This is commonly called being in two minds. You might be in two minds about your career, your work/home balance, a business decision or a romantic commitment. Being in two minds is certainly not a productive or even comfortable state to be in, nor is it demonstrating self leadership.

We do not in fact have two minds, but one mind that has two functions; conscious attention and unconscious processing. When we are torn between two choices, it often means that we cannot consciously process a conflict that exists in the unconscious functions of our mind.

Modern living/working overloads our conscious attention and so we are mostly unconscious of our values, beliefs, identity, paradigms and intentions. It is the nature of these ‘frames of mind’ to operate automatically and so out of conscious awareness. This does not mean that they are inaccessible; on the contrary, self-leadership is about gaining awareness of our frames of mind and choosing frames that empower us.

During our Self Leadership workshops we explain and practice a number of methods for gaining focus and resolving the inner conflict of being in two minds. For blog readers I invite you to try these two exercises.

1) To resolve the conflict using your conscious mind; identify the two choices – For example, some time ago my wife, Zurina, was in conflict about having a family and continuing with her career. Take one choice and ask yourself the question, “What’s important about this?” The first answer that comes to mind is the right answer for you, write this on the bottom of a piece of paper and ask the question again, “What’s important about this?” Write the answer to this above the first answer and ask the question again. If you keep asking the question as instructed you will get a ladder of intentions/values that drive you to consider this choice.

Now repeat the process with the other choice using a separate piece of paper. When you have completed the process, compare both pieces of paper and notice the hierarchy of intentions and the similarity of the intentions between both choices. Take the highest common intention and ask yourself, “What action will allow me to be true to my highest intention?” The answer might not be either of the first two choices, but a completely new choice or a fusion of the first two.

2) To resolve the conflict using your unconscious mind; hold out your hands in front of you, palms up. Because your unconscious mind thinks in images, allow it to create an icon or image of the first choice to appear on one palm. Now ask it to create an image of the second choice on the other palm. Using your power of imagination float up and look down on the two images, and cause them to spin from palm to palm. As the two images spin faster and faster they will merge and a new image will emerge. If the new image was to tell a story what would that be? Now you have your answer.

When Zurina did this process, on the one hand she saw a baby and on the other herself working at a desk. When the icons spun, the image that emerged was of many people. The story she told was that she could achieve her work objectives by project managing many people. The results of this process are, our children Tasha and Nathan and the multiple associates that now work with us.

Still stuck? Then make sure you come to one of our workshops or contact us if you would like to work with a Self Leadership International coach.