The Grand Fallacy

By John Assaraf and Murray Smith

 

If you answered “five,” congratulations! Your capacity for analytical reasoning is in good shape. Unfortunately, that is not the correct answer. The correct answer is “six.”

That’s right: all six frogs are still sitting on that lily pad. Why? Because one only decided to jump off—he didn’t actually do any jumping.

This is exactly our grand fallacy. We think that because we have imagined something, understood something, figured something out, planned something, decided something, it’s a foregone conclusion that we are going to do that something. But in most cases, we don’t.

Because we so strongly tend to identify with our conscious thoughts, we naturally tend to think of our conscious thoughts as “me.” We assume that our conscious mind is who is calling the shots, the one who is at the controls, who is charge of what we actually do. But it’s simply not true. In fact, the amazing thing is that we keep thinking this despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary!

Visit any health club in America in the middle of February and you’ll see what has become of everyone’s New Year’s Resolutions. It’s barely six weeks into the New Year, and the place is like a ghost town. Or, go into your local bookstore and take a look at all the different titles in the “Dieting” section—as if lack of books on the subject were the reason that obesity continues to climb. So many lily pads, so many excellent and worthy decisions . . . but no results.

In the Bible, the apostle Paul writes this wonderful statement that so beautifully captures the common frustration of the human experience: “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” (Romans 7:19 nkjv.)

Here’s the grand fallacy. We think that all our wonderful conscious functions control what we do. But they don’t. For all its brilliance, the conscious mind has one huge handicap: it doesn’t get things done in the long term. It may be the captain of the ship, but it’s the guy in the engine room who actually makes the ship go, not the captain. In fact, here’s how much control our conscious functions exert over what we actually do: somewhere between 2 and 4 percent. That’s it.

One reason we believe this grand fallacy of conscious control is that we are so acutely aware of that little bit of control that our conscious brain does exert. And make no mistake: even if that 2 to 4 percent is only a tiny bit, it’s a critically important tiny bit. Our conscious brain, remember, is where imagination happens, where visions and dreams are born, where new paths are chosen, new risks taken, new initiatives explored. The conscious brain does take control and give new orders, and it’s an exhilarating adventure when it does.

It’s just that it doesn’t last. The conscious mind can exert a very exciting kind of control—but only for the short term. The very short term. In fact, the average person loses focus every six to ten seconds.

Now: aren’t you glad that part of your brain isn’t in charge of running all your biochemistry? Right now, as you’re reading these words, there are about ten quadrillion chemical reactions going on in your body every single second. Imagine if you had to keep track of all that with your conscious brain! You wouldn’t last five seconds. Yet that is the part of our brain that most of us are trusting with our most precious life goals.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: while your conscious brain can’t possibly keep track of all that, your nonconscious brain can, and it does, nonstop, twenty-four hours a day, every day of your life. If your conscious brain is a lot more limited than you realized, your nonconscious brain is vastly more powerful than you have ever imagined. Guess how often your nonconscious brain loses focus? Never. Not once.

Not ever.

If your conscious brain is the ship’s captain, your nonconscious brain is the guy in the engine room, along with everyone else on board. It is the entire ship’s crew, fulfilling every last function that makes the ship run, and doing it impeccably, perfectly, every moment.

The nonconscious is the power center of the brain. It is where the great bulk of perception happens, and where your accomplishments and achievements take root. Your conscious mind is what you use to define, articulate and set goals. But it’s your nonconscious mind that follows through with all the dozens, hundreds or millions of actions necessary to achieve those goals.

 

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This article is adapted from The Answer, by John Assaraf and Murray Smith (Atria Books).