Often conscious mind stops considering new idea at that point, and moves on to something new. But did subconscious mind really "know" that? Maybe sometimes, but often new idea is not even properly formed yet, so how could subconscious mind be sure that it "knew" that.

Unfortunately when conscious mind gets "I know that" message, it usually stops receiving or processing new idea, and that means opportunity to learn something new is lost.

Why would our subconscious mind act in a way that stops us from learning? To answer that, and to understand in detail how this process works, you will have to attend my "Power of Mind" training, or perhaps wait for another article in future, but I do have space to briefly discuss what we can do about it.

How can we interrupt our subconscious mind so that it does not stop us learning from new ideas, when we are exposed to them. I suggest that there are two easy ways.

Firstly, when we hear our subconscious mind saying "That doesn't fit", or "That can't be right", or something similar, we can simply say to our subconscious mind "Thank-you for that information". This means that we have decided not to act on message that our subconscious mind was sending. Our conscious mind is then free to continue considering, reasoning and thinking about new idea.

The second thing we can do is ask our conscious mind to think about new idea in a way it may have not done before. Usually our conscious mind thinks "Is this idea right?", or "Is this idea wrong?" Instead of those questions we could ask "Could this idea change or improve my life in some way?"

This allows us to look at a new idea in a completely fresh way, without being influenced by all things that we have learnt before, or that we already "know".

It was Will Rogers who said many years ago that "it's not what people don't know that hurts them. It's what they do know that just ain't so."

The real issue is: Do you actually need to take a friendship quiz to figure out if you are a good friend? Maybe yes, maybe no. If you think of friendship quiz as a "checklist", then you can run down that checklist to see if you seem to be meeting basic requirements.

However, if you "fail" friendship quiz that doesn't mean that you aren't a good friend. A friendship quiz, like any quiz, has a built-in bias since it measures what quiz's author thinks are valuable traits of friendship. The author may be all wrong in that friendship quiz may measure things that aren't important to you and your friends.

My advice is to consider a friendship quiz as an "entertainment only" device and not something that will cause you to become a hermit if you don't score 100%.

The best friendship quiz is one that only your head and your heart knows answers to. Treat your friends like you would want to be treated and you won't need a friendship quiz to keep score.

Brian Fong

http://www.QuizFaq.com