Stopping Behavior You Don't Want

On a recent day, I was working with a client on stopping smoking and thought it would be great to update you on the latest and greatest information from the world of Neural-Linguistic Programming (NLP.) First, as noted in last newsletter in the metaphor on the overweight person – you must truly want to stop the behavior. Many do not.

Secondly, when focused on stopping behavior, it is CRITICAL to know what behaviors you do seek. To merely focus on not wanting something (or hating it or “I can’t stand this”) is a prescription for continuing it, both from an energy as well as a brain perspective. You must create the massive “toward” desire to do or be healthy or on time or deeply in love. Know what you want!

Once this is certain, then there are NLP tools that will help. First off, diagnose what your greatest fear has been to date. Have you told yourself “you can’t quit.?” Has the thought of doing something new and bold in life terrified you? Or is it more insidious than that? Have you heard me speak of the Bellweather Effect?

Most, not all of us, maintain a bellweather test for ourself…. When we are X… (and X may be smoke free, thin, in shape… whatever) then we will finally be OK. And as long as we actively continue to do Y (Y is the antithesis… still smoking, not going to gym, overeating…) we are signaling to ourselves that we are not ready YET… of course we will be soon…. As soon as right diet, right stop-smoking patch, great gym/ time deal appears because that is the real problem… but the Truth is that we are running a more pain/ less pain neural equation that while we are in the away state of Y, the truth is that it is less painful and X state is more painful. Solve that equation first, and you will conquer your self-defeating behavior. NLP will then anchor and intensify the new belief/ rules/ etc… that is the new permanent X state.

The second step becomes knowing what the benefit to the offensive behavior is. Many of you will say, “what, there can’t be a benefit to this odious strategy!” But think of this, if you are a smoker, you get a built in mental health break from the stress when you leave your office/ cubicle, you visit with your friends, you get outside, and so on. There are A LOT of benefits to being a smoker. The new strategy that you design to overcome this bad behavior MUST incorporate these benefits in order for you to break free effortlessly and easily.

Last, you must answer the question: Why NOW? Why not later? Next week? Next month? At New Year’s! That’s it. That would be the perfect time. As long as you can not create a compelling set of NOW reasons, you will continue to think about this, study this, and continue your unacceptable behavior. n
Answer these three questions, and you are off to a new life. In the next issue, we will touch on some of the tools that we will use to anchor in the new, conscious designed strategies. Good Luck!