How To Motivate Yourself Into Successfully Eliminating Negative Behaviors
Have you ever tried to eliminate a harmful behavior, only to fail? There is a lengthy list of familiar problem behaviors that people often try to change or eliminate using hypnotherapy. The most common are: Overeating and weight loss; stop smoking; quit chewing tobacco; stop nail biting; increasing self-confidence; overcoming insomnia and sleeping better; improving memory; and managing stress.
WHAT THE MIND CAUSES, THE MIND CAN CURE: The motivation for our behaviors starts in our thoughts. If you mull it over, all of these negative behaviors are the end result of negative thinking. In other words, you think and motivate yourself into all of these behaviors. Or at least you think yourself into feeling anxious, and that can be the reason for these behaviors. And since you think and motivate yourself into these behaviors, you can think and motivate yourself out of them. But in order to successfully think and motivate yourself out of them, you will need to know specifically how to go about accomplishing it.
DESIRE: You're possibly reading this article because you want the motivation to alter some personal behaviors. And that is handy for the reason that the first element in the "Motivation Formula For Your Success" is that you must want or desire to change. If you have read this far, at least some part of you wishes a change.
BELIEF IS REQUIRED FOR MOTIVATION: Before anyone can change a negative behavior, that person must be motivated to do so. Merely wanting a change is not adequate.
Our motivation comes from the things that we believe. If we believe that something very important to us will get better or "become enhanced" if we make a change in our behavior, we will experience a high level of motivation. Conversely, if we believe that something very important to us will be in jeopardy if we don't alter our behavior, we will also experience motivation to alter our behavior.
Some plain examples of these motivational beliefs would be:
If I take some weight off, then I'll be able to find a companion.
If I stop smoking cigarettes, then I'll be healthier.
If I can improve my study habits, then I can graduate with honors.
TECHNOLOGIES THAT CAN CREATE THE BELIEFS THAT LEAD TO MOTIVATION: Neuro-Linguistic Programming - which is commonly known as NLP, provides strategies that can instantly generate the element of belief. You can study more concerning this by reading the articles "How To Get Motivated To Exercise Using Hypnosis And NLP" and "Motivation Theory - How To Quit Smoking Using NLP And Hypnosis For Motivation." These articles are both available in my free hypnosis research library.
DECISION: The dictionary definition of the word "Decision" is making up one's mind / a verdict or judgment. When you accept as true a concept that provides you with a powerful feeling of motivation to make a change, you will feel a powerful urge to make a decision to get rid of a negative behavior. Decision is the key that unlocks the door to compelling action.
ACTION: The dictionary definition of the word "Action" is an act or deed / to do or perform. Taking action means that rather than just thinking about making personal changes, you will actually take steps to bring about your desired changes.
SELF-TALK: One of the many reasons that most people fail to change or eliminate a negative behavior is because of what they say to themselves. Self-talk is significant because repeatedly it is an important part of what caused the negative behavior to begin with.
I'd like you to consider this for a moment: Let us say that you want to stop smoking. Possibly the first thing that you might say or think to yourself is: "I'm not going to smoke cigarettes anymore."
It's common for people to tell themselves what they aren't going to do. Unfortunately, when we tell ourselves what we aren't going to do, we are actually programming ourselves to do it!
SELF-TALK EXERCISE: Say the following to yourself: I can't see blue. I can't see polka dots . . . . . . .
I'll bet your mind showed you the color blue, and then it showed you polka dots. That's because when we tell ourselves what we do not want to do, or what we won't do, in order to make sense of it our mind must make a movie of us doing whatever it is that we would like to stop doing. And when we see ourselves in a behavior, our mind gives us a compulsion to create that behavior.
SUMMARY: In order to get rid of a negative behavior, we must first want or DESIRE to eliminate it. BELIEF is the ingredient that leads us to MOTIVATION. MOTIVATION is the drive that leads us to DECISION. DECISION is the trigger to ACTION. Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a technology that we can use to facilitate beliefs, motivation, decisions, and actions.
When we tell ourselves what we aren't going to do, we make a mental image of ourselves in the behavior that we want to alter. And that mental movie gives us an urge to generate the unwanted behavior. So if we want to abolish a negative behavior, instead of telling ourselves what we won't do, we must always tell ourselves what we will do.
To break the smoking addiction say: "I can live without them."
To erase cravings for fattening food or to stop chewing smokeless chewing tobacco say: "I can live without it."
To manage stress say: "I'm relaxed and calm, both mentally and physically."
To eliminate insomnia say: "I fall asleep promptly, and sleep restfully throughout the entire night."
Alan B. Densky, CH is an NLP Practitioner and certified hypnotherapist. He runs the Neuro-VISION self-hypnosis CDs website and the Video Self-Hypnosis Blog. He offers Hypnosis CDs for motivation. Visit his website for his free MP3 downloads, his research library and newsletters.
Published June 25th, 2007
Filed in Motivational
