How can Tony Robbins\u2019 NAC technique help you replace negative habits with positive ones? What steps can you take to use Neuro-Associative Conditioning in your own life? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can use Tony Robbins\u2019 NAC (Neuro-Associative Conditioning) technique to gradually replace negative habits with positive ones. Follow the steps below to disrupt negative emotional patterns in the mind, find motivation<\/a>, and establish new, empowering behaviors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Find out more about Tony Robbins\u2019 NAC technique below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n How do we come to associate certain things with pain and other things with pleasure? It all starts in your brain: Every time you experience a positive or negative emotion, your brain links the emotion with other aspects of the experience, creating a \u201cneuro-association.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your brain\u2019s billions of neurons (brain cells) take in sensory information<\/a> and work together to process that sensory data. In this process, your neurons communicate by sending signals to each other via neural pathways, which are physical connections in your brain. Those neural pathways create neuro-associations by linking your emotions and sensations from a particular experience. As a result, your future thoughts about that activity or subject automatically trigger the same emotion (unless you recondition yourself, which we\u2019ll explain in the next chapter). For example, if you go to a new restaurant with a group of friends and enjoy a great evening out, you\u2019re likely to associate positive feelings with that restaurant in the future\u2014even if your enjoyment had more to do with your friends\u2019 company than the food or service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, the more you repeat the same or similar experiences, the stronger those neural pathways and neuro-associations become\u2014and the more automatic and habitual that behavior becomes.<\/strong> When it comes to pain and pleasure associations, the habitualized behavior is your response to a particular stimulus (such as feeling happy when you think about the restaurant you and your friends visited). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In other contexts, deeply embedded neural pathways allow you to perform habitual tasks without thinking about each step. (Shortform example: Strong neural pathways allow you to drive a car without consciously thinking about it. The first time you drive, you have to think about each action, from how much pressure you\u2019re putting on the gas pedal to how often you\u2019re checking your rearview mirror. After you\u2019ve been driving a while and the relevant neural pathways are reinforced, all of those actions become second nature.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since they\u2019re based on experiences, your neuro-associations, and the behaviors that they trigger, are entirely unique to you. For example, while you may associate pleasure and joy with the song \u201cJack and Diane\u201d because it evokes happy memories of your mom singing<\/a> along to it in the car, your friend could associate the same song with painful heartbreak because it was playing on the radio when her high school sweetheart dumped her. Your distinct associations will then prompt you and your friend to behave differently when each of you hears or thinks about the song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As we\u2019ve noted, neuro-associations help you to habitualize your behaviors, which, on one hand, can be a tremendous benefit when those associations and behaviors are empowering<\/em>. On the other hand, your neuro-associations can also reinforce and form habits of <\/strong>disempowering <\/em><\/strong>behaviors.<\/strong> Let\u2019s take a look at the various ways in which neuro-associations can cause problems by: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that you know how easily you can develop <\/em>disempowering neuro-associations and the negative impact they can have on your life, let\u2019s talk about how to change <\/em>them. Since your neuro-associations are wired into your brain, the only way to change them is to recondition yourself by creating new neural pathways<\/a> and weakening the old ones.<\/strong> To do this, associate pain with your old, disempowering behavior and pleasure with a new, healthier habit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this chapter, we\u2019ll explain how to do this using the Science of Neuro-Associative Conditioning\u2122 (NAC). This is a six-step process through which you condition your nervous system to develop neuro-associations that support the changes you want to make:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow the six steps of Tony Robbins\u2019 NAC technique to condition your change: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first step to creating a positive change is to decide exactly what you want, which gives you a destination and a direction.<\/strong> The more specific you are about what you want to do, the clearer you\u2019ll be on your destination, and the better your chances are of reaching it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Be sure to frame your destination in a positive light: in other words, in terms of what you do<\/em> want. When it\u2019s time to make a change, people often focus on what they don\u2019t<\/em> want instead. However, that way of thinking leads to getting even more of what you don\u2019t want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, figure out what\u2019s standing between you and your goal. <\/strong>The reason you haven\u2019t made this change already is that you\u2019re associating more pain with making the change\u2014or with the unknown that comes with change\u2014than with maintaining the status quo. Identify what pain you\u2019re associating with the change, and then use the Tony Robbins\u2019 NAC process to eliminate that pain association so that you can reach your goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you know what change you want to make, create a sense of urgency about making it. <\/strong>Often, people don\u2019t make the changes they want to because they continually delay them. They know that the change would improve their lives, but they don\u2019t muster up the motivation to actually do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re struggling to get enough motivation to make a change now<\/em>, due to a secondary gain or something else, you need psychological<\/strong> leverage<\/strong>. You gain this leverage when you reach the pain threshold<\/a><\/em>, where the pain associated with continuing your behavior finally outweighs the pain of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n External leverage is when someone or something pushes you to make a change\u2014for example, when your spouse nags you to stop smoking or your doctor implores you to lose weight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the most effective leverage is internal leverage,<\/em> when you\u2019re motivated to make the change for yourself. One way to gain internal leverage is by realizing that the behavior you want to change contradicts your personal standards<\/a>, values, and principles. Realizing that you\u2019ve failed to act in a way that honors your standards and your identity causes a lot of pain, which in turn creates a strong motivation to change<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you know what you want to change and have gained the motivation to do it, refine your approach to creating change.<\/strong> If you\u2019ve continually seen the same results in your life, despite your desires and efforts to change things, it\u2019s probably because you\u2019ve developed patterns of thinking that cause you to consistently focus on the same things\u2014things that aren\u2019t helping you to change. Given the power of your thoughts on your decision-making and actions, your unwanted behavior will continue until you change your pattern of thinking. <\/strong>Even if you gain leverage to make changes, your efforts won\u2019t be effective until you\u2019ve addressed this root issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To truly create change in your life, interrupt your old patterns of thinking by doing something unexpected and totally different than previously. For example, to interrupt a pattern of lashing out at coworkers when you\u2019re stressed, the next time you feel that way, stand up and yell something silly and ridiculous. The sudden outburst and change in mood will snap you out of your usual pattern of yelling at other people. Create the disruption in the middle of the pattern\u2014before the pattern reaches its usually destructive conclusion\u2014and consistently disrupt the pattern every time you start slipping into it. Over time, these disruptions will distort and weaken the neural pathways responsible for your old pattern of behavior.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Patterns of thoughts and behavior arise not only during <\/em>experiences, but also when you\u2019re remembering<\/em> certain events. Sometimes you may replay negative thought patterns<\/a> and obsess over past experiences, which intensifies your negative emotions about the situation you\u2019re recalling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although you can\u2019t change what you\u2019ve already experienced, you can change how you feel about what happened by scrambling the memory to disrupt the pattern.<\/strong> Since a memory is a bundle of sensations you recall from an experience\u2014the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings recorded in your brain\u2014scrambling certain sensations distorts the memory, causing you to feel differently about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To practice this, think of an incident that frustrates, saddens, or angers you. Then, follow the first few steps of NAC by asking yourself: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, scramble the sensations you associate with the memory: <\/p>\n\n\n\n As you practice this, your old, negative neural pattern will weaken, making it easier to replace with a new, empowering pattern. When you stop using your old pathway, it will weaken and its influence over you will diminish. This method can work for memories of negative incidents that happened yesterday or years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you break your old, negative pattern, you need an empowering pattern to replace it with. <\/strong>Your new pattern should still produce the pleasure you got from your old behavior, without any of the negative side effects. For example, if you want to quit smoking but enjoy the social aspect of the habit, develop a new habit of writing<\/a> check-in letters or emails to friends instead. If you don\u2019t have a positive alternative to your old behavior, the change won\u2019t last and you\u2019ll revert to your old pattern or to a new, negative one. (For example, sometimes when people quit smoking, they gain weight because they replace their habit of smoking with eating.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Research proves that having a new habit to replace the old one increases the likelihood that the change will be long-lasting. One study evaluated how successful three groups of drug users were in kicking their habits: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you\u2019ve replaced your old pattern with a new one, condition the new behavior to reinforce it so that it endures long-term. <\/strong>Reinforcement makes the difference between a change that eventually becomes automatic and one that ultimately fades. There are two kinds of reinforcement: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Use positive reinforcement to cement your new pattern by creating a reward system. <\/strong>Determine goals or milestones that you\u2019ll reach quickly as a result of your new pattern, and reward yourself as soon as you hit one. For example, if your goal is to work out every day, reward yourself after your first workout. Reinforce the behavior early and often, and you\u2019ll quickly strengthen the pleasure association with your new pattern. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The positive reinforcement must happen immediately after the behavior, so that you link the pleasure association to the pattern. Additionally, the consistency of the reinforcement impacts its effectiveness: <\/p>\n\n\n\n 1) Varied or intermittent reinforcement is the most effective way to encourage consistent effort. <\/strong>If you never know when you\u2019re going to be rewarded for your performance, you\u2019re more likely to keep your effort high so that you\u2019re always <\/em>deserving of a potential reward. For this reason, when you try to break a habit but allow yourself to indulge every once in a while, you\u2019re actually reinforcing the habit you\u2019re trying to break because you are intermittently enjoying the pleasure you get from that habit. (Shortform note: To read about how social media companies use intermittent rewards to keep people hooked on their sites, read our summary of Digital Minimalism<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) A jackpot<\/strong>\u2014when an intermittent reward is occasionally much larger than usual\u2014is an even stronger method of intermittent reinforcement, because it builds the anticipation for the possibility of a big prize. <\/strong>This can also be used to jump-start performance with someone who\u2019s not motivated to do anything to earn a reward. Give her a jackpot for no reason, and the unexpected reward may be enough to spark her motivation to start acting in hopes of earning another reward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3) Scheduled reinforcement<\/strong> (for example, being rewarded every fourth time you implement the positive behavior) is less effective, <\/strong>because you come to expect the reward and the pleasure loses its luster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reinforce your new response by playing it out in your head over and over to strengthen the neural pathways. When you imagine something with a lot of emotional intensity, your brain reacts the same way it would if you were actually experiencing what you imagine; in other words, rehearsing <\/em>the new pattern in your head repeatedly is the same to your brain as doing<\/em> the new behavior over and over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the first five steps of Neuro-Associative Conditioning, you\u2019ve successfully made a change and conditioned yourself to make the new behavior consistent. The final step of the process is to ensure that the change will last in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To do this, make sure that the changes you\u2019ve made have strongly changed your associations and will also fit your lifestyle, principles, and beliefs<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\nTony Robbins NAC Technique: Neuro-Associations<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Recondition Your Neuro-Associations<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Step 1: Decide on Your Destination and Identify Your Obstacles<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Step 2: Create a Sense of Urgency to Change<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Step 3: Disrupt Your Pattern<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Scramble the Sensation<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Step 4: Create a Positive Pattern to Replace the Old, Negative One<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Step 5: Reinforce Your New Pattern <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Step 6: Make Sure Your Conditioning Is Successful<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n