NAC – Change Your Beliefs, Change Your Life

There is a belief that changing your psychology and the reactions associated to it takes a long time and undergoes a lot of struggle. WRONG!

Change happens in an instant through the potential pain because you will not move towards pleasure until the pleasure outweighs the pain and guess what, you can change anything you wish at any moment once you decide and take action. Let me be a little bit in your face and tell you that every change that you have ever made in your life actually happened in an instant, didn’t it? If you are lighting a cigarette right now and I put the gun to your head and say “put your cigarette out right now or else I will pull the trigger!” I am certain that you will put your cigarette out, wouldn’t you? Therefore change is not the matter of capability; it is the matter of leverage!

Life is Leverage

I am going to share with you a knowledge that I mastered to create consistent and lasting change. I am a professional NAC practitioner and want you to master this art to serve your needs with integrity for a better quality of life. Before I share with you this valuable knowledge, you must first adopt these two beliefs for it to work.

The first belief to make this long lasting change is that you must know you can change anything right now, in an instant because it is not the change itself that takes time. What are the consequences of not changing and what are the benefits of creating lasting change?

You must know that you are responsible for your own change, only you. Whatever happens you must take responsibility; remember that responsible simply means the ability to respond. I am grateful that since the day I learned to leverage pain and convert it to pleasure through applying this knowledge, my life has been transformed as my perspective changed. What will it feel like when you see opportunities in every situation and leverage challenge into your advantage through achievement?

Neuro Associative Conditioning (NAC) is a human behavioral science founded by Anthony Robbins on the basis of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). It is a step by step process that can help you to condition your nervous system to associate massive pleasure with the things you want so that you continuously do whatever it takes to achieve them and also show you all the things or pain that you need to avoid doing to succeed continuously throughout your entire life.

NAC provides six master steps and specific syntax to provide consistent and lasting change.

These six fundamental steps are the basis of NAC and psychologists found that every change that a human makes in their life inevitably fulfill these steps. And here I impress upon you, the essence of NAC in your practice. Knowledge is only potential power, clarity is power when it comes into the hand of someone who knows how to get himself to take effective action. So if you have any behavior that you wish to change now, I challenge you to use the following NAC steps.

The fist step of NAC is to decide what you really want and what is preventing you from having it now. Most people when they are upset, they tend to focus on what they don’t want, instead of what they do want. I don’t want to be sad, I don’t want to be lonely, I don’t want to be fat, I don’t want this, I don’t want that…STOP!!! If you keep focusing on what you don’t want, you will definitely get more of it. Your outer circumstances are a reflection of your inner thoughts. So change your focus to what you want, to get what you truly desire. State your outcomes in positive term. Be as specific as possible. I want happiness, I want to have friends, I want to be slim. Clarity is authentic power. Next you have to be aware of what is preventing you from having what you want so that you overcome these obstacles. Ask yourself, how is this behavior serving me and who do I need to become to live the life I desire? These are your obstacles that you have to get through. Awareness is a powerful tool.

The second step is to get leverage. There are the twin pillars that shape a human’s life – pain and pleasure. All human’s behaviors revolve around the urge to gain pleasure or avoid pain. To get leverage is to associate massive pain to not changing now and to associate massive pleasure after you have changed it. To most people, change doesn’t feel like a must. It is something that they should do; they ought to do some day, not something they must do right now without wasting a second. Your shoulds need to become musts; the only way to make your change is to create a sense of urgency that is so intense, that you can’t wait any longer to put it off. To create change we have to realize that it is not the question of can we do it, it is the question of will we do it. So to associate pain, you can ask yourself, what does this cost me if I don’t make this shift now? You have to make this pain so real, so intense that you physically feel this pain in your core, and then start using pleasure associative questions to help you link those positive feelings to the idea of changing. If I do change, how will I feel about myself? What will I accomplish? How happy will I be? The key is to get a lot of reasons, better, strong enough reasons to make your change now. Every long lasting change is made in your subconscious mind.

So up to this point, have you decided what you really want to change and do you know what is preventing you? Do you feel enough pain associated to your old behavior and have you already linked the massive pleasure of changing it? Is change a must for you? If you do, now we can move on.

The third step – interrupt the limiting patterns. We all share the same neurology, and this neurology is just like a compact disc (CD). If you want to play the 6th track in your disc, you would just press the “6” button on the remote control and the song is played. If I put a deep scratch on the disc and I press the “6” button, would the song be played? No because the link is broken. This is the same result to our nervous system. Interrupting your old limiting patterns in your neuro pathway is like putting a scratch on your (cd) disc so that your old behavior can’t be continued. First and foremost, you must realize what your old pattern is when it comes to your old behavior then disrupt it. To disrupt your pattern is to do something that is out of your expectation.

Confusion is the most useful way to break your pattern. An example of interrupting your pattern when you want to smoke is to turn your cigarette over and use the lit part to touch and burn your lips. Then you will be reminded of this painful scene whenever you have the urge to smoke and thus you will put your cigarette away. Another example, if you want to lose weight and you can’t resist over the temptation of the delicious meal in front of you in a restaurant, I suggest you to jump up aggressively on the chair and shout out “I’m a PIG!!!” Then the next time you feel like eating more, your nervous system will link the image and the pain of shouting out “I’m a PIG” to your brain and you will immediately stop eating, another option is to remember the image of your naked body in the mirror this morning that caused you so much disgust and feel your stomach before you order that meal or take that bite and your psychology will force you to make healthier choices. Believe me, it works! It may be a bit awkward, but let me tell you that step 3 is of the utmost importance.

After you have broken the patterns that are holding you back, you now have the open space to learn the fourth step.

The fourth step – create a new empowering alternative. Most people fail to establish long lasting change is because they have nothing to replace the old pattern. Consequently, their change is temporary and sooner or later they will get back to their old pattern. Therefore you have to find a new empowering alternative to replace your old pattern while celebrating the pleasure of it. Every behavior must have its own positive impacts; otherwise you would not be doing it. For instance, once you quit smoking, you could come out with a new way like treating yourself or finding an activity you enjoy relaxing and managing your stress or any other way that could provide the benefits you could get from smoking.

These four steps are absolutely crucial to create a new change, but to ensure that the change is constant and long lasting; you need to apply the fifth step.

The fifth step – condition it. You have to reinforce the new pattern until it is consistent and keep conditioning it, strengthening it daily. Condition is the way to make sure your change is long lasting. You have got to rehearse the new pattern again and again with tremendous emotion intensity until the new pattern feels good to you. You have to reward yourself every time at the instant you make your change. For example, if you are determined to lose weight, you should reward yourself at the minute you push your plate away with the tasty meal on it by visualizing your new beautiful body, passionate life and all that it brings, maybe even buy a new outfit that you will wear when you are at your ideal size, and when you have lost 20 pounds celebrate with friends who hold you accountable and enrich you by supporting your new self-image!

Immediately do something that can make you feel good of this new action. Don’t wait! The timing is critical. You have to associate the sensation of pleasure of changing it to your new behavior. Remember that you are not making an intellectual connection; you are making an emotional one. You need to give your brain a new association at the very basic and instinctive level. You want your nervous system to feel great about your new change. Never underestimate the power of conditioning, when your new pattern is conditioned, it is virtually impossible to get back to your old disempowering pattern.

The final step of NAC is to make sure it works

The sixth step – test it. Test the new behavior for its effectiveness. There are five checkpoints that you could use to test it.

The first check point is to ensure that massive pain is fully associated to your old behavior. Ask yourself, when I think about my old behavior that I used to do and I used to indulge in, do I picture and feel things in a painful manner instead of pleasurable?
The second check point is to ascertain that your new behavior is fully associated to massive pleasure. When I think about my new behavior, do I have the jovial feeling and sensation?
The third is to make sure that your new behavior is aligned with your morals, values, beliefs and rules. Is my new behavior consistent with my morals, values, beliefs and rules? Is it consistent with what I want to be in future? Values are your own private, personal, and individual beliefs about what is most important to you.
Next you have to be sure that the benefits from your new behavior are maintained. Does this new behavior still allow me to gain the benefits and pleasure from my old behavior?
The last check point is to make sure that your new behavior is long term and would bring benefits in the long run.

Now you are informed of the six fundamental steps of NAC. But to master it you have to practice. You will only succeed through continued practice. The best way to master it is to go through a professional course. Lastly, bear in mind that your neuro association takes control of your feelings and behaviors. When you take control of your neuro associations, you take control of your life. Where the mind goes the body will follow.

The body will do what the mind tells it, it’s the mind you must conquer… ~Lisa Christiansen