Breaking Bad Habits Is Easier Than You Think

Annabelle’s story was classic. She was in bad relationships all her life. From parental to siblings and extended family. Then, she didn’t notice the pattern. Her finger always pointed outwards to others. They were to blame. Being locked at home with her partner during the Pandemic, her relationship was under the microscope. Issues highlighted were ones that had been staring her in the face for a long time. She was going crazy not knowing how to get her life sorted.

Having seen a Facebook post from a coach she responded. Sandy turned out to be a saving grace. She was trained in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) a model created by two geniuses who coded and structured how change occurred rapidly via the unconscious mind. Hailed as a magical intervention that worked well with the inner-self to attain better outcomes in life, the NLP toolbox contained more than 100 processes.

Sandy singled out 5 of the most important NLP techniques that she felt helped her make a quick turnaround. She also felt others would benefit in the following ways, exactly the way she did. NLP techniques focused on deleting unhelpful programs, installing more generative ones in replacement. Three NLP Techniques That Transformed Annabelle’s Life:

1. Eliminate Unwanted Habits
The Swish pattern was so useful for Annabelle as it helped her swish out unwanted habits and redirect her focus to healthier ones. All she had to do was push away pictures that she had formed for the former while bringing in the latter picture. Her coach Sandy had used this technique as Annabelle displayed compulsive / obsessive behaviours such as, nail biting, smoking, addiction to foods like sugary snacks. All of these had an impact on her self-esteem and as a result overflowed into her relationship. Annabelle felt a huge amount of stress release from doing this one technique. She was beginning to see the value of doing NLP coaching.

2. Elicit Values for Motivation
Annabelle suffered greatly from a lack of motivation. She had no purpose to be alive hence she unconsciously sabotaged her relationships. Dragging her feet in life was not the way to live. She had reached her threshold. This was a sign to Sandy as an NLP coach that Annabelle needed to migrate to a new level of values. She elicited Annabelle’s values for life by asking “what’s important to you about life?” It was fundamental that Annabelle see the list that emerged. She learnt that because values were our deepest unconscious filter, it was important to understand and acknowledge the values that were driving her. This would then help her align her values internally and make decisions that propelled her to these.

No wonder she was unhappy at work. She was in the wrong job. It was crystal clear to her, without any prodding from Sandy. She knew she had to make way to eventually leave. When values were aligned to work or personal life, people were comfortable, happy and in a natural state. It’s no secret that employees whose values were most aligned to the organisation became high performers. They were able tosee their role clearly and know how they contributed to the organisation’s overall results.

3. Identify Gaps in Strategies
Annabelle had a horrible buying strategy that got her into trouble throughout her life. This was also linked to her compulsive behaviour. It was the bane of Annabelle’s life. It grated her spouse too, as credit card bills were often blown out of proportion when they could ill afford it. Sandy proceeded to elicit Annabelle’s buying strategy. She explained that strategies were a train of thoughts a person went through to make a decision or achieve a goal. These strategies were described using the five senses i.e. what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel.

In other words, what they were after was a set of internal procedures that produce a specific outcome. So every time Annabelle was faced with a buying situation an NLP strategy elicitation could help her take a closer look at the chain of events leading to this decision. It would reveal a step that needed to be changed or removed to successfully walk away.

Annabelle was thankful for the diagnosis as to what step of her strategy got her into trouble each time. She almost wanted to go out and try her new strategy. It was exciting to say the least. Sandy chose these techniques as they had a close relationship to the goals that Annabelle had worked through in her first session. The objective was to break the unconscious links between how Annabelle’s brain associated to her behaviours.

In a matter of three sessions she was already feeling 80% better. She was not done yet but she was adamant that NLP could transform lives if only people cared to give it a chance. She did not have to divulge any private events to Sandy. That was the best part. All she did was tell Sandy what she wanted to eradicate and they worked on that.

The NLP toolbox revealed coaching in a systematic and structured way. It was far from traditional. In fact the interaction with Sandy debunked all her myths about what sessions would be like. She loved every minute of them. It was rapid transformation at a totally different level!