Why Quitting Is So Hard to Do

 

                Your teenage daughter promises to stop procrastinating in completing her homework assignments, but “forgets” to turn in a final project on the last day of school. A colleague at work announces that he is on a new diet to lose a few more pounds while he nibbles a piece of pizza during a social at work. You sneak a quick drag on your friend’s cigarette even though you officially quit smoking eight months ago. You wonder what these behaviors are all about while that famous line from Brokeback Mountain reverberates in your mind: “I can’t quit you!”

                Yesterday I shared a link on my Facebook account that illustrates the benefits of quitting smoking. Several people indicated that “liked” the post. Seeing this response made me think about how much hard work and dedication it takes for a person to permanently change a behavior or give up a longtime habit. Nicotine, caffeine and alcohol are commercially available and are fairly easy to obtain; they are also habit-forming and addictive substances. It is also argued that some processed foods include ingredients that manufacturers hope will trigger consumers’ cravings to eat more and more of that product. But the adrenaline rush or high that we get when we participate in a favorite sport or the surge of endorphins we feel when we are in love occur naturally and these experiences can be equally addictive.

The challenge in trying to change or replace these behaviors is that we generally don’t want to stop doing something that feels good, even if the sensation of “pleasure” lasts for an even shorter duration every time we experience it. The motivation to stop doing something we enjoy or that makes us feel good drops even more if we associate specific ideas or outcomes with that behavior. For example, your belief that smoking prevents overeating may trump your desire to quit smoking in order to avoid gaining weight. Or, you may ignore your doctor’s advice to lose weight to prevent getting diabetes because you believe that your­ extra pounds will insulate you from intimacy or protect you from suffering another broken heart if the relationship doesn’t work out.

Regardless of your conscious motivation to change a belief or behavior, your subconscious mind is fighting even harder to continue to follow the mental scripts that have been directing those actions that you want to replace. Furthermore, the longer you have been doing whatever it is you can’t or don’t want to stop doing, the harder it is to replace that behavior with one that will help you achieve your vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. Whether you smoke, overeat, procrastinate/miss deadlines or constantly starting new relationships so you can re-experience the excitement of being in love, your subconscious mind follows that familiar mental script so you can continue to experience that familiar known (pleasure). Fortunately mental scripts can be rewritten and behaviors can be replaced; and hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help you make this change.

               

 Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

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