Hello everybody its Thomas here with another episode of the Mind Guy Podcast. This episode is about the 6 different faculties of the mind and when I say faculties I am referring to your mental capabilities. I would also call them gifts or talents because some people have faculties that are on the genius level. The great thing about these 6 faculties is that nearly everyone can develop these talents with practice. You may even be surprised that if you think you don’t have one of these faculties it is still possible to develop them from ground zero.
Let me start out with the definition of faculty that some of you may have never heard of. One of the definitions of faculty is an inherent mental or physical power. I like to call these faculties our super powers especially if they can be harnessed and developed over time. The first mental faculty I want to discuss is memory. The thing you may not realize is that your unconscious mind is incredible at storing information. Every single second you are taking in a million bytes of information which means you are a supercomputer. It’s storing all your sensory information including sounds, tastes, smells, feelings and images.
People who believe they have a poor memory are simply creating this based on a previously generated belief. A lot of people who have poor memory made a decision a long time ago that they do not have a good memory. You may have created the belief of having a bad memory when you were comparing yourself to someone with a really impressive memory. Overtime you reinforced that belief and now it has become your reality.
We are also conditioned to believe that as we get older our memory gets worse and if we create that belief then it manifests itself as a reality. Beliefs create your reality so the first step would be to clear that belief. I used to believe I had a bad memory until I learned how the mind works. I now tell myself all the time that I have an incredible memory and I learn things instantaneously. We have the ability to learn instantaneously so that we don’t have to spend hours studying things. I feel like a sponge, absorbing in all this information wherever I go.
There are a lot of tricks in order to improve your memory too. I created a series of 8 Mind Hacks for Success and two of them help with the faculty of memory. The first teaches you how to get into a learning state within 60 seconds and the second teaches you how to easily remember things like people’s names and lists. You can find these mind hacks on my website ... themindguy.net. Another thing to know when it comes to memory is that while in hypnosis or while doing timeline therapy it’s pretty easy to retrieve these memories. People are often surprised when they retrieve these memories from the past so easily and vividly.
The second faculty of the mind is reason. Reason is the intellectual faculty of the mind and it’s all about the formulation of ideas. The best way to develop this faculty is by questioning things. The best way to learn about new ideas is by reading, but more importantly questioning the ideas you read about. Secondary education like college is specifically designed to develop this faculty where you can discuss ideas and formulate ideas in written papers.
The more questions you ask about life the more you can pick apart ideas and make them your own as opposed to just taking on the ideas of others. Some people just regurgitate ideas from other people, especially news outlets. It’s pretty clear that these people don’t think for themselves and I’m talking about both sides of the political spectrum.
This is the problem with group identity. It’s easier to survive life by being in a group if you haven’t developed the faculty of reason. It’s much safer to take on the ideas of a group. If you are accepted into a group then you can simply take on the beliefs of the group and not question anything. The unconscious mind wants to take the path of least resistance and doesn’t want to critically think about everything because that just expends energy. It takes effort to develop the faculty of reason and a lot of introverts end up developing strong reasoning skills.
The third faculty of the mind is perception. Perception is quite a unique faculty of the mind that requires other faculties to modify and change. Perception is an unconscious act. What you perceive is based on your unconscious programming. As an example, if you are highly religious you will likely perceive the world through a filter of right and wrong. If you believe you are not good enough you will perceive setbacks as failures as opposed to learning opportunities, continually telling yourself that you aren’t good enough.
I’d like to define perception a little deeper because how you perceive the world is solely based on your five senses of sight, touch, smell, sound and taste, as well as your internal dialogue. Everyone has a different internal map of the world based off of our unconscious programming and everyone will have a different sensory experience in the exact same situation. Two people standing in front of a painting in an art gallery will have a completely different perception of that painting.
The first person might find certain aspects of it visually unappealing and it will bring feelings of neutrality or even disgust. While the other person could find it visually beautiful and it will give them feelings of joy. If you want to change your perception then you must question your beliefs. You can start by becoming aware of your thoughts and questioning your thoughts. Most of us are unconscious to our thoughts and beliefs.
The fourth faculty of the mind is imagination. This is probably one of the most powerful faculties of the mind if you are able to develop this skill set. Imagination is the ability to bring faint pictures into the mind’s eye. Some people have vivid imaginations and I’ve met some people who say they have no imagination. If you are a person who believes they cannot visualize let me give you some hope. You can still tap into that ability. You probably have another sensory system that is your dominate system like sound, feeling or thinking. You first must transform the belief that you don’t have the ability to visualize or imagine. There are also exercises that you can do in NLP that can tap back into your imagination centers.
The reason imagination is such a powerful faculty is because the unconscious mind loves working with images. Guided meditations are some of the most powerful ways of creating. By using symbols that the unconscious mind easily understands one can make changes to your life very easily. Especially if you use your imagination to create the future you desire. I’ll give you a quick example of how I use imagination. I easily take on the emotions of others so if I am in a place surrounded by other people it can easily drain my energy. I use my imagination to picture a protective bubble around me in these situations and I find myself not being impacted by other people’s energy. You can get really creative when it comes to using your imagination.
The fifth faculty of the mind is will or often referred to as willpower. I used to bash will after learning about the unconscious mind but this is actually a really powerful skill to have. I’ve changed my perspective when it comes to will. I do believe that willpower is not that effective when you are going up against strong unconscious programing from the past. The stronger the emotions from these programs the stronger the resistance created by your unconscious mind. This is why I think it’s important to clear the unconscious programs from the past and then the faculty of will is much easier to use.
Will is definitely a skill that I lacked for a long period of time but with practice you can really heighten this faculty. You need to understand that you have countless thoughts every single day and your unconscious mind wants you to exert the least amount of energy possible. Your unconscious mind doesn’t want you to work hard or go to the gym. This is where will is so important. Taking an action in spite of those limiting thoughts is necessary in order to achieve your goals. For the longest time going to my workout classes were such a challenge because my thoughts would work so hard on not having me go. I continued to will myself into going and over time it became easier and easier, to the point where I now have little resistance to going to my workout classes.
The last faculty of the mind I want to talk about is intuition. If you are over analytical and always in your head you are probably out of touch with this faculty of the mind. Intuition is such a powerful faculty of the mind because your unconscious mind is such an intelligent force of nature. It can make decisions for you based on all your experiences from the past. Intuition is so powerful that it almost transcends time by being able to predict the future.
You see in order to tap into your intuition you need to quiet your thoughts. Ask your unconscious mind questions and let your intuition go to work. Sometimes we are stuck in difficult situations where we have to make hard decisions. This is when you want to use your intuition. After you have listed your pros and cons maybe it’s still not clear what decision to make. This is when you want to ask your intuition what to do and I’m telling you your intuition is spot on. There is an inner guidance system that knows what’s best for you and the more you trust it the more you will realize how powerful this faculty of the mind really is.
I could have gone into greater detail on each of these faculties of the mind but I wanted to keep this episode short and simple. It’s possible to develop all of these faculties with practice. If you have any beliefs blocking you than you will want to clear them. I can help you with that, just email me at [email protected] or if you want to improve your memory I have a couple great mind hacks for success on my website at the themindguy.net. It’s much easier to use willpower when you have cleared unconscious programming from your past.
Now get out of your head and into silence to tap into your intuition. You can develop your reasoning skills by reading more and questioning everything. You can shift your perception by questioning your thoughts and beliefs. After all you can’t be right about everything, there is some level of imperfection in every human being. Imagination can be developed through guided meditations and you can find a bunch of free ones online. If you don’t believe you can visualize you can also reach out to me through email and I can help you get reconnected to that skill. I hope you enjoyed this episode and take on developing these six faculties of the mind.
