How to Ask Your Subconscious for Help When You Face an Urgent Deadline

Facilitate and assist instead of managing your mind.

In the past two weeks, I wrote and published almost ten articles about how to connect to our subconscious. The primary message in all of them was:

Let your subconscious in peace, support it by being active and doing something — however little — for each of your goals every day or as often as you can, but avoid pressuring it. Trust that it will do its best on its own terms.

Here is one of these stories:

Many who commented on those articles agreed.

When we need help ASAP

But there are situations in our lives when we need answers fast. We might have an urgent deadline. Or even “worse,” we find ourselves sitting at an exam or test, and instead of writing an answer to the question we just read, we sit frozen and unable to move any of our brain cells to produce something usable.

Asking small questions like

• “What’s one little thing I know about this topic or can do right now with what I have at hand?”

can indeed be very helpful. Ultimately, asking ourselves small questions can

“dispel fear and inspire creativity.” — Robert Maurer, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

But not expecting answers and letting our subconscious daydream at an exam or with an unhappy customer drumming impatiently on the counter in front of us, won’t. So, what are we to do?

Buddha’s “checklist” for skillful speech

Whatever language you use with yourself, your thoughts are a communication mode with your subconscious.

You might have already made many experiences that pressuring your mind doesn’t help and resisting its resistance either. Your opposition will grow when you criticize yourself, because

“What you resist persists and grows stronger.” — Ariel and Shya Kane, Practical Enlightenment

Let’s communicate with ourselves differently instead, especially in times of urgency and crisis.

Here’s how.

I haven’t read Buddha’s teachings about skillful communication directly, but I learned

“he said that we should speak only when what we have to say is true, kind, and helpful.” — Toni Bernhard, How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness

Reading Toni Bernhard’s acclaimed book How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness, helped me to become aware that we need to be kind, honest, and helpful not only while communicating with others but also with ourselves. She describes how she applied this pearl of wisdom to relationships not only with those around her and helping her master the challenges of chronic pain and illness but also with herself.

I like thinking of this pearl of wisdom by Buddha as an emergency solution checklist.

Thus, let’s be:

• Honest,
• Kind, and
• Helpful.

Both to ourselves and others.

And to our subconscious.

How to be honest with your subconscious

Honesty is often confused with blame. “Come on, be honest!” we shout inside our minds or to others. And by that we mean, come on, take the whole blame for this terrible situation.

But that is not honesty. Not at all. Honesty with ourselves is directly connected to kindness.

Here is a story about how I became aware of that:

Honesty with yourself is all about awareness of the situation. That you might be stuck, afraid, worrying. See all that nonjudgmentally, without bias and blame on anything or anyone. Just see that as facts.

And simply ask for help.

Yes, go ahead and think,

“Oops, I think I need help. Do you have any ideas? I’d be forever grateful!”

Feel free to reformulate these thoughts. But be sure they are kind. Don’t load your request for help with drama. It will only reinforce the already existing “block” of drama.

How to be kind to yourself

We are often very harsh with ourselves. When we observe someone being stressed while we feel well in ourselves, then we often show empathy and understanding. Kindness to ourselves and others when we, ourselves, are under pressure might not come as quickly.

For me, the possibility of turning my life into games became such a tool to make kindness to myself a reality. You can read more about this in this story:

But here is a brief illustration of how that goes. I ask myself a question. This question, formulated over several years practicing Self-Gamification — a self-help approach to turning our lives into fun games and which brings anthropology, kaizen, and gamification together — took the following shape:

“If this [question, challenge, project, activity] was a game, how would I approach it as its designer or player?”

Usually, ideas come very quickly because this question in itself is not the only kind, but it is also helpful. This situation is similar to those cases when you tried to help your child with a chore or a challenge by turning it into a game or play.

Helpful questions

To be helpful to your subconscious, come back to the idea of small questions. And if an answer doesn’t appear immediately, reformulate the question, or put another one.

Here are a few ideas for questions for your subconscious:

• What do I know about this topic already?
• What other cases of questions and challenges I solved in the past does this question remind me? (Note: Assure your subconscious that anything will be helpful, and you won’t judge any of the incoming ideas.)
• Would writing or saying, “I am not acquainted with this topic?” start the flow?
• What bullet points could I write about this topic?

In essence, play with the way you formulate the questions. Because this is what your subconscious does. If you make those questions small and frame them in a fun and enticing way, something like,

“What game does that remind me of?”

then

“Your brain will play with the question and actually enjoy the game.” — Robert Maurer, The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time

Final words

Your subconscious has its own pace and timetable. But it still can help you when the deadline is near and also in times of stress and crisis.

All you need to do is to team up with your subconscious. Don’t try to manage it, but do all to assist it and to facilitate its help.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this article. Here are five more stories on the subconscious, how it works, and how we can support it.

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