How to Rewire Your Subconscious Mind

You’ve probably heard it before — that your subconscious mind controls most of what you do, feel, and decide. That somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of your daily decisions are driven not by your rational, conscious thinking, but by deeply embedded patterns running quietly beneath the surface.

You may have even felt it — the way certain triggers reliably produce certain reactions, no matter how many times you’ve told yourself you’ll respond differently this time.

So the real question isn’t whether your subconscious is running things. It is. The real question is: can you change it? And if so, how?

In Episode 10 of Run With The Cheetahs, behavioral neuroscientist and bestselling author Rene Rodriguez answered that question with a detailed, science-backed framework that you can begin applying today.

First: Understand What You’re Actually Changing

Rene is clear that the subconscious isn’t some mystical, unreachable force. At its core, it simply runs on what is most familiar. It is a collection of:

• Automatic nervous system responses
• Deeply held beliefs about who you are
• Emotional associations tied to past experiences
• Identity-based patterns and habits that loop repeatedly

You can’t fight it directly. But you can replace its programming — gradually, intentionally, and with consistency.

Here is Rene’s framework, broken down into four actionable steps.

Step 1: Identify and Rewrite Your Identity Statements

The most powerful entry point into the subconscious is through your identity — specifically, the statements you make about who you are.

Pay close attention to what you say and what you repeat, because what you repeat is what you are protecting. Common identity statements include:

• “I’m not good with money.”
• “I’m not a confident person.”
• “I’ve never been creative.”
• “I’m a hard worker” (positive identity worth protecting too).

Once you identify these statements, begin rewriting them in an action-based format that acknowledges where you are while pointing toward where you’re going:

• “I’m not good with money” becomes “I’m becoming financially disciplined.”
• “I’m not a confident person” becomes “I’m learning to lead with courage.”
• “I don’t speak clearly” becomes “I’ve been developing my communication over the past few months.”

These aren’t just affirmations. They are identity installations — new narratives your brain can begin running instead of the old ones.

Step 2: Attach Emotion and Visualization

Writing down a new identity statement is the start. Making it stick requires emotion.

“Repetition of emotion equals installation.” — Rene Rodriguez

When you repeat your new identity statement, connect it to a vivid emotional experience — what does your life look like when this is fully true? What do you feel? What does it sound like? Who is around you?

Then go in the other direction. What does your life look like if you don’t change — if you stay on the current path for two to five more years? Rene credits coach Rowan for this technique, and its power comes from making both the reward and the cost viscerally real.

The brain responds to emotional, vivid information. The more you can make your new identity feel real — not just conceptually true but emotionally experienced — the faster it begins to take root.

Step 3: Interrupt the Old Patterns

Even with new identity statements and emotional visualization in place, the old patterns will resurface. They are deeply grooved. They will not disappear quietly.

The key is to have a practiced interruption ready when they show up. Rene suggests three powerful questions:

Question 1: Is this objectively true?

When an old story kicks in — “this never works for me,” “I always mess this up” — stop and ask: What do I categorically know to be true right now? Strip away the narrative and get to actual facts.

Question 2: What else could be true?

Open the door to other interpretations. Your brain filled in a narrative gap with a familiar story. What are the other possible stories? What would a neutral observer see?

Question 3: What would the person I’m becoming think about what I just said?

This question, perhaps the most powerful of the three, invites you to step outside yourself. Joe Rogan offers a similar reframe — imagine you are the lead character in the greatest comeback story ever told. What does that character do next? That slight distance from yourself makes it much easier to choose differently.

Step 4: Upgrade Your Environment

This final step is one that Rene says was drilled into him by a client and mentor — and it may be the most underestimated of all.

Your environment is constantly programming your subconscious. Every input — what you see, what you hear, what you read, who you spend time with — is feeding your reticular activating system, the part of your brain responsible for attention and pattern recognition.

Rene shares that a mentor once looked around his office and noted: “There’s nothing around you that reminds you of your goals.”

That observation led to a hard audit. And Rene suggests you do the same:

• What’s on your walls and in your physical space? Does it point toward who you’re becoming?
• What are you consuming on social media? Look honestly at your screen time and watch history.
• Who are you spending the most time with? Are those conversations pulling you forward or keeping you anchored?
• What conversations dominate your day? What evidence is your brain absorbing and cataloging?

If you want new thinking, you need new inputs. It’s not complicated. But it does require honest assessment and deliberate change.

The Bonus: Act Before You Feel Ready

Rene closes this framework with what may be the most important insight of all — and it runs counter to how most people think about confidence and readiness:

“Confidence is never a precursor. Confidence is always the gift that comes after courage.”

We wait to feel confident before we act. But confidence doesn’t come first. Courage comes first — the willingness to move before you feel ready, to make mistakes, to learn through doing. Confidence is what your brain gives you afterward, once it has new experiences and new evidence to work with.

Every courageous action you take is, in Rene’s words, rewriting your memory. You are installing new experiences, new identity evidence, new proof of who you are becoming.

Start Here

If you’re reading this and feeling some combination of inspired and overwhelmed, that’s normal. These are deep patterns. They didn’t form overnight and they won’t change overnight.

But you don’t have to change everything at once. Start with one identity statement. Write it down. Attach real emotion to it. Ask the three questions once today when an old story surfaces. Look around your environment and change one thing.

Awareness, as Jerry Freishtat says in the episode, is always where it begins. And now you have more than awareness. You have a framework.

“Bias doesn’t make you wrong. It makes you unaware. And awareness is where real performance begins.” — Russell Anderson

The extraordinary life is not waiting for you to feel ready. It’s waiting for you to start