Answer given to the popular Q&A site ‘Quora’

“What about the thief in your mind?” Jim Rohn

That is the most profound quote I have ever heard that me crawl out of my own stupidity.

If a thief snatches something of us and ran away, we would chase that person down as if the devil is upon us. I am not saying we shouldn’t do that. But if we could only chase down the thief that is residing within us. What are you thinking right now? You are probably saying, she is wrong ‘my home is protected, nothing and no one is getting in without my knowledge’. I say, even if you are living in the most sophisticated fortress, you do have a thief in your home specifically in your mind.

Remember the thief that snatched something from us. It does not matter what he took. The important thing is he has taken something we value from us and we track him down till we find him. We give everything to get back what we have lost. The ridiculous thing is we might probably win a 100m track if we put in the same running energy as we have put in tracking our thief. But we really do not care. Do we? It is the principle of the matter. We have lost something of ours and we will do whatever is necessary to get it back.

The funny and at the same time tragically sad part is we have failed in recognizing there is such kind of greedy thief in all of us. As brilliant as human beings are, we have failed spectacularly in this important matter. Not only do we not know such a snatcher lives and resides in us, but we unknowingly feed him all the time. We are feeding this thief in King Style. We are providing him with whatever it needs with a silver platter. This thief is your mind, specifically your subconscious mind.

Truth #1 You are the thief in your mind

If you think that you are just a simple human being that thinks with his mind, you are deluding yourself. Scientists are still studying the level of sophistication your mind has. Don’t simplify the matter. The mind is the reason human beings have soared to the moon and created a steel that can fly on the air. As mundane as it sounds, the same mind is still the reason a person cannot and will not change a bad habit.

If you want to know where the thief is in this complicated thing that you carry around all the time, then you have to understand how it works. At least, at a kindergarten level.

You can take it into your heart that your mind basically works carrying two parts. Your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. You simply cannot take one and ignore the other. Both work for you or against you. It is in one of these that your thief is living a luxurious life. He is not hiding from you. Why would he? He is not a fool. He is splendidly taking advantage of your ignorance. He is living in plain sight waiting for something to steal every minute of every day.

To understand these two parts in your mind, remember troops led by a commander. The commander gives an order and the troops immediately follow the order and go into action. The same analogy works for your subconscious and conscious mind. The commander is the subconscious mind and conscious mind always follows the order of the subconscious mind. Do you now see which part of your mind is the most powerful one? The commander is the key. It is the one with all the powers in the world. That is why many books have been written about the subconscious mind.

Do you want more clarity? Then, I will make it so simple that your10 year old will grasp the concept while he is watching a television. How do you express yourself into the outside? Do you display a positive attitude all the time? Or is it better to dig a deep hole than make you smile? Whatever way you are, the command that is been given for you to smile or not, has been given by your subconscious. That means, conscious mind is visible to the naked eye. Your child can see your smile. The one who is giving the order cannot be seen by the naked eye.

Now, you realize where your thief is don’t you? It is in your subconscious mind. This hidden part of you has been busy since the day you were born. He has been accumulating knowledge, information, thoughts, attitudes and feelings in his reservoir. From where does he get these masses of thoughts? From people near you. You know that computer of yours that saves everything that you give it. Just like that, your subconscious mind has been saving his entire life from different sources (family, friends, environment, culture, etc.) This super power has only one job. And that is, saving what is dumped into him without checking the quality whatsoever.

You know, how your thief steals in your mind? By using your subconscious mind.Say, you want to change a very bad habit and you say I want to do this to get that.Who steals this new idea of yours? Your subconscious mind. The moment you declare some new change to happen, your subconscious searches itself for a similar thing that has been saved. When it finds nothing similar to what you are declaring, it simply discards the new urge. Years and years of thoughts saved in your subconscious mind always triumphs over few days of new urges. That is how your subconscious is stealing your new thoughts and desires.

• You want to start a new language, your subconscious mind convinces you by its accumulation that you have never learned a new language before.

• You want to start a new business, your subconscious mind convinces you that you are indeed crazy for even contemplating the idea since it has no recollection of similar success in its reserve.

• You want to change a career, your subconscious mind convinces you that he has no knowledge of the new job and has never even heard of the name before. It lets you believe that its vocabulary is the only correct vocabulary for you.

• You want to get out of an unhealthy relationship, your subconscious mind convinces you that all you know is a tolerance for an abusive relationship and nothing else.

• You want to do a public speech, your subconscious mind convinces you that you have never spoken to a single person in confidence let alone a room full of people.

Read a letter a subconscious mind has written to a conscious mind.

Truth #2 Subconscious mind is more important than conscious mind

Remember the commander, he commands everything under him. Just like that, your subconscious has all the power under the sun to influence you.

Truth #3 Subconscious mind does not distinguish between truth and false

Well, you would think that this super power would be very clever in its abilities just like the heroes of the movies that we see on TV. But it is not so. The subconscious mind simply believes what it has been given and accept it as an eternal truth. If a person has been told though out his life that he cannot accomplish anything, then that belief becomes the truth. That is so, even if he has an intelligence of Albert Einstein. Isn’t is a bit tragic that such a big part of our mind cannot distinguish between what is the truth and what is not. We can even say he is a very poor student. Too bad we can’t bury it, because in spite of its limitations, we need it badly for our survival.

Do you want to catch this aggravating thief? Then, these are the solutions.

Solution #1 Clean out your house

What do you do to your house when it is filled with years of accumulated things? You clean out, don’t you? You get rid off old things and you buy new ones for your home. Unless of course, you want to build a museum with your special things.

Similarly, clean your mind. It is the most precious thing that has been given to you freely. And yet it has not even occurred to you to clean it. Get rid off the negative thoughts and information that you have been accumulating for years. Delete it from the recycle bin even, so that it will never come back to you again. Just like you do at your home, don’t leave your mind empty. Substitute and occupy it with new thoughts and knowledge.

Learn from unlearning:

Solution #2 Make it a habit

Remember how long your subconscious mind has been accumulating? Since you were born. May be even before then. Scientists nowadays are saying babies inside a mother’s womb are capable of listening to what the mother says, the kind of music she listens to, etc.

So in order to keep up with this very old part of you, you have to make cleaning and substituting your full time job. If that is so, you will eventually outrun your subconscious mind. In the process, you will catch your thief and apprehend him.

The full quote of Jim Rohn’s that has caught my attention is “Don’t become a victim of yourself. Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind?”