Sometimes it can be difficult to break old habits and patterns. Habits are actually wired into our brain, and the brain runs them as automatic. If you were required to Clean your Plate as a kid before you could leave the table, this old habit overrides your intuitive awareness of being full. Follow these tips to change your old habits.
1. Find a replacement for the old habit. Some of the old habits we do, we simply need to replace it with a new habit. For example, instead of biting your fingernails, wringing your hands would be a better alternative. Instead of smoking a cigarette, it could be replaced by breathing deeply or drinking a glass of water.
2. Get a buddy to help you notice or be aware of the habit. Sometimes when habits are deeply ingrained, we don’t notice that we are doing them. Having a buddy, a spouse, or coworker offer reminders can help you notice the habit so that you can change it.
3. Switch your focus to the positives. Rather than spending time and energy avoiding or berating yourself for the old pattern, focus on what you want to replace it with instead. For example, rather than saying, “I’m not going to eat sugar anymore,” (avoidance) focus on “I am going to eat healthy fruits and vegetables.” Switching your focus to the positives tunes your brain into noticing what you want to do instead.
4. Train your brain. Habits are hard to break because they are wired into our brain. Anything that we repeat, the brain turns into a habit. With this NLP tool, you can help the brain set up a new mental pattern that will change the old habit with a Swish pattern from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).
Imagine in your mind’s eye, doing the old habit.
Put that off to the side, and now, imagine what you would like to do instead of the old habit. Create some visuals of the new habit, see yourself doing the new behavior. What feelings are connected with the new behavior.
Now, imagine packaging up the new habit into a ball of light and send it out into the distance.
Now, imagine doing the old habit again. As you imagine doing the old habit, imagine that bright ball of light coming back and exploding in front of you, with the image of doing the new habit, see yourself with the new habit.
Break State: shift your mental focus by looking around the room. Repeat this about 8 times and it will set up a pattern interrupt in your brain, so you’ve created a new connection between the old habit and the new behavior.
5. Work with a qualified NLP Practitioner or Hypnotherapist. For some of the old patterns we experience, there can be deeply ingrained reasons as to why we hang onto the old habit or pattern. These reasons exist in our unconscious mind and they are responsible for self sabotage. If you’ve really struggled with a habit, craving, addiction, or old pattern, the reason that you can’t let it go is that your unconscious mind is finding some benefit.
For example, one of my clients wanted to drink less. As we did an assessment, we found that his unconscious mind equated drinking with courage. He couldn’t bring himself to give up drinking completely because in his unconscious mind that would mean he couldn’t connect with courage. Once we switched this association, the meaning of drinking changed. He gained a new sense of daily courage by going to the gym, rather than finding it through drinking, and he could still enjoy drinking socially on occasion, without the compulsion of the addiction.
This NLP tool for Breaking and old pattern is illustrated in my book, “A Lighter You! Train your Brain to Lose Weight.” I help yoyo dieters address the real reasons we gain weight: cravings, old habits, lack of motivation and self sabotage! Train your Brain, Live your Best!
Are you ready for lasting weight loss success? Get started here.
