The Conscious Goal-Setter and the Unconscious Goal-Getter

There’s a simple but powerful saying in coaching:

The Conscious Mind is the Goal Setter, and the Unconscious Mind is the Goal Getter.

At first glance, this might sound like some kind of motivational gunk or even spritual bullsh*ttery, but within it lies a roadmap to transforming how you live, work, and show up in the world.

To be honest, despite the profound results it can bring, the idea is simple:

Your conscious mind (the ‘goal setter’) decides what you want and your unconscious mind (the ‘goal getter’) – the deeper, automatic part of you – works behind the scenes to make it happen (if you can get out of your own way, LET GO, and trust).

Unfortunately, the problem for most people is that they sabotage this process without even realising it – they consciously set one goal while their unconscious mind gets wildly conflicting instructions. It’s basically like putting the wrong destination into your sat-nav and wondering why you end up in the wrong place.

In this article we’ll explore how this disconnect happens and how you can realign your conscious and unconscious minds to stop spinning your wheels and start moving toward the REAL life you actually want.

The Goal-Setting Trap: Mixed Signals

Your unconscious mind is like a loyal worker bee – it doesn’t overthink or second-guess; it simply acts on the instructions it’s given from the command centre (your conscious mind). There’s only one caveat: it takes all your instructions, not just the ones you ‘think’ you’re giving it.

For example, if you consciously decide, “I want to become healthier” but then spend the rest of your day binging Netflix, eating junk food, and thinking “I’ll never stick to a routine anyway”, then you’ve sent two very different signals to your unconscious mind.

On one hand, you’ve set a goal; on the other, your actions and beliefs have communicated that you don’t actually value or believe in that goal and so…nothing happens.

This kind of dissonance and disharmony causes confusion and so your unconscious mind simply sticks with what it already knows – your old habits, behaviours, and self-sabotaging patterns.

Here’s where things get pretty interesting: the problem often boils down to the ego and the shadow self and the Shadow Dance that they’re involved in (this is just a kind of ‘battle’ between the image you’ve created of yourself to survive whatever you’ve been through in life (ego) and the TRUTH about yourself that often gets hidden from view to keep this image in place (shadow)).

The conscious mind may have good intentions, but if your ego is running the show, clinging to fears, insecurities, or old stories about who you are, those deeper, shadow parts of yourself will distort the signal and pull you in a direction that you don’t think you want to go in but which is actually more REAL for you.

For example, maybe you keep telling yourself at the conscious level that “I want to lose weight” but you never actually do…This is because deep down beneath the shadows you have an UNCONSCIOUS INTENTION to NOT lose weight. Because the unconcious mind is the ‘goal getter’, this is what you get.

To stop sabotaging yourself, you need to align your conscious goals with your unconscious mind and its intentions and that means doing the internal work to get clear on what’s driving your behaviour.

At the heart of this is a simple principle:

You have to BE before you can DO or HAVE.

This is where most people get stuck; they try to jump straight to ‘doing’ part – ticking boxes, grinding away, or chasing external results – without first focusing on who they need to become.

The unconscious mind works best when your actions align with thedeeper identity of your REALNESS which means that you need to show up as the person you’re trying to be, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.

The Ego vs. the Shadow: A Tug-of-War

Like we said, much of the misalignment between the conscious and unconscious minds comes from the battle between the Ego and the Shadow Self and the Shadow Dance that they’re engaged in:

• The Ego is the part of you that wants to look ‘good’, feel safe, and maintain a sense of control. It’s the surface-level ‘you’ that sets goals based on societal expectations, fear of failure, or the need for approval. At heart, it’s a reaction to underlying SHAME (most commonly), guilt, and/or trauma that makes us feel we need to be a version of ourselves besides what we actually are.
  
• The Shadow Self is the hidden, disowned part of you that contains all the emotions, traits, and desires you’ve repressed because they felt ‘unacceptable’ or uncomfortable in reaction to the ego and how you think you need to appear in order to be ‘good’ (without shame, basically).

When the Ego and Shadow are out of balance, the goals you set often aren’t authentic or real because they’re based on the need to keep the illusions of ego in place rather than express anything true:

Maybe you chase status, money, or approval because your ego thinks it’ll make you happy, but deep down, your Shadow Self knows that these things won’t bring fulfilment – or maybe you consciously aim for success, but unresolved feelings of unworthiness from being disconnected from the Shadow Self keep pulling you back.

To overcome this, you need to:

1. Raise Awareness – Deconstruct the ego and its surface-level motivations.
   
2. Cultivate Acceptance – Integrate the shadow self by facing the parts of you that you’ve ignored or rejected.
   
3. Take Aligned Action – Set goals that reflect your real values and take consistent steps to embody them.

(Awareness, Acceptance, and Action – it works every time! Book a call with me to find out how it can help you)!

The Power of Being Before Doing

Transformation doesn’t happen because you wish for it or hustle harder – it happens because you start being the person you’re trying to become, right here and now.

You do this by putting yourself in the PROCESS of real life and action instead of just thinking (at a conscious level) about the goals and outcomes you want from this process.

Think of it this way:

Your unconscious mind doesn’t respond to your future plans; it responds to your current identity.

If you see yourself as a victim, a procrastinator, or someone who just isn’t good ‘enough’, then that’s the identity your unconscious mind will reinforce, no matter how many affirmations you repeat or vision boards you create.

On the other hand, when you start acting as though you’re already the person you want to become – even in small ways – your unconscious mind takes note and begins to adjust your habits, behaviours, and thought patterns to align with this new identity.

Over time, this carries you from Point A to Point B through the process of cause and effect and closes the ‘gap’ so that you can become aligned (i.e. your conscious and unconscious mind are both pointing in the same direction instead of tearing you apart).

Practical Steps to Align Your Conscious and Unconscious Minds

To make this concept practical, here’s a step-by-step process you can use to realign your conscious and unconscious minds, overcome self-sabotage, and move toward your REAL goals with clarity and purpose:

1. Get Clear on What You Really Want

• Take time to reflect on your goals. Are they truly yours, or are they driven by societal, cultural, or familial expectations?
  
• Ask yourself: If I stripped away all external pressure, what would I want my life to look like?
  
• Write down your goals in specific, measurable terms. Avoid vague statements like “I want to be successful” Instead, define what success looks like to you as CLEARLY as possible and framed in the positive (focusing on what you want – not what you don’t want).

2. Raise Awareness

• Pay attention to the thoughts, behaviours, and emotions that arise when you think about your goals.
  
• Notice where the Ego might be creating resistance or distortion (resistance = holding you back from doing what you need to do; distortion = blocking your view of what’s real).
  
  For example, do you fear failure, judgment, or rejection? Are there old stories or beliefs holding you back?
  
• Journaling or working with a coach (*cough*) can help you uncover these hidden dynamics.

3. Cultivate Acceptance

• Instead of fighting against your Shadow Self, start to embrace it. Acknowledge your fears, insecurities, and past mistakes without judgment. Here are 100 Shadow Work Exercises to get you started. You can also check out my book: Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World.
  
• Practice self-compassion – remember that growth requires discomfort and it’s okay to feel uncertain or vulnerable as you push through your EDGE.

4. Focus on Identity-Based Habits

• Start showing up as the person you’re trying to become:
  
• For example, if your goal is to become healthier, don’t just set a target to lose weight. Instead, ask yourself: What would a healthy person do today? Then do it. It sounds simple (and it is) but it WORKS.
  
• Small, consistent actions are more effective than grand but unsustainable gestures.

5. Use Visualisation and Affirmation Wisely

• Visualise your goals, but don’t stop there – make sure you actively take ACTION otherwise you’re wasting your time.
  
• Use affirmations that reinforce your identity, such as “I am someone who takes care of my body,” rather than focusing solely on outcomes like “I will lose 10 pounds”. Use this to guide your ACTIONS (i.e. don’t just think about it, do it).

6. Take Aligned Action

• Break your goals into actionable steps and start taking them – don’t wait for motivation or the ‘perfect’ moment. Once you really know what you WANT then keep your FOCUS on that instead of how you might ‘feel’ from moment to moment (your feelings are temporary but what you want in your realness remains).
  
• Remember that action creates momentum and momentum builds confidence. The more you do something, the more you can do something.

7. Review and Adjust

• Regularly check in with yourself:
  
  Are your actions aligning with your goals? Are you staying true to your REAL desires and not just the desires of your ego?
  
• If something isn’t working, be willing to adapt. The journey to growth is rarely linear and even the pathway of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action goes through spirals.

Conclusion: REAL Always Works

The bottom line is that real transformation happens when you align your conscious goals with your unconscious mind in a REAL way.

This requires honesty, courage, and the willingness to embrace discomfort as you step into a new identity and leave the old ‘ego’ behind.

If you raise your awareness, integrate your shadow self to cultivate acceptance, and take inspired action, you’ll stop spinning your wheels and start moving forward with purpose and clarity.

Remember: REAL always works – when you chase something true, instead of what’s driven by ego or external pressure, you’ll find that your unconscious mind is your greatest ally.

Let it do its thing – but first make sure you’re giving it the right instructions then get the ego out of the way and trust it.

Stay real out there,

Are you driven by something REAL or are your strings being pulled by SHAME?

We all know that feeling when we’re not quite ‘ourselves’ – when something inside seems to pull the strings and motivate our actions, making us behave in ways that feel out of character or against the grain of who we know we can truly be.

Sometimes this kind of thing is just a momentary lapse, but for many of us, it’s a constant, underlying tension or restlessness – like we’re on autopilot, reacting to life from a place of emotional compulsion, rather than our capacity to make authentic, self-directed choices.

If you’ve ever found yourself caught up in compulsive habits or unhealthy cycles of behaviour – chasing validation, seeking approval, or acting out of fear or defensiveness – you might be dealing with what I call a ‘Shame Puppet’.

This is something that can affect all of us , whether we’re aware of it or not – and the only way to truly escape its grip and take control of our lives is by reconnecting with our TRUTH and GROWING REAL so that we can dissolve our underlying shame and get into the present moment of our lives as they actually are (not as we sometimes misperceive them to be because our ‘strings’ are constantly being tugged).

Let’s dive into what it means to be a Shame Puppet, why it happens, and most importantly, how you can break free and return to your REALNESS and the life that you’re meant to be living.

What are Shame Puppets?

Imagine a puppet with strings attached to its limbs, controlling its every move: the puppet doesn’t make choices for itself – it’s simply reacting to the strings being pulled and doing what it’s ‘told’ to do.

In a similar way, when we’re caught in the web of shame, we become like those puppets – we react to life not from a place of free will or authenticity, but from a place of fear, insecurity, and self-doubt. This makes us act out of compulsion rather than choice and it can affect our whole lives and the way that we SHOW UP (or don’t) whilst we’re here.

The root cause of this ‘puppetry’ is SHAME – that deep, gnawing feeling that something is fundamentally ‘wrong’ with us.

Whether it’s a result of past trauma, societal pressures, or even childhood experiences, shame tells us that we’re not ‘good enough’, that we don’t deserve love, success, or happiness and so – in an attempt to compensate for this feeling of inadequacy – we begin to act in ways that feel safer; chasing external validation, playing the victim, seeking attention, or inflating our sense of self.

These behaviours, though they might temporarily soothe our pain and bring a kind of RELEASE to the TENSION of being unreal, are ultimately addictive – they offer us a quick, fleeting sense of relief but never truly address the root cause.

In fact, the more we act out of shame, the more we become entrenched in the very patterns that keep us stuck and go deeper and deeper into the Void of being unreal.

Why Do We Become Shame Puppets?

The journey to becoming a Shame Puppet often begins early in life:

Maybe it’s through experiences of rejection, neglect, or criticism that cause us to feel disconnected from our true selves and our REALNESS. Or perhaps it’s messages from family, society, or school that reinforce the idea that we’re not ‘good enough’ unless we prove our worth through external accomplishments.

Over time, this disconnect from our true nature creates a split – a void where our real self should be as we create a false version of ourselves to ‘hide’ from the shame and to send many very real ‘parts’ of who we are into the Shadow Territory. This creates a void and a constant sense of inner conflict as the Ego we’ve created to survive the world battles our realness in the form of our Shadow Self (this is the great Shadow Dance between Ego and Shadow).

To try and feel a sense of ‘peace’ or safety, we desperately attempt try to fill and fill the void with external things: attention, validation, achievements, or even the approval of others.

The problem is, no matter how much we chase these things, they can never fill the void because the take us further and further away from the only thing that can ‘fill’ the void: the TRUTH which is what we became disconnected from and which led to our sense of SHAME in the first place (really, shame is just a disconnection from the truth)..

The more we try to compensate for our shame, the more fragmented we become, which just exacerbates the problem – we’re constantly reacting to life, and pulled by strings that we don’t even realise exist.

This emotional fragmentation, this separation from the truth of who we are, leaves us living in a state of disconnection, where we’re on autopilot, following patterns of behaviour that we don’t fully control.

We might even look back on our actions and wonder, “Why did I do that?” – but the answer is simple: our shame was pulling the strings.

The Cycle of Addiction and Compulsion

Shame-driven behaviour is addictive because it helps us to escape all of the feelings that come with the void opened up by the inner split.

Just like any other addiction, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, or even attention-seeking, the initial high feels good because it brings a temporary release, a momentary sense of being ‘seen’ or ‘validated’ (and this seems like it fills the void – if only just for a moment).

Unfortunately, that feeling quickly fades, and we find ourselves chasing it again – the more we chase it, the less satisfaction we get, and the more frantic the pursuit becomes, as we go deeper and deeper into addictive behaviours (chasing that temporary release we got when we first discovered the behaviour in question).

Take, for example, the need for approval:

In the short term, getting attention or praise feels wonderful but, over time, the more we rely on external validation, the more disconnected we become from our own sense of self-acceptance (which means embracing the TRUTh about ourselves).

It reaches the stage, where we start to feel as if we can’t exist without that validation and so the strings of shame just tug and pull on us even harder.

The cycle intensifies as we try to fill that void but the problem is it’s a bottomless pit. Nothing will ever be enough to ‘fill’ it, because the only thing that can heal that void is reconnecting with the truth of who we are and becoming the void by accepting that it only exists as a sign that we’ve disconnected from the truth about ourselves, the world, and reality.

External validation can never replace our internal sense of ‘worth’; only self-acceptance can do that.

Breaking the Strings: Returning to the Truth

So how do we cut these puppet strings and GROW REAL?

The answer is simple, though not always easy: we must reconnect to the truth.

Truth is what we are in our deepest essence0 – the ‘part’ of us that is whole, complete, and unshaken by external circumstances. The truth is the real version of you, the one you were before shame and fear took hold and asked you to walk a path of puppetry instead of presence.

The process of cutting the strings of shame starts with Awareness:

We need to become aware of the patterns that have been pulling our strings, the ways in which we react to life instead of responding to it, and to recognise the compulsive behaviours and thought patterns that keep us stuck in the cycle of shame.

Once we become aware of these patterns and Accept them, we can begin to take Action to change them.

(Awareness, Acceptance and, Action work every time – this is why I always walk my coaching clients through this transformational process).

The first step is almost always learning to respond to life, instead of simply reacting to it – this is where practices like meditation, yoga, and mindfulness come into play: by being present in the moment and cultivating stillness and flow instead of running around and forcing everything (through the mind which is controlled by the puppet strings), we can start to break free from the autopilot mode and make conscious choices.

Practical Steps to Cutting the Strings of Shame

1. Get Clear on Your Values
   To start cutting the strings of shame, it’s crucial to get clear on your values. What truly matters to you? Is it creativity? Freedom? Health? Humour? Happiness? These values are the compass that will guide you back to your REALNESS. When you know what you stand for, you can begin to build a vision for your life based on those values and to make conscious CHOICES in the moment.
   
2. Create a Vision for Your Life
   Once you’ve identified your values, it’s time to create a vision for your life. This vision should align with your REAL self, not the version of you that’s driven by shame or external validation. Ask yourself: who do you want to become? What kind of life do you want to live? How does this vision align with your core values?
   
3. Set Goals and Break Them Down into Habits
   Now that you have a vision, it’s time to break it down into actionable goals. But don’t stop there – create daily habits that support those goals and dedicate yourself to them (almost) daily. Small, consistent actions will help you stay on track and reinforce your commitment to your real self and make a big difference over time (the example I always use is writing: if you write just 100 words a day, that’s 700 in a week, and you could write a whole book in a year – just by taking a small step each day and engaging in the process of your real life).
   
4. Shift from Reacting to Responding
   The key to breaking free from shame is learning to respond to life, rather than react to it. When you feel the pull of shame or compulsion, pause and ask yourself: What is the real, authentic response here? This takes practice, but over time, you’ll train yourself to respond consciously, rather than acting on autopilot. Check out the free Thought Log on this website which is designed to help you do this (and which works – I’ve seen it with loads of clients now and also use it every day in my Flow Builder Journal).
   
5. Embrace the Growth Process
   Moving from the ‘shame puppet’ version of yourself to the ‘real you’ is a journey. You’re going to encounter challenges, and old patterns may surface but this is all part of the growth process. Be patient with yourself, and remember that every step forward, no matter how small, is a victory. If you fall down, get up again. As long as you keep your vision in mind and take real action, you’ll get where you need to be.
   
6. Take Responsibility for Your Choices
   Responsibility is about making conscious choices that align with your vision for your life – every time you’re tempted to fall back into old habits, remind yourself of who you’re becoming. You have the power to CHOOSE your response, and each choice brings you closer to your REAL self.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Your Freedom

Ultimately, breaking free from the strings of shame is about returning to the truth of who you are – it’s about letting go of the false beliefs that keep you trapped in compulsive, reactive behaviour and embracing the freedom that comes from living in a REAL way.

As you move through this process, remember: the journey isn’t always easy (as you fight old social conditioning and even biological impulses), but it’s worth it.

By reconnecting with your values, creating a vision for your life, and learning to respond rather than react, you can start cutting the strings that have been holding you back.

The real version of you is waiting to emerge, and when you allow that to happen, you’ll find a freedom that you never thought possible:

You’ll find your REALNESS!

Stay real out there,

P.S. If you’re ready to stop being a Shame Puppet and start living your real life then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you break the strings and unleash your REALNESS.