Our lives are made up of habits from the minute we wake up and go through our morning routine, to the end of the day and our evening rituals. They can simplify our lives by putting routine, regularly repeated actions on autopilot so we don't have to pay any special attention to them so we can multitask. There are good habits , then there are the habits you consider bad and you want to change. Do you have a habit you'd really like to quit once and for all? Perhaps you've tried many times but it still persists. Could be, you've left something out. There are several things you really need to understand in order to really quit and make it last.
1) First of all, habits are unconscious. They are learned actions that we have performed so many times they become an automatic and require no conscious thought and this one thing that makes them so difficult to stop. In order to stop your habit and make it last, it is therefor very important to make it conscious. You have to bring it into your awareness and be conscious of not only when you're doing it, but how you're doing it. Becoming conscious of every detail shifts the energy greatly.
2) Don't leave an empty hole. There is one reason why your subconscious wants to continue the habit and that's because there is some reward involved. What are you getting by continuing? Does it relax you? Make you feel powerful? Give you space? Take some time and really discover what it is you're getting from your habit. Then come up with a new reward behavior that is positive and that you will really do. Replace the habit with the new reward behavior in order to keep your subconscious satisfied. If it's not happy, chances are you'll start up again.
3) Learn your motivators and trade offs. Take a really good look at what you will gain when you quit. Write down all the wonderful payoffs you will get and keep them close by. Also, write down the trade-offs. What are you missing if you keep doing this habit? What are you losing by continuing? If you keep the reasons why you are quitting in your mind, you have them to fall back on when your mind tries to convince you otherwise.
4) Find out what your triggers are? What situations or events are triggers for your habit? It's important to know these so you can either avoid them for a while when you quit, or have a good strategy in place when they come up. Don't be caught unawares.
5) Visualize yourself without the habit, doing your new reward behavior . Imagine it with all your senses and all the wonderful feelings of freedom and accomplishment you'll have when you quit. This will create a new mind map for your subconscious to follow that will already be in place on your quitting day.
Quitting a habit is not easy. It's not really a lot of work to take the time to do the above and it is really worth it. It is a big waste of time to keep trying and never really succeeding. So, a little effort is well worth it. If you would like to quit in the easiest and most gentle way possible, I've created the Habit Eraser™ ( http://tinyurl.com/2d9uxra ), a five day program to ease you through the process and give you all the tools you need. It consists of a written exercise and an assignment each day that is fun and not too time consuming. There are powerful audio processes using neurolinguistic programming that will take the power away from the habit and give it back to you and make quitting as fun and gentle as possible. On day six, you will no longer have your habit and be trying to quit. You will be someone without the habit. It is my sincere desire to help as many people as possible to free themselves and become who they really want to be.
Pamela A. Turner, M.Ed., C.Ht. has a Master's degree in counseling psychology, is a Master Practitioner of Neurolinguistic Programming and a certified clinical hypnotherapist. She is the founder of Begin Within ( http://www.beginwithin.org ) and brings you tools, techniques and products to help you master your inner world, heal and grow.