Impulse And Override

One of the most fundamental things to understand is the workings of the unconscious mind. Over 95% of our day is spent living out the emotions and behavioral patterns that our mind’s produce unconsciously. On autopilot we navigate life with very little ability to intervene or influence it. It’s only when we disrupt what happens automatically that we can knowingly choose something else.

Daniel Kahneman popularized the ideas of ‘fast and slow thinking’. He noticed that there are two pathways of thought, the first that is quick, reactive, and beyond our control… And another that is slow, deliberate, and calculated. Fast thinking is reacting, slow thinking is responding, and it always happens in that order (if slow thinking happens at all).

An easier way to relate with this concept is to think about your impulses. An impulse is an immediate desire motivated by something you’re not aware of. It could be an impulse to pick up your phone and scroll, have an extra serving of chips or dessert, or get angry at a loved one or colleague. An impulse happens without full cognitive processing so it’s an unfiltered expression of a deeper rooted desire.

If you don’t have the awareness to know you’re feeling an impulse or the willpower to address it, it will win, and it will steer your behavior in unsustainable ways. This is the preferred direction of the unconscious mind as it plays out its programming.

However, at any given moment we can override our impulses. Our conscious will and choice is greater than our unconscious nudges. It’s within our power to put our phone down or avoid picking it up in the first place. We’re capable of resisting the temptation of snacks and sweets. We can feel an impulse and choose to not act on it, but that’s only possible when we’re aware that it’s happening and clear on what we want in the long run.

As it relates to our own self-growth and steering our lives in a healthier and more productive direction, we can work on both sides of the issue. For impulses we can design our environment so that it’s more difficult to access the thing that satiates the impulse, or add consequences when we do. To override we can cultivate more consciousness through visualization, priming, and generating clarity.

And to operationalize this concept, I want you to pick one thing that you’re vulnerable to giving into. Add consequences by promising to yourself that you’ll make the right choice on it. Prime yourself by envisioning the next time you’ll face off with that impulse and thinking through how you want to handle it. 

A small exercise like that goes a long way in supporting you in making the right choices, consistently, that build up the life you want to have, step by step.

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