Chapter 6: Changing a Habit:

“A habit begins like an invisible thread,

but each time we repeat the action,

we thicken the thread,

add one first,

and then become a rope that binds thoughts

and our actions cannot be undone.” – Orison Swett Marden

If we want to change a habit,

there is only one way that will work:

we must relate to the extreme

and direct pain that the old habit causes us

and the feelings of pleasure indescribable

that a new habit can bring.

Let’s think about it this way:

through experience,

we all learn certain ways of thinking

and behaving in order to

avoid suffering and have joy.

We have feelings of boredom,

frustration,

anger,

or heaviness and we look for ways

to put an end to these feelings.

Some people go shopping;

some go to drink,

others play;

others use drugs;

Others scold their children.

Conscious or not,

they know that these actions will ease their pain

and give them some level of immediate gratification.

Either way, if we want to change it,

we still have to go through 6 simple steps that bring a direct

and lasting result to effectively free us from suffering

and bring joy and more serene.

Those are the following 6 steps:

“I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

If you hadn’t been prepared

when the opportunity came along,

you wouldn’t have been lucky.”— Oprah Winfrey

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First step

Decide what you really want

And what will stop you achieving it?

You might be surprised how many people come to me for treatment

and when I ask what they want,

it takes them twenty minutes

to tell me what they don’t want

or what they no longer want to endure.

We should remember that whatever we focus on,

we will achieve it in life.

If we focus on what we don’t want,

we’ll get more of it.

The first step to making a change is to decide

what you really want so you can work towards it.

We must also find out what is stopping us from getting what we want.

It is often because we fear the suffering caused by change.

We often think, “If I change, I will suffer,”

or we have a vague fear that change might cause us.

“If you can see it, and believe it,

it is a LOT easier to achieve it.”— Oprah Winfrey

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Second step

Finding motivation: links

Huge suffering with no change now

And huge fun with change now

Many people know they really want change,

yet they just can’t take action!

Not because they are not capable,

but because they are not motivated.

If someone held a gun to our heads and said,

“You have to get rid of this moodiness

and start feeling happy now,”

surely no one would fail to find ways

to change their mood at that time.

But the problem is that

we are not convinced that change is the right thing to do,

but just the right thing to do.

Or maybe it has to be done, but until “someday”.

The only way we can make change right now is

if we create an extreme urgency

that forces us to do it all the way to the end.

One of the things that motivates most people

to change is a situation

where a person reaches the threshold of suffering.

It means experiencing pain so deeply

that you find yourself changing right now.

“Give me a lever long enough

and a fulcrum strong enough,

I can lift the earth with one hand.” – Archimedes

The most powerful lever you can give yourself is suffering

that comes from within,

not from without.

The deepest pain is knowing that

you have not lived up

to your own standards of living.

So why do some people refuse

to change even though they feel

and know that they need change?

This is because they consider change

to be more painful than no change.

To change someone

and change ourselves,

we have to reverse this view,

to believe that no change brings great suffering

and change brings fascinating

and pleasurable results.

For powerful leverage,

ask yourself pain-focused questions:

“What will it cost me if I don’t change?”.

Most of us think too much about the costs of change,

and less about the costs of not changing.

Make yourself feel so deeply the pain of not changing,

so that you cannot hesitate to act.

Next, ask satisfaction-focused questions

to help you associate feelings of joy with change:

“Ask the right questions,

and the answers will always reveal themselves.”— Oprah Winfrey

“If I change, how will I feel about myself?

I can create motivation.

How powerful would it be if I made a change in my life?

How would my family and friends feel?

How much happier would I be then?

The key is to find as many reasons,

reasons strong enough to motivate you to act now,

rather than wait for a future date.

If you don’t feel motivated to make a change right now,

you really don’t have leverage.

“No matter where you are on your journey,

that’s exactly where you need to be.

The next road is always ahead.”— Oprah Winfrey

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Third step

Extremely Negative Habits Section

In order for us to feel in a steady state,

we develop habits of thinking,

happen on the same patterns.

images and ideas, asking yourself the same questions.

The problem is that most of us want a new result,

but always act the same way.

I once heard a saying that

the definition of insanity was “Doing the same thing over

and over and expecting new results”.

Please don’t misunderstand me.

There’s nothing wrong with you;

You are not a “fixed” person.

Your resources are already within you right now.

It’s just that you also have fixed associations

that often prevent you from using that ability.

What you need to do

is reorganize your association

so that it steadily guides you in the direction of your desires

and not in the direction of your frustrations and fears.

Have you ever seen a fly trapped in a room?

It immediately looks for light,

so it rushes to the window,

banging itself against it,

sometimes for hours at a time.

Surely you’ve seen someone do the same thing?

They desperately want change;

they have strong leverage.

But no matter how strong the lever is,

it can’t get you out of a tightly closed door.

You have to change the method.

The fly only has a chance to get out of the room

if it flies back and looks for another exit?

If you and I stick to the same old routine,

we’ll only get the same old results.

“You get from the world what you give to the world.”— Oprah Winfrey

Recently, I came up with an interesting way

to break old habits,

during a 3-day seminar I held in Chicago.

One person said that he really wanted

to give up his habit of eating too much chocolate,

but it was clear to me that he felt very happy

when he identified himself as a “chocolate addict”.

In fact, he even wore a T-shirt that read,

“I want the world,

but I’ll give in to chocolate.”

This clearly shows that this man may want

to give up chocolate,

but still feels

there is “some benefit” in maintaining this habit.

That’s why he couldn’t let it go.

He can only gain leverage

if he can ascribe painful associations to eating chocolate.

At that time,

he will find a way to remove himself

from those sufferings

and find other joys for himself

and I helped him do this

by creating painful associations with eating chocolate

and helping him form new habits that brought him joy.

One of the most effective ways

to break a bad habit is

to do it at the exact moment the habit recurs.

Remember, if we want new change,

we must be determined to break old habits.

You have to erase all traces of the old habit

and find a new habit,

and then practice this habit over

and over until you master it.

How to cut off

negative habits

about feelings and actions

It is true that if we take enough time to break a habit,

we will have a renewal.

One simple way to break a habit

is to get rid of the feelings associated

with the habit in our minds.

The only reason we get upset is

because we replay things in a certain way in our minds.

For example,

if your manager scolds you

and you think about it over

and over again throughout the day,

constantly thinking about you being scolded,

then you will feel worse forever.

Why don’t you get rid of that feeling right from the start?

Why don’t you erase that feeling once and for all?

Please try this experiment.

Think of a situation that made you feel sad,

frustrated,

or angry.

Now, let’s do the first two steps we learned above.

If you were feeling sad because of your current situation,

how would you like to feel?

Why do you want to feel that way?

What’s stopping you

from feeling the way you want to?

If you could feel differently,

how wonderful would that be?

Now look for a lever.

If you don’t change how you currently feel,

how will you continue to feel?

Definitely bad!

Do you want to pay that price

and continue to carry these negative feelings

to other people or situations?

If you could change now,

you would feel better.

“You become what you believe.

You are where you are today in your life

based on everything you have believed.”— Oprah Winfrey

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Fourth step

Create A Positive New Choice

This fourth step is absolutely critical

to establishing a lasting change.

Indeed, many people fail

to find a way out of misery and into happiness,

largely because people aim for temporary change.

Many people have reached an extreme of suffering

that forces them to change

and they have even broken

through old negative habits.

But then they have nothing new

to replace the old model.

If you’re not sure you can find a way

to disengage yourself from suffering

and find joy in quitting smoking,

drinking,

or other emotions and attitudes,

you can find the answer

by following an example,

those who have succeeded in making changes

in their regard

to those kinds of practices.

Look for examples that have achieved lasting change;

I assure you that these people have had alternatives

to those old behavior.

Let me tell you an example involving a friend of mine.

His name is Fran Tarkenton.

When Fran and I collaborated on the TV show of self-strength,

he had a habit that really surprised me.

He is always chewing tobacco.

Even when we were sitting in a conference,

Fran would often turn around and spit.

This action creates an unflattering image of a person

of strength and elegance.

Yet he has been in that habit for 20 years.

Fran later told me that

he felt chewing tobacco was the greatest pleasure in his life.

It is your best friend.

But what made him break the habit?

He has found strong leverage for himself.

One day,

with a little help from a friend,

he began to realize that

chewing tobacco was completely out of character for him.

It shows that he is not in control of his life and because for Fran,

being in control of his life is the highest value

and the absolute standard that he cannot cancel.

It was extremely painful for him

to be in this situation.

He began to focus his mind on the possibility

of oral cancer.

And he conjured such vivid fantasies that

he soon successfully dismissed the idea of ​​chewing tobacco.

The taste of the medicine began

to make him nauseous.

These images give him a powerful lever that

helps him cut off the association

between tobacco and pleasure.

The next most important secret is that

Fran has found new ways

to achieve pleasure that

are more effective than cigarettes.

He plowed into his business

with all his might

and began to achieve great results that

made his knowledge ware company

one of the most successful computer software companies on Wall Street.

Usually, if we cut old habits,

our minds will automatically find new habits

to replace them with

to provide us with the sensations we desire.

So people who quit smoking often gain weight:

their minds find new ways to create pleasurable sensations

and now they eat more to gain weight.

So the secret here is that we need

to consciously choose new attitudes

or feelings to replace old feelings.

“You know you are on the road

to success if you would do your job,

and not be paid for it.”— Oprah Winfrey

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Fifth step

Control New Habits Until Stable

Control is a way of ensuring that a change you make is stable and lasting.

The simplest way to control something is

to repeat it over and over

until it becomes a habit.

If you find a positive option, practice

until it frees you from suffering

and achieves quick gratification.

Your mind will begin to think of this

as a means to a stable outcome.

If you fail to do this,

you will fall back into old habits.

If you repeat this new positive choice

with an intense emotional intensity,

you will create a new path and it will continue

to become an avenue that leads you to results

and becomes a part of your regular behavior.

Remember, your mind cannot distinguish

what you strongly imagine from what you actually experience.

Control ensures that you are automatically on this new path,

causing your old habits to be overcome

and it’s really hard to get back.

And it’s easy to understand that

this new habit-strengthening power

will make progress in controlling it rapidly achieved.

“There’s nothing that practice can’t do.

Nothing is beyond its reach.

It can turn bad attitudes into good ones.

It can destroy bad principles

and re-create new principles;

It can elevate a person

to the level of an angel.” – Mark Twain

The first organizing principle of everything

“Successful Control” is reinforcing power.

To be stable in creating a stable attitude or emotion,

we must develop a habit of control.

A controlling habit

is the result of reinforcement, in particular,

the secret to creating stability in our emotions

and attitudes is controlling them.

The Law of Reinforcement

Any emotional or behavioral pattern that

is continually reinforced becomes an automatic and controlled response.

Any patterns that we fail

to reinforce will disappear.

We can reinforce our own or others’ attitudes

with positive reinforcement,

meaning that every time we create a desired attitude,

we are rewarded possibly a compliment,

a gift,

a new freedom, etc.

Or we can use negative reinforcement.

It can be an annoyance, a fuss,

maybe even a physical punishment.

It is important for us

to understand that this reinforcement

is not synonymous with punishment or reward.

Reinforcement is responding

to an attitude as soon as it occurs,

while rewards or punishments may occur much later.

Absolutely must time setting the right time is

what will determine the absolute control efficiency.

If a coach shouts

“Awesome!”

as soon as his team has hit a beautiful ball,

this praise has a far greater impact than he waits

until the game is over to give it.

Why? Because we always want to associate the feeling

of reinforcement

with the pattern of action taking place.

One problem our judiciary has is that

when people commit a felony,

they are often not immediately punished.

Their minds may well know the reason for the punishment,

but this pattern of bad behavior is unharmed

it is not prevented,

nor is there suffering attached to it at the moment.

We must train our minds to act effectively,

not by reason but by emotion.

The difficulty is that most of us don’t realize

that we are constantly manipulating each other

and shaping each other’s attitudes.

Often we control others negatively, not positively.

The following story happened

to an ex-boyfriend of my daughter,

Jolie. Jolie is very busy

with her studies,

dancing and a drama

she is about to perform.

Her boyfriend wants her to call him every day

and if she doesn’t call for two or three days,

he makes her suffer terribly.

“It’s only when you make the process your goal

that the big dream can follow.”— Oprah Winfrey

Obviously, he wants her to call more often,

but the way he acts makes her annoyed and upset every time she calls.

Do you ever feel guilty about this?

If you want your girlfriend,

boyfriend,

husband,

wife,

or someone close to you

to call you on a regular basis,

do you think this friend will be effective in forcing them to call you?

And when they call,

do you greet them with something like,

“Oh, so you finally called. Will it continue?

Why do you always have to call me?”

Your actions are actually slowly making

the other person stop calling you!

You’re causing him pain right

after he’s done everything he can to please you.

As a result,

he or she will see calling you no longer as fun,

but as torture.

And as you might have guessed,

that kind of negative reinforcement permeates every aspect

of the relationship

and can lead to the end of the relationship.

If you really want someone to call you,

then every time they call,

you have to respond

with gleeful amusement

If you tell them how much you miss them,

how much you love them,

how grateful you are to talk to them,

they will certainly be willing to call you back.

Remember to associate enjoyment

with the attitude you want others to repeat.

Set a schedule for strengthening

so that innovation can last

When you are starting

to establish a new pattern of behavior or emotion,

it is paramount that you strengthen yourself

or the person involved.

Initially, each time you want

to perform the desired behavior pattern

(for example, push a tray full of food on it),

you need to be conscious of the reinforcement

of satisfaction associated

with that action.

However, if from then on,

every time you take an action,

you reinforce it,

then the action won’t be as effective

as it once was.

Since I promised myself

to always help those in need,

every time I go through the airports,

I give money to the beggars.

I will never forget

that man who always stood begging at a fixed place

at an airport that I often went to.

Every time I pass by that place,

I give him money.

One morning,

I was in a hurry and didn’t have any money in my pocket.

When I passed him,

I smiled and said:

“Hi, sorry I don’t have any money in my pocket today!”.

He was angry

because I no longer gave him money like

I gave him

and he used to feel very happy every time I gave.

We need to remember

that the element of pleasant surprise

is a very pleasurable experience that people can have.

It is much more important than we think.

That’s why, if you want a lasting behavior,

you need to understand

and use a method called scheduling for the reinforcement of a habit.

Let’s look at an example of dolphin training.

Initially, to train dolphins to jump,

people waited for the dolphins to jump up automatically.

They observe an animal’s right action and reward it with a fish.

And every time the dolphin voluntarily jumps,

it is rewarded with a fish,

gradually it understands that if it jumps,

it will get a fish.

However, later the trainer only rewarded the dolphin if it jumped higher.

By raising the bar,

the trainer can shape the dolphin’s attitude.

The focus is this:

If every time the dolphin jumps,

it gets rewarded,

it gets used to it and won’t be 100 percent efficient.

So in the future,

the dolphin will sometimes be rewarded for the first time,

sometimes the second time,

sometimes the fifth time.

It won’t be sure which jump is rewarded.

This makes it always have to try their best.

Rewards should never be taken for granted.

The situation is similar with gamblers.

Once they have gambled will make them happy

and associate this joy with their winning

and it stimulates them

to always gamble with expectation.

have that joy.

And the reward is always like bait

to keep them going.

In contrast, a gambler

who never gets any money will eventually give up playing.

This is similar

to the reaction of employees

when receiving a regular salary every month.

If they get the same fixed amount of salary every month,

they will try at least just enough

to get the salary without any surprises.

On the contrary,

if in addition to salary,

they sometimes enjoy other surprises,

such as bonuses,

compliments,

and promotions,

then they will put their maximum effort into their work

so that they can enjoy the surprises they like that animal.

It is important that these unexpected occasions be real,

unpredictable,

or else it will again become familiar and ineffective.

“Dream the biggest dream for yourself.

Hold the highest vision of life for yourself.”— Oprah Winfrey

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Sixth step

Test Us

We have learned the five steps of forming and managing new habits.

There is only a sixth step left to test

to see if it will work in the future.

Here’s a simple quiz to help you make sure

your new pattern of action is effective,

relevant, and long-lasting.

“You have the RIGHT to change your mind.”— Oprah Winfrey

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*TEST FOR EFFICIENCY*

1. Be sure to completely link suffering with the old pattern.

When you think about your old attitudes or emotions,

do you picture and feel now that they are causing you pain instead of happiness?

2. Be sure to fully associate satisfaction with the new template.

When you think of new attitudes or emotions,

do you picture and feel that these are the things

that are now bringing joy instead of suffering?

3. Compare your values, beliefs and rules.

Do the new attitudes or emotions align with your values,

beliefs, and rules in life?

(We will discuss this in a later chapter.)

4. Make sure the benefits of the old attitude are preserved.

Will the new attitudes or emotions still allow you to enjoy the benefits

and pleasures you once had in the old pattern?

5. Future progress.

Imagine you are demonstrating a new attitude in the future.

Figure out what might push you to accept the old stereotype.

Feel sure that you can use the new template

instead of the old one.

The six steps of association management can be used for anything:

relationship challenges,

business problems,

irritability

and yelling at your children,

and more.

For example,

you worrying too much about things you have no control over.

How can you use the six controls above to change this negative pattern?

1) Ask yourself “What do I want to do instead of worrying?”

2) Find yourself leverage and realize what anxiety destroys in your life.

3) Break that negative stereotype!

Whenever you’re worried,

cut that pattern right away.

4) Find a positive option.

What would you do instead of worrying?

Open your journal

and write down the plan you’re going to implement right away.

5) New template control.

Visualize vividly and practice this new pattern

with intense emotion

until this new thought, attitude,

and emotion becomes automatic.

Reinforce this habit by taking the first step:

Check to see that you are consistently successful.

6) Test to see if it has a lasting effect.

Think of a situation that used to worry you

and find a way to get rid of the anxiety in that situation.