In my previous blogs on Mindset and the Conscious and Subconscious Mind, I explored how our mindset can influence our success and how our conscious and subconscious minds work.

But there is another piece of the puzzle.

We tend to rely heavily on our senses – what we can see, hear, taste, touch and smell. We experience the world around us through our senses, so it is very easy to believe that what we can see in front of us is simply the way things are.

But what if the life you can currently see isn’t the life you want?

If we want to change our lives, we need to learn to think beyond our current circumstances. As Wallace D. Wattles said, we need to think bigger than our current circumstances.

This is where our higher faculties come in.

Our senses allow us to experience the world around us. Our higher faculties allow us to think beyond what is immediately in front of us.

As humans, we have the ability to imagine, use our intuition, exercise our will, access our memory, reason and perceive.

These are the six higher faculties of the mind.

They give us the ability to think differently, make different choices and ultimately create different results.

And once we understand how to use them, we begin to realise that we are not simply at the mercy of our circumstances.

We have tools within us that can help us change them.

Imagination

We either stifle our imagination or, quite often, use it in the wrong way.

Mary Morrissey talked about how easily we can use our imagination negatively.

Your child is late home and suddenly you imagine the worst.

Someone hasn’t returned your call or message and your mind starts creating a whole story about why.

Nothing has actually happened – but your imagination has already created a scenario.

Sound familiar?

Our imagination is incredibly powerful, but we often use it to create things we don’t want.

Bob Proctor described imagination as our creative workshop.

Instead of constantly imagining everything that could go wrong, we can use this faculty deliberately to imagine the life we actually want.

What would your ideal life look like?

Where would you live?

How would you feel?

What would you be doing?

Who would you be surrounded by?

When we begin to create a picture of the life we want in our mind, we have something to move towards.

What you see in your mind, you can hold in your hand.

Our imagination is the first step towards changing our thinking. It is the creative workshop – the place where we can begin designing the life we really want.

So ask yourself:

What am I imagining?

Am I repeatedly imagining everything that could go wrong, or am I allowing myself to imagine what could go right?

Intuition

Intuition is those feelings, hunches or coincidences that we often push to one side.

You know that feeling when something just doesn’t feel right?

Or when you suddenly have an idea and you don’t really know where it came from?

That is often how we experience intuition.

In personal development, coaches sometimes describe prayer as our way of ask God, the universe or a higher power, for what we want – and intuition as a way of receiving an answer.

Bob Proctor also described intuition as our subconscious mind giving instruction to the conscious mind – helping to guide us towards what we want and the steps we might need to take.

The problem is, we don’t always listen.

We can be so busy analysing, worrying and looking for evidence that we ignore that quiet inner feeling.

Learning to recognise and trust our intuition doesn’t mean abandoning logic. It means becoming more aware of the information that comes to us from within.

Sometimes the answer isn’t another spreadsheet, another list or another hour of overthinking.

Sometimes, you already know.

The Will

Willpower helps us to stay focused on what we want rather than being distracted by our circumstances or what is happening around us.

In my earlier Mindset blog, I talked about how what we consistently think about can influence who we become.

This is where our will becomes important.

It is one thing to decide what we want. It is another thing to keep our attention on it when life doesn’t immediately cooperate.

Our circumstances can easily pull our focus away.

Something goes wrong.

Someone says something that knocks our confidence.

We have a bad day.

We don’t see results as quickly as we expected.

And suddenly, the goal that felt so exciting last week doesn’t seem quite so important.

The will allows us to choose where we put our focus.

It helps us stay connected to the direction we have chosen, rather than allowing every circumstance to determine how we think and feel.

It doesn’t mean pretending that difficult things aren’t happening.

It means deciding that they don’t get to decide everything.

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves what we decided we wanted – especially when our current circumstances are trying to convince us otherwise.

Memory

Memory is another of our higher faculties, and it can be both incredibly useful and, at times, incredibly helpful.

We use our memory every day.

We remember people, experiences, lessons, skills and information. We can draw on what we have learned in the past to help us make decisions in the present.

But memory can also influence how we see ourselves.

Think about how quickly one past experience can become a belief about who we are.

“I’ve always been terrible at this this.”

“I tried that before and it didn’t work.”

“I always mess things up.”

“I’ve never been confident.”

We take something that happened in the past and allow our memory of it to become evidence for what we believe is possible in the future.

But the past is the past.

It can teach us, but it doesn’t have to dictate what happens next.

We can choose what we take from our experiences.

Instead of using memory to remind ourselves of every time we failed, we can use it to remember the times we did succeed.

The times we were brave.

The times we kept going.

The times we solved a problem we didn’t think we could solve.

The times we got back up.

Those memories matter too.

Perhaps part of changing our self-image is learning to stop using our memory as a filing cabinet for everything that went wrong – and start remembering the evidence that shows just how capable we actually are.

Because if we are constantly reminding ourselves of who we used to be, it becomes much harder to see who we are capable of becoming.

And that is something we will explore more in the next blog.

Reason

Reason gives us the ability to think things through.

It allows us to consider information, question what we believe, weigh up different possibilities and make decisions.

And this is important because not every thought we have is true.

We have already explored the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind, and how our subconscious can hold beliefs and patterns that influence our behaviour.

Reason gives us the opportunity to step back and question them.

To respond rather than react.

Is this actually true?

Where did I learn to believe this?

Is this a fact, or simply something I’ve told myself for years?

Is there another way of looking at this?

This is where reason can become incredibly powerful. We don’t have to automatically accept every thought that enters our mind.

We can examine it.

We can challenge it.

We can choose whether we ant to continue believing it.

But there is also a danger in overusing reason. We can think ourselves into circles.

We can analyse every possible outcome, wait until we have complete certainty and convince ourselves that we need more information before taking action.

Sometimes what looks like being sensible is actually fear wearing a very clever disguise.

Reason is there to help us make better decisions – not to keep us permanently stuck in analysis.

There comes a point when we have to stop thinking and start moving forward.

Perception

Perception is perhaps one of the most interesting of our higher faculities because it affects how we see the world.

Two people can experience exactly the same situation and come aways with completely different interpretations.

One person sees a setback.

Another sees an opportunity to learn.

One sees rejection.

Another sees redirection.

One sees a problem.

Another sees a challenge to solve.

The circumstances may be exactly the same.

What changes is their perception.

Our perception is influenced by our beliefs, experiences, expectations and the way we have learned to look at the world.

And that means that sometimes, changing our circumstances isn’t the first thing we need to change.

We may need to change the way we perceive them.

This doesn’t mean putting a positive sign on everything or pretending that difficult circumstances don’t exist.

It means recognising that what we see isn’t necessarily the whole story.

If you have spent years believing that you are not good enough, you may automatically notice everything that confirms that belief.

If you begin to believe that you are capable, you may start noticing opportunities, possibilities and evidence that you didn’t see before.

The world hasn’t necessarily changed overnight.

Your perception has.

And when your perception changes, your choices can change.

When your choices change, your actions can change.

And when your actions change, your results can change.

Bringing Our Higher Faculties Together

When you look at these faculties individually, each one is powerful. But it is when we begin to use them together that things can really start shift.

Imagination allows us to see what could be possible.

Intuition can help guide us.

Will helps us stay focused.

Memory allows us to draw on what we have learned and remember what we are capable of.

Reason helps us question, evaluate and make decisions.

Perception influences that way we interpret what we experience.

These are not simply interesting concepts from personal development. They are faculties we use every day – whether we are consciously using them or not.

The question is:

Are we using them deliberately?

Because if we aren’t, our old patterns, beliefs and circumstances can end up doing the thinking for us.

We imagine the worst.

We remember our failures.

We reason ourselves out of taking action.

We ignore our intuition.

We allow our circumstances to dictate our focus.

And we perceive the world through the lens of everything we have expeirenced before.

Then we wonder why nothing changes.

But perhaps the starting point isn’t changing everything around us.

Perhaps it starts with learning to use the incredible faculties we already have.

Final Thoughts

Over these blogs, we’ve been look at mindset, the conscious and subconscious mind, and now our higher faculties. There is a reason these pieces fit together.

If we want different results in our lives, wh have to begin by thinking differently.

Our circumstances may be real.

Our past may be real.

The challenges we face may be real.

But they don’t necessarily have to determine our future.

We have the ability to imagine something different.

We can listen to our intuition.

We can exercise our will.

We can learn from our memories rather than being trapped by them.

We can use reason to challenge the thoughts and beliefs that hold us back.

And we can change our perception of what is possible.

Maybe the life you want isn’t as far away as you think.

May the first step isn’t changing everything around you.

May it is learning to use what you already have.

The six higher faculties are not something you need to find.

You’ve had them all along.

The question is: what are you going to do with them?