Why do some people achieve their goals and others don't? The answer to this question is one of the most important concepts to understand if you are serious about becoming successful.

People get the goals that are aligned to their subconscious expectations and they don't get the goal that are contrary to their subconscious expectation.

What do I mean by expectation?

One of the jobs of your subconscious mind is to keep your life "on track" but what is it keeping it on track to? We each have, in our subconscious mind, a model of what life should be like for us. This model is called your expectation.

Where do your expectations come from?

Your expectations comes from the sum total of all your life experiences to date. That includes every thing that you have done, heard, said, read, seen, and experienced. The stronger the emotional impact of an experience or the greater the repetition of an experience, the greater the contribution it makes to your expectation.

How does your expectation influence your life?

Your subconscious uses your expectation as the guide to decide what is "normal" for you. This is a very important function as our survival depends on our ability to behave consistently. This goes right back through our species history all the way to the caveman days. If our caveman ancestor did not possess a drive toward consistency then he would never have learned how to successfully hunt or gather food or how to reliably avoid being eaten by predators.

We live a very different life today to the life lived by the cavemen but our brains are almost identical. Our subconscious still looks to help us be consistent and it does that by building our expectation and keeping us true to it.

If your expectations are subconscious then how do you know what they are?

It is very easy to tell what your subconscious expectations are; just look at your life. What you have and who you are is the reflection of your subconscious expectation.

How do you change your expectations?

We've all experienced what it is like to go against our subconscious expectations. It is usually referred to as being outside our comfort zone. The feeling can range from mild discomfort up to extreme distress depending on how far outside our comfort zone we are.

Successfully changing an unwanted expectation is a two step process.

Step 1: Scramble the unwanted expectation.

There are many powerful techniques that are used to scramble unwanted expectations. I'll give you a simple exercise that combines two of the techniques.

Firstly hold in your mind an image of you experiencing the unwanted expectation. Then fade that image so the colors are duller, the image is blurred any sounds associated with that image are distorted and unintelligible. Then imagine that image being broken up and rearranged like mixing up pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

The more scrambled you make the image the weaker the subconscious pattern becomes.

Step 2: Now you need to immediately install a new expectation.

The best way to install a new expectation is by using affirmations. Give yourself an affirmation for each characteristic of the new expectation that you want to develop. Make sure that the affirmation is in positive, present moment language.

Repetition increases the power of these techniques.

If you repeat the scrambling exercise each day and follow it immediately with the affirmations then soon you will have your subconscious expectation lining up with your conscious goals and then achieving your goals will be easier than ever before.