better deals, or be more decisive. But even though we know exactly what we have to do to make the change, we find that we just can’t do it, or can only do it for a brief time before reverting to our previous behavior.

Often, we blame ourselves for this inability to change. We’re lazy, or not dedicated enough, or over stressed. However, as I discussed in my previous post, the real culprit is often our unconscious, which is blocking our efforts to change without our being aware of it. In that post, I introduced the idea of the unconscious and how it can influence our behavior without our realizing it. In this one, I will give examples of how this problem has manifested itself with some of my clients. Future posts will talk about how to figure out and bring unconscious blocks to the surface, and how being consciously aware of them can allow real change. 

One of my clients worked for a rapidly growing company, and had recently been promoted from being a team leader to a c-suite position where she oversaw multiple levels of teams. Much of her work involved making decisions for her teams, but despite now having more people to support her, she soon found that she was overwhelmed, and didn’t have enough time in the day to get everything done. She needed to make decisions faster, but just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Working together, we discovered how important data was to her when making decisions. At an unconscious level, she had internalized the idea that people who make decisions without having all the data often make wrong, terrible decisions. This unspoken belief meant that she couldn’t bring herself to make a decision until she had gone into the weeds with the data herself, pulling together all possibly relevant information and conducting her own analysis. This approach had worked well when she was a team lead, but wasn’t appropriate when she had many teams reporting to her. Once she realized this underlying cause of her difficulties, she could start to work on trusting the information provided by her teams, without having to do the work herself, and eventually was able to make more efficient decisions.

Another client had received feedback from his direct reports that he wasn’t doing enough to support them. One small symptom of this problem was that he never took notes when meeting with them, leading them to believe that he wasn’t really paying attention and wouldn’t be doing anything about the issues they brought up. This feedback puzzled him, since he was working hard to be a good manager.

We were able to trace the problem back to a previous job, where his manager had severely micromanaged him, not allowing him to make any decisions or do anything his own way. This experience had been a good lesson in how not to be a manager, but he had overlearned the lesson. His unconscious was so afraid of micromanaging that it held him back from providing any support or suggestions to his reports. Once this fear of micromanaging was brought to the surface, he could begin to consciously distinguish useful support from excessive control.

Yet another client was a co-founder of a service firm, and had problems getting along with her other partners, even though she respected them, and tried her best to work with them. We discovered that she had a rather extreme unconscious block: the unstated belief, or feeling, that if she wasn’t autonomous, in control of herself and her environment, she would die. Of course this belief wasn’t true, and she didn’t consciously think that way, but the unconscious is often irrational, and when she had to follow other people’s rules, and couldn’t make all her own decisions, her unconscious reacted with fear and panic.

Even with this revelation she still struggled to get along with her partners, since by its nature a partnership needs rules, and she couldn’t make all the decisions herself. But by recognizing these previously hidden unconscious fears she was able to deal with them directly with her rational, conscious mind, and was able to make progress in her relationship with her partners.

These are just some of the ways that unconscious beliefs can block change; the block can take many forms. In the next post I will talk about some of the techniques I have developed to reach into your unconscious and bring these beliefs to the surface.