Hypnotherapy in Reading - Making Better Decisions
Would you like help with being able to make better decisions?
Whether you'd like to become more decisive, procrastinate less or be more considered before jumping to a decision hypnotherapy can be a useful way of changing the way you make decisions. Or indeed helping to come to a decision about something you've been able to make a decision about.
Some decisions are better left to our subconscious to figure out, you are probably familiar with the idea of "Just going with your gut feel". Others benefit from some conscious, logical, objective thought.
So, how do we know when we can just allow ourselves to come up with the solution and when that's not such a great idea. And if we want to stop making automatic decisions in certain situations because they really aren't serving us very well any more then how can we do that?
When is going with your Gut Feeling a good idea?
It can be confusing when deciding "to go with that gut feel", or as a hypnotherapist might say, “let you subconscious decide!”.
Letting our subconscious make our decisions for us works really well when we have lots of knowledge and expertise about something, and lots of experience, including times when we’ve made mistakes and learnt from them. It’s why great professional sports people doing team sports just seem to instinctively know who to throw or pass the ball to and where to move next on the playing field. They have a great track record. Similarly, those in professions where split second decisions are vital have no choice but to rely on their subconscious coming up with the goods. Subconscious processing is much, much quicker than conscious decision making and is the only way in cases like this.
Subconscious decisions also tend to be useful when we’re making a decision about something that is highly subjective.
Choosing a piece of art for your home is a process best served by a subconscious decision. Studies have shown that if people are presented with different paintings and asked to choose one to take home, their ongoing satisfaction with their choice is reduced if rather than just choosing the picture they are drawn to they are asked to also explain why they like it. That’s because the “Why?” question brings in the logical thinking part of our brain, and we start evaluating pros and cons objectively which detracts from the decision.
So When Shouldn’t we rely on Gut Feelings?
Whilst subconscious processing can get us all the way sometimes, there are times when we’re better off interrupting the process to allow conscious thoughts in
For instance in situations where we find ourselves being too impulsive, which gets us into trouble. This applies whatever the automatic, impulsive response is about. So we might find ourselves being too quick to react to something someone says or does, and almost before the words have left our mouth we’re left wishing we hadn’t uttered them.
And how about the times when we find ourselves reaching for an unhealthy snack or drink in response to a feeling we suddenly get, when we’d rather not?
Impulsivity can be great if we’re wanting to be spontaneous and enjoy a surprise trip or a meal out perhaps. It can be a bind though if we’re making decisions quickly which would benefit from a bit more foresight on our part.
We can interrupt our automatic responses
When we interrupt an automatic response, we have an opportunity to learn new ways of doing things, that generate a different, preferable response. A response that that makes us think and feel better.
Bringing subconscious processes into conscious awareness also enables us to better understand them so we can facilitate changes to the processes themselves as well as our reactions to them.
Of course, whether we end up changing our responses or change the subconscious processes themselves, once we’ve embedded the changes, we can allow them to become subconscious once more. And at that point we are safe to going back to trusting our gut reaction!
Ready to find out more?
Hypnotherapy can be a great way of helping us identify and change automatic subconscious thinking processes. If you’d like to find out more about how I can help you do that then please do get in touch.
If you'd like to some further research yourself then there are lots of good books on how we make up our minds about things. I find this one both easy to read and entertaining.
My Current Fees - I offer face-to-face and online appointments
Initial 30 minute phone or in person consultation | Free | |
Hypnotherapy sessions | £90 |