We change our habits by changing our routine to a new rewarding one. By looking closely at our thoughts and how this impacts our behavior, we can change our thoughts and also change our routine to something with a more long-term reward.
Here are the steps for Changing and Transforming Any Habit
If you’re looking for a way to change your food habits, stop smoking or make any other shifts in your life, there are seven steps that can help you. If you consume too much caffeine or nicotine or sugar and you’ve made the decision to move to another level of your life, you can do it now.
A woman named Sandra was getting fed up with her habit of buying lattes every day at the local coffee house chain. They were loaded with caffeine and sugar, and she went everyday like clockwork to get a large fix of the legal upper that coursed though her body like a speeding locomotive. She was gaining weight, and she was beginning to worry that she might not be able to let go of this stimulant that had a major hold on her.
One day, she decided that she’d look into letting go. She was anxious when she began, partly because the lattes made her that way, and partly because she carried anxiety around in her anyway; in fact, she thought that the lattes might be helping her to reduce anxiety.
She was literally hypnotized by her habit to believe it was helping her.
Seven Steps
There’s very good news, though: we can re-hypnotize our responses. We can shift our choices. We can stop doing what we’re doing, and we can have a healthy and free life.
Here are seven steps to transforming any habit.
Step One: Pay Attention
Sandra looked at her latte habit, and began to observe what was taking place. She looked at her thoughts, feelings, and her body’s responses. She was now the witness, instead of the slave or victim.
Step Two: Make the Decision
Next, she made a decision. We have moments of awakening in which it’s clear that the time to transform is here. Sandra had that” I’ve had it” moment, in which she knew that her time to shift had come.
Step Three: Create a Plan
So Sandra came up with a plan. She decided that she wanted to stop completely – not even a taste. She wanted to be done, and she made that inner commitment, which I call “the healing decision,” the decision to be done. She wanted never to step into that coffee shop again.
Step Four: Choose What to Do Instead
She decided on substitutes, what she’d do instead. Walks appealed to her. If she had any emotional issues, she’d walk and pay attention to her feelings. She’d watch and allow herself to “experience her experience.” If she became hungry, she’d eat something healthy. She decided to do some self-hypnosis by putting her thumb together with her index finger and saying what was to her a healing phrase: “I AM calm and free.”
Step Five: Look at the Obstacles
Next she looked at her inner emotions, the reasons why she might want to continue to drink those stimulatingly sweet lattes. She came face-to-face with her anger, and she did some techniques to release her anger.
Step Six: Reinforce your Choice
She could now witness, release and let go of her judgment and reactivity in her old work situation. She put her thumb together with her index finger and said a healing phrase: “I AM calm and free.”
Step Seven: Transform and Actually Do It!
She so it was – complete, done, finished, over. She passed by the coffee shop, and she said to herself, “I’m done with that, totally done.” She was calm and free, and she had accomplished her dream of transforming her life.
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