Did you know that you spend about 90% of your day on autopilot? I know, it’s amazing, isn’t it? It seems like much more than that to me even for  Professional Life Coaches.

The average human being and I’m prepared to believe that you’re one of those (a human being that is, not average. Of course I know you’re way above average) is using their unconscious mind to get through the day the vast majority of their time.

When you eat are you thinking at a conscious level about swallowing? Do you stop to think which side of the bed to get out of? Do you ponder the complexities of brushing your teeth or how you’re going to manage to open the car door or wonder when it will be time to yawn?

Of course you’re don’t, because you know how to do those things at an unconscious level, and that frees up your conscious mind to be doing other things that are much more important like learning a new language, reading a thought provoking book or explaining Superstring theory to your pet Gerbil called Gary.

Unfortunately though most of the time we waste that opportunity to do new mind expanding new stuff and continue to do the same old same old, because it’s easy.

That’s one of the reasons people struggle to break bad habits because they’re often performed at an unconscious level. To break them seems like such hard work, so why even bother?

The good news though, is if you can implement a new behavior and keep it going for somewhere in the region of 90 days (this can vary substantially from person to person, so don’t sue me if you can do it sooner or take longer) until it becomes an unconscious habit, you’ll have little problem maintaining it.

Note: I often read people that talk about a month to form a habit. I have my doubts about that. I feel sure you can get to a conscious competence level in that time span, but to actually have it ingrained at an unconscious level takes a bit longer in my experience.

Firstly and most importantly, you have to want to change. By that I mean it’s not usually enough to want to want to, you need to actually want to.

People often come to me and tell me they want to quit smoking. I then ask them why? Usually that generates a look of horror akin to me asking them for the hand in marriage of their elderly grandmother.

However, it’s important to recognize there’s always a positive intent when we undertake any action. Even if that intent isn’t immediately apparent. That goes for smoking, over eating, self-abuse, drug abuse and even voting Republican*

Until you accept that there is an upside to a habit you’d like to break, you’ll struggle to change it, because you’re in conflict with your unconscious mind. It knows why you do stuff you think you’d rather not do, but it doesn’t always want to tell you.  It’s a little scamp.

You need to soothe and smooth talk your unconscious, not tell it what a damn fool idiot it is. It’s your friend and it loves you, so treat it kindly. If there really were no upside to an action you unconscious wouldn’t allow you to do it anymore than my wife allows me to lie in bed drinking beer, eating chips and watching Family Guy.

Using the smoking analogy. You may feel you should give up because you know it’s healthier or your partner is pushing you to quit because you stink on ice. But that is wanting to want to, it isn’t actually wanting to. A real desire to stop is a different proposition altogether, it’s a strong internal feeling that most people recognize when they get it.

There are numerous ways to help you break habits including hypnotherapy, NLP, acupuncture, EFT, asking a friend to creatively discipline you if you’re naughty etc.

You need to find the best way or combination of ways that work for you because we’re all different and respond differently to different stimuli. Or you can dispense with all of those and go it alone by adopting some of the following do it yourself methods.

So here we go people, buckle in and let’s go with 9 ways to quit a habit or your money back.

1. Set a date: Don’t dive straight in there, do your homework.  Know what you need to do. Give yourself time to prepare mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually if appropriate.

2. Use leverage: Tell everybody and anybody that means anything to you what you are planning to do and back yourself so far into a corner that the merest indiscretion will cause severe discomfort.

3. Use more leverage. Make multiple lists of what you have to gain from quitting and post them where you’ll see them everyday. Move the post its around so they don’t become background noise.

4. Use even more leverage. Make a list of what you have to lose if you don’t follow through. Commit to yourself and anybody else that will listen to you, that you’ll read it whenever you feel the urge to backslide.

5. Use positive language. You’re not trying to quit, you have quit. You’re not doing your best to lose weight you are losing weight. You’re not attempting to run a marathon; you’re going to run a marathon. Dump the word try!

6. Blog it! Tell the whole world what you’re up to. You’d be amazed at how better and stronger you’ll feel if you know people all over the country and world want you to succeed.

7. Visualize. Every night before you drift off to sleep and first thing in the morning after you wake up see yourself as the person that you want to be. Do this before you even start the change process. See what you would look like. Hear what you would sound like and feel what you would feel like. Really take time to savoir the new you so your mind can get used to it.

8. Be resolute: If you slide back use that as a learning experience and not an excuse to cave in and beat yourself up. Look at what caused you to have a brief slip (that’s all it was) and start again with even more determination to be the person you want to be!

9. Know your core values: It really is critical to understand why you want to do something because when you know that you’ll increase your chances of success exponentially.

10. Future Pace: This is similar to visualizing but different. See yourself in the future dealing with potential obstacles that you think may arise. There may well be days when you struggle and if you are prepared for them you’ll handle them with aplomb.

I do appreciate that some habits/addictions may need more than what I have posted, but this should help get you up and running.

* I was being somewhat serious about that. Some people seem to believe that anybody that doesn’t vote for the same political party as they do is evil. Er no, that’s not quite how it works. You’ll be amazed to read, it’s all about values again, and his or hers are simply different to yours, so respect them as such.