Turn Struggle into Flow: The Neuroscience of Effortless Achievement

If you’ve ever gone river rafting or kayaking, you know it’s much easier to row with the flow of the river than against it.

Going against the current takes more energy; no matter how hard you paddle, your efforts feel futile.

But when you go with the flow, you use less effort, steer easily, and enjoy the journey.

You conserve energy and still get to your destination.

If you understand this concept when navigating a river, why do you do the opposite in life?

When you strive for your goals, why despite all the struggle, forcing, and fighting, do you make little progress?

For every step forward, it feels like you’re taking three steps back.

Imagine if you could go with the flow of life the same way you would with a river.

Imagine achieving your goals with ease, flow, and effortlessness.

The good news is that you can—and it starts with understanding a key mechanism of your mind.

You Are a Puppet, Not the Master

We like to believe we’re in control of our minds.

But let me ask you:

• Why can you drive a car, do you consciously think about every action?

• Why can you tie your shoelaces with ease, when it was so challenging as a child?

• Why do you end up doom scrolling on social media when you said minutes before you’d start working?

The answer: You’re not entirely in control.

(Sorry to burst the bubble).

What is in control is your subconscious mind.

Your subconscious mind governs 95% of your habitual thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.

It’s the autopilot that runs your life. The programme running in the background.

The conscious mind, which represents only 5% of your brain activity, struggles to override this deeply ingrained programming.

When you consciously set a goal but find yourself reverting to old patterns, it’s because your subconscious mind’s programming isn’t aligned with your conscious desires.

To change this, you need to tap into a tiny but crucial part of your brain: the Reticular Activating System (RAS).

Meet the RAS: Your Mind’s Gatekeeper

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a bundle of neurons located at the top of your spinal column, extending into your brain. It’s about two inches long and the width of a pencil, yet its impact on your life is profound.

Here’s how it works:

• The RAS acts as a gatekeeper between your conscious and subconscious mind.

• Every second, your senses are bombarded with billions of bits of information.

• All sensory information passes through the RAS.

• The RAS filters this flood of information and decides what gets through to your conscious mind.

• It prioritises what it deems “important” or “relevant” based on your beliefs, emotions, and habits—most of which are stored in your subconscious.

In essence, the RAS shapes your perception of reality.

For example, ever notice how you suddenly see your new car everywhere after buying it?

Or how do you hear your name in a noisy crowd?

That’s your RAS at work.

It tunes into what aligns with your focus and filters out everything else.

How the RAS Filters Your Reality

The RAS is a sort of filtering system that creates your perception of reality.

But there’s a catch: your RAS isn’t a moral judge.

It reinforces whatever beliefs you hold, whether they’re empowering or limiting.

Your RAS is designed to confirm your existing beliefs, emotions, and habits.

Imagine the RAS as a vacuum cleaner with a flashlight attached:

• The flashlight represents your attention, shining on whatever you’re focused on.

• The vacuum cleaner sucks up information that aligns with your focus and beliefs.

Wherever you shine the flashlight (your attention), the vacuum (your RAS) sucks up confirming evidence—whether good or bad.

Over time, this strengthens the neural pathways in your brain, turning thoughts and behaviours into deeply ingrained habits and programming.

So this means if you’re focused on negative beliefs, the RAS will work just as hard to confirm them.

Now, imagine flipping the script. What if, instead of battling your subconscious, you rewrote the program?

If you shift your focus to abundance, success, and positivity, the RAS will filter reality accordingly.

You could glide toward your goals effortlessly—like kayaking with the river’s flow.

This process happens below your conscious awareness, making it vital to reprogram your subconscious mind intentionally.

5 Powerful Ways to Reprogram Your RAS

Your RAS isn’t your enemy—it’s simply trying to maintain consistency between your internal programming and your external reality. By understanding this, you can take control and make your RAS work for you. You can reverse it to create the life you desire.

Here are five proven ways to reprogram your subconscious mind and align your RAS with your goals:

1. Deep Meditation

Your brain operates in different states throughout the day: Beta (focused), Alpha (relaxed), Theta (meditative), and Delta (deep sleep). Most of your waking hours are spent in Beta (focused and alert). But when you enter the Alpha and Theta states through meditation, the veil between your conscious and subconscious mind thins.

In this relaxed state, the conscious mind quiets, and the subconscious becomes more receptive to new programming.

Start with just 10-15 minutes of meditation daily.

(If you want deeper insights, I highly recommend checking out Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.)

2. Affirmations

Affirmations work, but only if done correctly.

Affirmations work when you approach them with intention and emotion.

Avoid empty phrases.

Instead of trying to convince yourself of something far from your current reality, start with achievable statements.

Use the present continuous tense, such as:

• “I am getting better and better every day.”

• “I am attracting success into my life.”

Repeat these affirmations with emotion and consistency.

Emotion is the language of the subconscious mind.

3. Self-Hypnosis

Self-hypnosis bypasses the conscious mind entirely, allowing direct access to the subconscious. Listening to self-hypnosis audios as a meditation, when you fall asleep or wake up can be highly effective.

Some of my favourite guides come from Marisa Peer or Glenn Harrold.

4. Journaling

Journaling helps you externalise your thoughts and gain clarity.

It allows you to identify negative thoughts and disempowering beliefs.

Once on the page (or digital screen), you rewrite them into empowering ones.

Whether you use pen and paper or digital tools, journaling gives you the power to become the narrator of your own story.

5. Gratitude Practice

What you focus on expands.

Gratitude shifts your focus to positivity.

By regularly practising gratitude, you train your RAS to look for the good in your life.

Each day, write down three things you’re grateful for and truly feel the emotion of gratitude. Over time, this rewires your brain for positivity and abundance.

Go With the Flow of Life

Your RAS is the gatekeeper to your subconscious mind and controls the lens through which you view the world.

By reprogramming it, you align your subconscious programming with your conscious goals, making success and fulfilment feel effortless.

It’s time to stop paddling against the current.

Take control of your RAS, reprogram your subconscious mind, and watch as life begins to flow in your favour.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I’ll see you in the next one!

— Shana