The 5% That Changes Your Life
How conscious effort trains the subconscious to build the life you want
Everyone says, “It all starts with the mind.” But what does that actually mean?
When someone tells you, “It’s all in your head,” it can feel dismissive or frustrating. Yet the mind might be the greatest ally you carry with you. The mind is with us everywhere, always.
To understand this ally, it helps to see the mind in two parts:
Subconscious mind — the automatic system:
It runs your habits, routines, and conditioned behaviors. You walk, eat, shower, scroll, react… often without a single deliberate thought. It’s your past playing itself out.
Conscious mind — the deliberate system:
This is where awareness, choice, creativity, and intuition live. It’s the part of you that pauses, reflects, decides, and creates new patterns. It’s where the “aha” moments appear.
Research suggests that only about 5% of our mental activity is conscious, while the remaining 95% runs subconsciously. Most of life is lived on autopilot, one routine flowing into the next. Wake up. Toilet. Brush. Shower. Work. Repeat….
The mind never stops, not even in sleep. But becoming the CEO of your own life requires learning to operate from the 5% that is conscious. That small percentage is where self-awareness grows, where new behaviors form, and where you begin shaping the person you want to become. This is the importance of the 5%.
Living consciously isn’t always easy. You can’t analyze every action. But even using that 5% intentionally for a few moments each day it creates growth you never expected.
Personally, in the beginning it was a challenge to wake up each day at 5:30 a.m. and do the yoga practice. Recently, I had a long break over the holiday period — almost one month. Initially it was hard to get back into the practice, but with a little conscious effort the body and mind automatically wanted to wake up and complete the practice again. This is how we can all train the subconscious mind using the conscious mind to achieve those small and big things in life that we want to.
Some key actionable steps to being conscious in our areas of growth include:
Setting a routine with a 30-day trial period. Thirty days is the rule of thumb for your conscious mind to build the neural networks your subconscious will later act on automatically.
In this period, you have set a time where you wake up for that yoga routine. A deliberate time that you know you can realistically achieve each day.
Trial and error different techniques to make your routine work during the 30‑day period. I trialed many different techniques before I set my routine up in a way that felt achievable each day.
Keep the conscious activity minimal. I started with a simple 10‑minute yoga practice in my bedroom.
Learn more about the conscious activity. I watched a simple 10–15 minute yoga routine on YouTube for three months before progressing to the next step of getting a teacher. This helps you understand what works for you and what doesn’t.
Finally, you have to enjoy the conscious activity. Without enjoyment, those positive neural networks never get built, and the subconscious won’t wake up each morning ready to rinse and repeat the activity.
Think of time when you were consciously using the 5% to become the CEO of your own self? Transformation only occurs when the conscious trains the subconscious for a period of time.
The mind is a garden. If you leave it unattended, weeds take over. If you plant roses with intention, roses will grow.