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For many folks, the boulevard to personal change and self-improvement is a long and winding street filled with intricate barriers. Drug companies in particular have capitalized on and created massive fortunes because of the elusive search for the "Magic Pill" that will cure all ills. As it turns out, there is a secret formula for success, and it begins in the unconscious mind.

One of the presuppositions of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that "there is a positive intention behind all behaviors." And based on that presupposition, when it comes to eliminating negative behaviors, there is an equation that we must keep in mind. I'll let you in on the secret equation in a minute. But I have a riddle for you to solve first.

Riddle: A preacher made his son drink lye, which burned out his vocal chords. What was the positive intention behind his behavior?

If you are like 99.9% of the clients who have come into my office since 1978, you'll exclaim something like: "There isn't any positive intent behind that behavior." But you would be 100% mistaken. To answer this riddle, first you have to detach the behavior from the positive objective of the behavior.

The minister's son was cursing. And the preacher believes that if a child curses, his soul will be condemned to Hell. So the answer is that the preacher was burning out his child's voice box so that he couldn't curse. By doing so, he was saving his child's soul from being condemned to suffer in Hell.

The secret formula for successful personal change works as follows:

We should always value the positive intent that motivates each behavior. If we have an impulse to apply a behavior that we don't appreciate, we can easily get rid of the urge to use that behavior. All we need to do is to find a different behavior and substitute it in its place. To be successful, the new conduct must be as accessible and efficient at accomplishing the same outcome, but be more consciously tolerable. We call this a REFRAME.

When clients come into my practice, the first thing I do is to take a detailed case history. Let's imagine that they come in and ask me to help them eliminate a weight problem. Experience tells us that the two main reasons that people eat too much are: (1) for relaxation and pleasure; (2) because eating can be a behavior triggered by other behaviors that it has been associated with (this is also known as a conditioned response). Case in point, if a person eats while they are watching TV, they will develop a conditioned response, and thereafter, every time they sit down to watch TV, they'll get cravings and an urge to eat.

However, the above answer only takes into consideration the possible positive intention behind the behavior of eating. What if they also have another behavior that is concerned in the equation? Case in point: What if being fat is also a behavior for this person? I can hear your mind spinning right now as you think, "Being fat isn't a behavior, what are you talking about?"

Sorry but you could be completely wrong. Here is one simple classic textbook example that will clearly demonstrate the fact that being fat can be a behavior. It can be a behavior because it can supply secondary gains.

Example: A woman is deeply in love. Her partner breaks up with her, and breaks her heart. Her unconscious mind wants to protect her emotionally and prevent her from ever having her heart broken again. So it motivates her to get fat to keep her out of relationships. By doing that she will not get her heart broken again.

The point is that everyone is totally different. And sometimes there are elements at work causing neurotic behaviors. These are elements that are different for each person.

Here is another case: A woman comes to my practice complaining of an uncontrollable compulsion to overeat at mealtime. During the case history, upon questioning, the woman tells me about how she was never able to please her dad.

During an age regression, we learned that one of her early memories was of eating dinner with her family. And dad was insisting in an angry voice that she clean her plate, even though she was stuffed. So she cleaned her plate out of fear, and dad commended her for eating everything. It was one of the only times in her life that she could recall her father telling her that she had made him happy.

Shoot forward to the present. Her father has been deceased for years, but the unconscious program he installed is still operational. She still has a powerful urge to clean her plate, even if she is feeling stuffed, because by cleaning the plate, in her subconscious she is getting dad's approval, and eliminating her own fear!

So if you are having a problem making personal changes, you should remember that there is a positive intention causing all behaviors. And the formula for success is to substitute a different behavior that will bring about the same secondary gains, but in a manner that is more consciously suitable to you, as an individual. The most efficient way to get your unconscious mind to accept the responsibility for making this kind of change for you is through an NLP Six-Step Reframe.