subject: Why Can't You Stop Smoking? [print this page] Smoking, just like any other bad or disempowering habit is controlled by your unconscious mind. You're unconscious mind takes in 400 billion bits of information every second as opposed to your conscious mind that takes in just 2000 bits every second. Your unconscious mind is therefore far superior and thus you have to know how to train this part of your mind to create a lasting change.
The Elephant and the Rider
When it comes to your habits, your unconscious mind is in full control. Think of you unconscious mind like an elephant and your conscious mind like the rider of that elephant. Your elephant is much bigger and stronger than your rider. When your elephant's moving right, it's very tough for the rider to pull the elephant to go left with his power alone; the rider's simply not strong enough. Therefore if your elephant (unconscious mind) controls your habits you can't use willpower alone to steer it in a different direction. Have you ever tried to stop smoking by saying; 'I'm not going to smoke, I'm not going to smoke', even though every fibre in your body wanted to smoke? You may get a few hours or even a day or two by using that approach, but you inevitably go back to smoking. That's because your elephant's in control and is still moving right, you've haven't yet trained it to go left. You've been smoking for so long you've trained your elephant or unconscious mind to go right; it will take a little more than willpower to make it go left. In order to break the habit of smoking you have to know how to train your elephant to go left. In other words, in order to stop smoking for good you have to train your unconscious and not your conscious mind. So how do you retrain your elephant to move in a different direction and allow you to stop smoking for good?
Hypnosis & NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)
The two best ways to train your elephant are through Hypnosis and NLP as they talk directly to your unconscious mind. Hypnosis is like day dreaming or meditation, you take your body into a very relaxed state by slowing your breathing down and relaxing completely. With the use of certain words and phrases during a Hypnotic session you're able to train your elephant to walk a different path. NLP is very similar, it uses strategies, tools and techniques which allow you to reprogram your unconscious to break a bad habit and recondition a new one. By visualizing; changing the images, sounds and feelings in your mind and by conditioning them over and over you allow the elephant to walk a different path. Therefore through NLP and Hypnosis you're able to train your unconscious mind so that not smoking is an automatic process just like brushing your teeth or tying your shoelaces. You therefore don't have to force yourself to think about not smoking, it's a completely automatic process and you just don't think about it. Your elephant is now moving left and to start smoking again is extremely tough as you have to now train it to move right again!
How can You train your unconscious to stop smoking?
Write a list down of all the most painful things continuing to smoke will bring you. Things like lung cancer, heart disease, premature ageing etc. Now right down a list of all the pleasurable things stopping would give you, like increased energy, more money, better health, clearer skin etc. We all move away from pain and move towards pleasure. Therefore by creating such painful reasons for continuing to smoke and such pleasurable ones to stop, it'll help you make a mental shift away from smoking which will allow you to stop easily.
Visualise these painful and pleasurable situations in your mind for 10-15 minutes every day, by doing this you're training you're elephant and you'll find yourself becoming less inclined to smoke.
