Stuck in repeating patterns? It’s time to change your mind’s rules

Most people know, at least on some level, what they want to change in their lives and what holds them back.

They want more confidence, healthier relationships, less stress, better habits, or more success. They know their fear is irrational and that a certain belief is outdated and holds them back.

And yet, most find themselves repeating the same patterns over and over again. They still end up reacting, feeling, and behaving in the same old ways. 

Why we stay stuck even when we know better

If this sounds familiar, it's not because of a lack of discipline, motivation, or intelligence. The reason is much simpler and much deeper. The vast majority of our behaviour is not driven by our conscious, rational mind at all. It’s driven by our subconscious programming.

Modern psychology and neuroscience suggest that roughly 90 to 95 percent of our daily behaviour, decisions, emotional reactions, and habits are controlled by the subconscious mind. Only about 5 to 10 percent are truly conscious and rational. When the two contradict each other, the subconscious mind wins out.

Just because you know better, it won’t change the feeling.

How the mind actually works: The three levels of the mind

According to Gerry Kein’s Mind Model, we do not have just one mind, but three distinct levels:

• Conscious and rational mind: This is the part of you that thinks, analyses, and plans.
• Subconscious and emotional mind: This is where habits, emotional reactions, beliefs, and learned patterns are stored.
• Unconscious and physical mind: This controls automatic bodily functions like the immune system and learned physical responses.

These three levels work together, but they do not have equal power. The subconscious mind acts like a vast storage system and an autopilot. It follows the programmes it has learned, mostly in childhood and early life, and it runs them automatically. It’s also always in communication with the unconscious physical mind, which is why when we’re nervous, we start sweating, and our stomachs clench.

The conscious mind is often a bystander that can see what’s going on, but doesn’t get a say in it. You won’t be able to tell yourself to stop sweating, and that there is no need to be nervous. It doesn’t work. You stay nervous, and you keep sweating. 

This explains why people can intellectually understand their fears, their self-sabotage, or their unhealthy relationship patterns, and still keep repeating them. The conscious mind may want change, but the subconscious mind is running its own programme.

Real, lasting change, therefore, has to happen at the subconscious level. 

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How to create change on a subconscious level

This is where hypnotherapy comes in. Hypnosis is a very natural state that everyone experiences daily:

• It’s when you’re daydreaming, and your eyes get glassy.
• It’s when you drive to work, get out of the car, and think, “How did I get here?”
• It’s when you’re on autopilot, and your focus is on the internal world rather than the external.

Hypnotherapy is not about losing control or being manipulated. In fact, it is the opposite. It is a highly effective method that allows you to access the subconscious mind in a focused and receptive state, where real change becomes possible.

In this state, you can identify the root cause of a pattern, emotion, or reaction and update it, as long as the subconscious mind accepts the new suggestion, believes it, and wants to implement it. 

A well-known example of the power of the subconscious is the placebo effect. People can experience real, measurable physical and emotional changes simply because their mind believes a treatment will work. It proves how powerful suggestion and belief are when accepted by the subconscious mind.

In hypnotherapy, we use this same principle with intention and purpose. Instead of just coping with symptoms, we address the root cause. We change the programme that creates the reaction in the first place. When the subconscious programme changes, the emotional response changes. When the emotional response changes, the behaviour changes. And when behaviour changes consistently, your life changes.

Rebuilding the foundation

This is the point where many people experience a profound shift. Instead of feeling like a bystander in their own life, or a victim of their past, their habits, or their automatic reactions, they begin to take back control. They are no longer fighting themselves. They are finally working with their own mind instead of against it.

I am writing this article in January 2026. By the time it’s published, most people have already failed their New Year’s resolutions. They tried to build a new future on top of a crumbling foundation. It is like trying to build a house on unstable ground. No matter how beautiful the plan is, the structure will not hold. If the subconscious foundation is not aligned with the conscious goal, the old patterns will eventually win.

When you change the foundation first, everything else becomes easier. Motivation no longer has to fight against inner resistance. Discipline no longer feels like a constant struggle. The new behaviour starts to feel natural because it is supported by your subconscious, instead of being sabotaged by it.

Another important aspect is that hypnotherapy does not just teach you to cope. It allows you to retrain your emotional and subconscious response to triggers. Instead of needing techniques, distractions, or even medication to manage reactions, the reaction itself can often be changed or removed at its source.

Scientific. Proven. Effective.

The power of hypnosis has been well researched in over 1.000 scientific studies and is widely used in many fields, from psychology to medicine to performance coaching. And in practice, the results can be surprisingly fast. With many of my clients, we see significant and noticeable changes after just one or two sessions. This applies to children, adults and seniors alike, because the way the subconscious mind works does not change with age.

Of course, every person is different, every story unique. But the principle remains the same. When you change the rules you're playing by, your patterns change. When your patterns change, your life follows.

Take charge

If you are tired of repeating the same cycles, if you know what you want but keep feeling held back by invisible forces within you, it may be time to stop trying harder and start changing more deeply. Hypnotherapy could be the right tool to help you finally create the change you have been working so hard for.