Eradicate Bad Habits the Easy Way

Do you have a bad habit like biting your nails, or twiddling with your hair? Maybe you can't help excavating your nose and ears - a habit that should definitely be eradicated! Well, if you do, the good news is that bad habits can be broken.

The first thing you need to do is to admit to yourself that you have an uncontrollable bad habit. Not all habits are bad: some habits are very useful, they help you get through parts of your life that you'd rather not think about. Imagine how boring it would be if every time you got up in the morning you had to decide on how to tie your shoelaces. The good thing is you don't have to, you have formed a habit out of the process, and you unconsciously go through the ritual of doing up your shoelaces every morning without thinking about it.

You could say that you've become unconsciously competent at tying up your shoelaces: the process has become habitual and automatic. If you have a bad habit that you would like to get rid of then the following technique can help you to do just that (the NLP swish pattern). This is a powerful method for making changes in habits and behaviour.

1. First ask yourself if it's ok for you to change your behaviour. Just ask, "Is it ok for me to get rid of this bad habit."

2. Think of the trigger that starts off the habit. For instance if you are a nail bitter the trigger could be the response of getting nervous. Just think of how you feel just before you carry out the habit. What is the last thing you see before the habit begins? Is it the sight of your hands coming up to your mouth so you can bite your nails? Make a picture of this, Also make sure that you are seeing the picture through your own eyes, Just as you would in real life. This is your cue picture. Now put this picture aside for a moment.

3. Break state this means to change your frame of mind. So stand up and give your body a good shake. Doing this will allow you to have a natural break from the pictures and emotions of the first part of this technique.

4. Now think of how you would like to behave, or look like. Make a dissociated picture of your desired outcome. (Dissociate means so that you can see yourself in the picture.) Remember to make this picture as real as possible. Make the colours bright and put sound and feelings into the picture, be in the moment.

5. Break state.

6. Now bring back the cue picture. Remember to associate into it, so that you are looking through your own eyes.

7. Now bring back the image of your desired outcome.

8. Now reduce the desired image make it a small and dark. Now place this image in the lower left hand corner of the cue picture.

9. Now with a swishhhh sound propel the small dark picture into a really large picture so that it covers the cue picture.

10. Break state.

11. Now repeat steps 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 until the unwanted state, or behaviour has diminished and you find it hard to bring back the cue picture. Good luck!