Bad Habits

The old question is when you know something is not good for you, why is it so hard to change that? From something as small as nail biting, pulling hair, chewing the inside of one’s cheeks, to smoking or even more complex behaviors as gambling or obsession with social media, people seem to struggle to change these behaviors.

The usual answer has to do with understanding of what happens (mechanically) in our brains, or how the biology or even genetics, or the role of the pleasure/reward center and dopamine pathways could be the cause for this difficulty to change.

Although there is a lot of merit in every one of those methods, NLP and Time Line Therapy® have a different and yet, very efficient approach. Assuming readiness for change, and willingness to learn new routines, here are some of the ways in which NLP and Time Line Therapy® can help.

Firstly, NLP helps with the understanding of how we produce the behaviors we do by relating them to the mind-body connection. Every experience is firstly reduced to a manageable amount of information (different from individual to individual) by the processes called Deletion, Distortion and Generalization which is intimately connected to a certain internal emotional state and a certain body physiology and all that package leads to a certain behavior.

In NLP bad habits are often the result of what is defined as anchors. When a certain trigger (verbal or non-verbal) happens, the individual responds automatically in a particular way, almost like pressing the button for a predetermined response. NLP offers a solution by using a technique which gets rid of negative anchors.

In the NLP Practitioner Training, sometimes just by going through the language section, some people realize that their whole identity is tied up in those behaviors. With this realization comes in the belief that it is hard to change it. The belief “I am a smoker,” is identifying the person with the behavior of smoking.

Time Line Therapy® consists of a series of techniques who are designed to let go of Negative Emotions and Limiting Decisions or Limiting Beliefs from the past, thus removing the false identification. The old Limiting Beliefs disappear and are then replaced by different positive ones.

Even more, Time Line Therapy® Creating Your Future® process is specifically designed to insert goals in the future Time Line in a way that makes them happen. Combined with the correct usage of language, “I am not a smoker,” is very different from “My lungs are clean and I breathe freely clean air” is just one of the keys to the achievement in future Time Line goal setting.

NLP shows us how all beliefs are “hooked” onto values. so, our values are also involved directly in the formation of habits. In the NLP Master Practitioner Training, The elicitation of unconscious values and the ability to change them are all techniques that are very helpful in change quickly bad habits.

Both NLP and Time Line Therapy® technologies involve working with our conscious as well as with the unconscious thus producing long lasting results. Change is difficult only when it is attempted at the conscious level alone. By integrating both conscious and unconscious processes, the change process is not arduous but happens with far less effort. In fact, it can become quite easy.