The other day I was thinking about bad habits and why it is so hard to change them, even though we know they’re bad. One would think that apart from addictions where a strong physical component is involved behaviours like biting your nails or eating too much chocolate should be easy to quit once you’ve decided they’re bad for you. There is no rational reason to keep doing it so why don’t we just stop? Because the rational insight is only the first step. According to NLP what needs to follow is disentangling the behaviour from its intention. (One of the presuppositions of NLP is that every behaviour has a positive intention.) Let’s stick with the chocolate example for a moment. I used to eat way too much chocolate (as well as pizza and fries and all kinds of unhealthy foods) and couldn’t get myself to stop, no matter how hard I tried. Why? Because I didn’t take into account what intention stood behind my cravings for fat and sugar. Now I know that eating these calorie bombs was a substitute for emotional comfort and satisfaction – I was in an unhappy relationship and literally ate myself happy or at least happier for a short while. As soon as I got out of it I changed my eating habits without any conscious effort. Or rather – they changed themselves.
Of course these miracle self-healings are rare because most habits are caused and maintained by a multitude of factors that usually don’t change overnight. A good way to start is to ask yourself: “What does this habit/behaviour do for me? What do I gain?” Biting nails or any other kind of auto-aggression (harmful behaviour directed towards oneself) usually fulfills the purpose of reducing tension thereby venting some of the stress or anxiety you’re feeling. Once you’ve figured out what the positive intention is you can find a different behaviour that has the same effect. Like reading a good book instead of ordering a pizza or doing a relaxation exercise instead of biting your nails. At first it will be difficult and you will probably experience some resistance to the change. Developing habits is a survival strategy so your unconscious will naturally object to getting rid of one. Especially if it has invested years of careful grooming and polishing to make it the automatic response it is now. Keep at it, though, and your unconscious will learn and eventually help you implement the new habit. Why? Well, because man is a creature of habit!
But what about more complex behavioural patterns? And highly emotionally charged ones? Some people fly into a temper regularly, others get shy and insecure in large groups and consequently don’t voice their opinion. Both usually regret their behaviour afterwards. And probably get angry at themselves. Which doesn’t help of course. Why can’t they just pull themselves together and not do it? Because they get a what psychologists call secondary gain that is a positive outcome from doing it. In the case of the choleric person it might be venting frustration that he or she habitually suppresses. In the case of the insecure person it’s probably avoiding the possibility of criticism and rejection. The approach would be the same: Find out what you gain by behaving like this, then think about different means of getting the same result.
I know that it’s not an easy thing to do because these topics usually are very emotional ones for us. I like to make use of another NLP principle called dissociation to make them less so. Dissociation means splitting off the emotions and looking at the problem from an outsider’s perspective. One way to do this is to imagine it’s a friend or acquaintance of yours who has the problem, not you. What would you advise them? Then step back into your own shoes and see how it feels. Does the proposed change make sense? Does it feel right?
Change is possible if we don’t just try to force ourselves into it, but get creative. Why not make venting frustration into a fun thing like – paintballing?
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