By Riska Mentari
The Coordinator of Educational and trainings at Center for Community Development and Education (CCDE) Banda Aceh
A success person once said “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits”. It’s all start with your persistence in anything you have done. Do you enjoy wasting your time on social media like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and so on? Do you ever think that sometimes your screen time is more addictive than drugs? Do you ever feel like you are wasting your priceless time unconsciously while scrolling your social media? If you are reading this now, it might be a sign for you to learn how to control your mind.
A lot of people today, especially the teenagers, just love to be the audiences rather than the agents of change. They spend so much time scrolling down the social media and complaining about how others’ life could be very successful, luxurious, and glamorous at the same time.
How could they compare their life with a person who chooses to read a book rather than long period of screen time, who sleeps enough per day than the one who chooses to stay up late for playing games, who does the weekly exercise than the one who keeps laying on bed all day.
A normal person’s brain already understand about the right or wrong input and which things that they need to shut down or execute as the output. If you can not deal with your subconscious mind, then you are a quitter who never wins. No! How can you quit while you don’t even starts?
Researchers said that the differences between conscious and subconscious mind lie on the mental processes and the basic human functions. According to PEDIAA, when your rationalizing and critical thinking work then it is part of the conscious mind whereas any involuntary action happens because of the control of your subconscious mind.
Decision making, planning, communication through language and skills of organization are controlled by conscious mind. Breathing and digestion, memory, feelings, emotions, beliefs, habits, attitudes and guts instincts are controlled by subconscious mind. Birmingham Clinical Hypnotherapy suggests that 90% of the human brain controlled by the subconscious mind while only 10% controlled by conscious mind.
Placed your persistence on the right habitual action. As mentioned in the Atomic Habits book, “small changes, remarkable results”. If you want to control your mind you need to break your bad habits first. Start by reading a page of book every day, eating healthy food in one of your meal times, doing the exercises once a week, limiting your screen time, making friend with smart people, and finding any support system.
There might be no difference for one or two years, but believe me, there will be a big difference if you keep doing that for the next five years. The keys are persistent and commitment.
Start now, be successful at young age, find your own way to “financial freedom”, don’t depend on the government salary, create jobs, empower your circle, and be the best version of who you want to be in the next years. Set your mind, believe you can do it, followed by the action.