A habit is any action that can be performed  without having to pay conscious attention to it. For example, getting out of a chair, has a habitual pattern to it, the way you walk, run, the side you sleep on in bed, etc. Habits are good, they are routines that save us time and energy.

Habit Hypnosis

However habits do not just magically appear. A habit is formed from repetition.  And we repeat things because whatever that activity is, it is important enough to us at the time that we have to keep doing it.

Things that are important to us are important because they fill a particular need in our life.  A need is anything that when filled, bring us closer to comfort, happiness, or satisfaction. We have a need to sleep. In order to meet this need we go to bed usually at a certain time, sleep in a certain room and on a particular side of the bed.  So we have a habit of preparing ourselves for sleep. Habits are formed to satisfy needs by expending the least amount of energy to fulfill them. Habits free up our consciousness, and by having habits we can direct our attention to thinking, or planning to other tasks.

A habit is easy to break if there is no longer the need behind that habit which formed it in the first place, or if the need can be satisfied in another way. Let’s look at some examples;

1. Is it easy to break the habit of sleeping on the right side of the bed? Yes. Because the need is sleep.  And you can fulfill this need by sleeping on either side of the bed.
2. Is it easy to break a habit of Nail Biting? As a child thumb, sucking and nail biting fills a need of comfort.  As an adult these needs can be filled in many different ways. So nail biting as an adult is easy to break, however it helps if you know the right technique.
3. Is it easy to break the habit of  smoking ? No. Because as long as a smoker smokers, they  continue to create a need. That need is to satisfy the withdrawel of nicotine from their body. This need for nicotine is met by the habit of smoking at certain times of the day and in certain situations to obtain more nicotine.   The need comes first(nicotine), the habit comes second to satisfy the need. ( However there are ways of using hypnosis that can change how the withdrawal effcts of nicotine are interpreted by the mind and this can make stopping easier).
4. Is it easy to break the habit of eating sweets at work Maybe? You may have a habit of eating sweets to fulfill the need of hunger at certain times of the day. To change this habit you take an apple to work, which then fulfill this need.  However if you were in the habit of eating sweets every time you were bored at work, this would may be  more difficult to break. Because the sweets are fulfilling a need, breaking up the boredom. So first you would need to fulfill the need to have challenges or interest at work  in another way, e.g. find more interesting work, e-mail your friends. Then the habit of eating sweets at work is easier to change.

If you find it difficult to break a bad habit, it is because the habit is fulfilling a need for you. What you have to identify is what that need is. And then find a way of satisfying it in another way. Once you can do that the habit is easy to break. Alternatively, if you can’t form new good habits, it is because there is not enough satisfaction in what the habit sets out to accomplish to sustain  it.

If you could imagine wearing a pair of  binoculars strapped over your eyes since the day you were born. Everything you have experienced in life has come through those binoculars.  Because the binoculars have been there every second of your life you can see everything about the world except the binoculars themselves.  You know nothing about them . Are  they zoomed in or out? What colour are they? If the binoculars had a darker tint over the lenses, you would never have known , you would simple assume the world was a darker place.  Even though those binoculars have been with you all your life a person watching you for a few minutes can tell a lot more about those binoculars than you can ever know yourself.

Our perceptions are a lot like those binoculars. Everything we sense about the world comes through them, but at the same time we know virtually nothing about the perceptions ourselves.  Faulty perceptions are easy to see in others, yet next to impossible to see in ourselves. We are not aware of them filtering everything around us and yet they are constantly there.

Our perceptions are naturally tinted by early life expirences. However, sometimes how we interpreted these experiences were wrong, and so since the interpretation was wrong so are our current perceptions of life. As we grow up the perception remains, tinting our view of the word, which affects our quality of life and what we think about ourselves and the types of interactions we have with others.
A skilled hypnotherapist  can help give you a sense of your own perceptions, where  they are holding you back, and at the same time help change them. Much like taking away the tinted view of the world through the binoculars, a hypnotherapist can give you a clearer outlook on life and in doing so a better quality of life.

Think of a time you really needed to pee. When you had a really full bladder. Swollen, like it was wanting to burst out. While that bladder remained full  nothing else in the world matters, not work, not your friend, not money, only that big bladder about to burst is on your mind. Only once you have  satisfied the need of relieving yourself do you feel okay and went back to talking, work, socializing, or whatever else you were doing.

As a human, you have many, many needs that want to be satisfied. And just like peeing, some take precendance over others.You may have heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simple put everybody has needs, and to feel good about life these needs have to be satisfied.  There are priorities to these needs. Only once  the first needs are met, do we notice there are further needs to be satisfied.

So the first needs are physiological needs. You need oxygen. If you have no oxygen you will care about nothing else. Once you have oxygen you move onto to the next need, which is fresh water. If you have no water and are very, very thirsty, nothing else will matter until your thirst is satisfied. Once you have oxygen  and water, then you need to have sleep and after sleep, food etc These needs are Physiological needs. And they are pretty easy to identify.

Once our physiological needs are met we worry about our safety. You need to feel healthy, secure, a roof over your head ,non threatened, either employed or have the means to look after yourself. If you have these aspects in your life sorted, then we move onto love and belonging.

Generally what happens when people come in for hypnotherapy the first two levels are satisfied.  So we work with the following two levels Love/belonging and Esteem.  Now the process as a hypnotherapist is to help the client discover what is necessary to fill the needs of Love belonging and self acceptance and self worth. As hypnotherapy amplifies feelings, and because feelings point away from the discomfort we can identify what areas the client needs to address and also have tools and techniques to help resolve these needs and in doing so help our clients move further up the pyramid.

Lets look at an example, like why a very rich person could be very unhappy. Imagine she has heaps of money and can buy anything she wants, a big luxury house, swimming pool,  pink  porsche etc. And people think “why is she unhappy she has everything”. Wrong. If she had everything she wouldn’t be unhappy. She has her physiological needs satisfied, she has her safety need met, good health and a whole lot of money which provides safety, far in excess of what she requires to full this part of her life.  Heaps and heaps of orange(graph), but perhaps little of anything else. A person with a whole lot less money,  but still enough to fulfill their needs of security and who also has  love, high self esteem, and creative hobbies, and challenges in their life will have a much  higher level of satisfaction in life, than the rich person stuck in the safety level.

As you satisfy your needs you move up the pyramid. But until you get to the top there is another need just waiting and will pop up once the lower one is fulfilled.  When you get to the top life is good. And it is really where we all want to be.

Hypnotherapy is a great tool in helping you to reach the top. The changes can be quite rapid, and a lot of the process comes down to clarifying, knowing and understanding where you are and what needs to change to allow you to move further up towards fulfillment. Maslow’s needs are just one model of helping people with their lives. So be sure to read the other approaches here.