photo credit: ValetheKid

I’m constantly surprised by the fact that many people have habits they claim they can’t change. The things that are happening in the mind includes:

• lack of awareness of the pattern of habit
• a belief that the habit cannot be changed
• a greater association of pleasure experience that is associated with keeping the habit
• pain associated with changing the behavior
• no need to change the behavior
• possibly positive payoff for a negative behavior

NLP has several processes that enable this to be eliminated including

• smoking addiction
• snacking
• computer game addiction
• procrastination

Perhaps I can illustrate this with one of the processes I’ve used since 1997. I had a client once who had asked whether I could help him remove his craving for smoking. Of course, after a series of questions (also clarifying if there were any potential adverse effects of stopping), we went through a simple process of finding out the strongest reasons why he would stop smoking and the strongest desires for him to continue a healthy life.

Essentially, he had been facing some health issues and a few of his friends had died of cancer. So, this was a stark image in his mind that sparked off the fear of death. That formed the leverage for change.

In using a process of submodality mapping across, we made the images of smoking so negative and revolting that he literally wanted to throw up at that point. On the same note, we made the change feel positive in the mind.

Testing this several months later, this person has continued to live without the need of a cigarette, even after more than 20 years of smoking “experience”.

Comments, questions?