Now is that a straight forward, in-your-face, title for a blog post or what?

Today, I’m going to share with you a technique to change other people’s behaviours – you should be able to read & use this in five minutes… it’s that easy.

This technique comes straight from the NLP textbook – as any therapist will tell you, the biggest thing that stops people doing what they know is best for them (like quitting smoking, getting a real job or making more sales) is them.

Self sabotage happens because people feel comfortable living within their current behaviours and the results they produce.

The reason that people manage to feel comfortable is a simple one: The behaviours make them feel good – in the current moment.

Smoking feels good now (if you’re addicted) and you can always quit tomorrow.

Being unemployed (or under-unemployed) is easiest today and you can try harder tomorrow.

Bringing in sales results can happen before the month ends – the internet is fun today!

Here’s the technique to counter-act this thinking:

1. Ask the person to consider what will happen if they continue the current behaviour for the next 3 months, 1 year and 5 years.
2. Ask the person to consider how easy it has been to maintain the current behaviour over the previous number of weeks/months… despite the constant inner belief that they can change at any moment.
3. Connect the dots: Yes, it was so easy to develop these ineffective behaviours – so easy that it will probably continue…
4. Ask them what they want to do about it.

It’s that simple – as soon as someone realises that their history of ineffective behaviours is pointing towards a similar future, they’ll get motivated to make that important change happen.