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Pretend you or someone you know has a bad habit. A big bad monkey on your back. How did it get there? How did it start? Probably a combination of three things; emotions, authority figures, and repetition.

Example:

Now, let’s pick a person for our example. How about you when you were 10-14 years old. And for this example, let’s use the habit of smoking.

While in that age range, we’ll assume you were learning about life and how you fit in it. You may not have felt as sure about yourself as you would later in life.

You may have felt self-conscious, dependent on others, powerless, not good enough, or just not as capable as you would have liked to feel. Let’s call this feeling “bad”. Now, this doesn’t mean you felt miserable, but, did you feel as “good” as you wanted to feel? Did you feel as “good” as you believed other people felt?

Feeling like that would lead you to wanting to feel better, or, as good as everyone else. What ways does your mind see to do this?? That matters upon what learning situations you’ve been exposed to.

Maybe you had authority figures in your young life that smoked, like parents, relatives, friends, advertisements, role models. At this point in your life, smoking would have been seen as tough, strong, independent, self-assured, unique, “good”. Repetitively exposed to the thing you felt your life lacked.

This would start a feeling in your mind, the beginning of a craving. A part of you that believes smoking is what your life needs to fix the bad feeling. Not just in a “knowing” way, but a “feeling” way. This concept will make the most sense to someone whom has tried to quit any strong habit, you know your “feelings” are stronger than your “knowing” any day.

Then you tried your first cigarette, and chances are that you weren’t so good at smoking. That would come with practice.

Time passes and you continue to reinforce the emotional associations with your triggers. If you feel tired, stressed or angry, you want to smoke to get that refreshing “ahhhh” feeling.

If you’ve tried to stop smoking before, you may have already thought of these things. And you’ve spent time thinking and analyzing your habit. But, you didn’t learn this habit by thinking and analyzing, so why would trying to quit smoking that way?

It is common sense to quit smoking using the same elements that created the habit. A “hypnotized” mind, along with emotions, authority figures and repetition. These are the elements of modern hypnosis.