Do You Ever Ask Yourself "Why?"

The key to changing any habit or behaviour to ask yourself “Why?”, more on this in a bit.

I have a friend who told me he would give up smoking to help his best friend, who I had helped to quit smoking with Hypnotherapy.

His motivation for this was admirable, as I explained we are often a product of our influences, the people we mix with, the television we watch, the books, magazines and newspapers we read. So by him giving up, my client would not have the temptation around him.

He decided to do it cold turkey!

Now this is a man with a lot of determination, I could devote a series of newsletters just about the things he has overcome and achieved.

The moment he decided to stop, he did, and never put another cigarette to his lips…


…until…

Three weeks had elapsed and his best friend was well on the way to becoming a healthy non-smoker (once you’ve done it for 28 days you have kicked the habit). So one evening he smoked a cigar when he was out with friends.

He tried to reassure me it was the odd one and he wasn’t buying them, until eventually he began buying packets of them and began smoking again.

I knew this would happen at the outset.

You may ask yourself how I knew?


Three reasons conscious effort, planning and motivation strategies.

Firstly, and this is the reason only 2% of people who diet (Government statistics) lose weight and keep the weight off permanently, he was trying to change his smoking habit “consciously”.

Generally people go back to their old behaviours after 21 to 28 days (if not before) as the “part” of you that smokes/drinks/over eats/stays in a bad relationship etc. protects itself from changing.

It will only change when it is given a new behaviour of equal importance, this is most effectively and elegantly done using “Parts Therapy” whilst a client is in Hypnosis.

So to do this consciously we need a “planning strategy”, i.e. we need to be aware of the difficulties we may face in advance and plan ways we can over come these. In this example, planning for how they would react when offered a cigarette when we’d had a few drinks, or how they would distract themselves from the craving or the feeling of having a cigarette between our fingers.

Lastly, but most importantly we need to ask ourselves “Why?”, why we are changing this habit or behaviour.

We need to create the “motivation strategy”. In this example his motivation was only to support his friend. Once he saw his friend had quit, his motivation disappeared.

In order to do this consciously, we need to create massive PAIN to the old behaviour and massive PLEASURE to the new.

What do I mean?

Okay, in this instance I would get the person to find out all the negative things about smoking. E.g. the poisons contained in tobacco, the fact that one in two people who smoke die from smoking related diseases, the fact it makes you smell awful, and as the guy I helped stop in this example said “It’s not even cool anymore!”.

I would write these things down under “The reasons I HAVE stopped/changed (habit/behaviour) is because…”, including pictures, words and phrases that “speak to you”.

Then I would look for ALL of the positives of the new habit or behaviour, like feeling fitter, saving all that money, clothes and breath smelling fresher, more chance of staying alive.

I would write these things under the heading “The reasons I am COMPLETELY 100% COMMITTED to (new habit/new behaviour) is because…”, including pictures, words and phrases that make you feel good about this change.

It’s harder to change habits consciously than unconsciously i.e. with Hypnotherapy, but following the methods I have written here will give you a better chance than relying on willpower alone.

So if there is something you want to change in your life, I offer this advice for free.

If you have the motivation, but would prefer to work with someone, you can contact me on 024 7667 5520 or fill in a form on the website www.ndhypnotherapy.com/contactme

I wish you all the best on your journey towards whatever you desire.

Take good care,

Nick