The power of conditioning

Sometimes people want to create a change because a behavior or emotional pattern creates pain for them. But they may also derive benefit from the very thing they’re trying to change. If a person becomes injured, for example, and then suddenly everyone waits on them hand and foot, giving them a great deal of attention, they may find that their injuries don’t heal quite as quickly. While they want to be over the pain, unconsciously they want more of the pleaure of knowing that people care.

You can do everything right, but if secondary gain is too strong, you will find yourself going back to the old ways. Someone with secondary gain has mixed emotions about changing. They say they want to change, but often they subconsciously believe that maintaining the old behavior or emotional pattern gives them something they couldn’t get any other way. Thus they’re not willing to give up feeling depressed, even though it’s painful. Why? Because being depressed gets them attention, for example. They don’t want to feel depressed, but they desperately want attention. In the end, the need for attention wins out, and they stay depressed. The need for attention is only one form of secondary gain. In order to resolve this, we have to give the person enough leverage that they must change, but also we must show them a new way to get their needs met.
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Often, if we just break our old patterns enough, our brains will automatically search for a replacement pattern to give us the feelings we desire. This is why people who finally break the pattern of smoking sometimes gain weight: their brains look for a new way to create the same kinds of pleasurable feelings, and now they eat mass quantities of food to get them. The key, then, is for us to consciously choose the new behaviors or feelings with which we’re going to replace the old ones.
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Condition the New Pattern Until It’s Consistent.

Conditioning is the way to make sure that a change you create is consistent and lasts long-term. The simplest way to condition something is simply to rehearse it again and again until a neurological way is created. If you find an empowering alternative, imagine doing it until you see that it can get you out of pain and into pleasure quickly. Your brain will begin to associate this as a new way of producing this result on a consistent basis. If you don’t do this, you’ll go back to the old pattern.

If you rehearse the new, empowering alternative again and again with tremendous emotional intensity, you’ll carve out a pathway, and with even more repetition and emotion, it will become a highway to this new way of achieving results, and it will become a part of your habitual behavior. Remember, your brain can’t tell the difference between something you vividly imagine and something you actually experience. Conditioning ensures that you automatically travel along the new route, that if you spot one of the “off ramps” you used to take all the time, now you just speed past them—in fact, they’ll actually become difficult to take.

The power of conditioning can’t be overestimated. I read recently that Boston Celtics great Larry Bird was doing a soft-drink commercial in which he was supposed to miss a jump shot. He made nine baskets in a row before he could get himself to miss! That’s how strongly he’s conditioned himself over the years. When that ball hits his hands, he automatically goes through a pattern that is aimed at putting the ball through the hoop. I’m sure that if you examined the portion of Larry Bird’s brain that is linked to that motion, you would discover a substantial neural pathway. Realize that you and I can condition any behavior within ourselves if we do it with enough repetition and emotional intensity.

The next step is to set up a schedule to reinforce your new behavior. How can you reward yourself for succeeding? Don’t wait until you’ve gone a year without smoking. When you’ve gone a day, give yourself a reward! Don’t wait until you’ve lost eighty pounds. Don’t even wait until you’ve lost a pound. The minute you can push the plate away with food still on it, give yourself a pat on the back. Set up a series of short-term goals, or milestones, and as you reach each one, immediately reward yourself. If you’ve been depressed or worried, now each time you take action instead of worrying, or each time you smile when somebody asks how you’re doing and you say, “Great,” give yourself a reward for already beginning to make the changes necessary to ensure your long-term success.

In this way, your nervous system learns to link great pleasure to change. People who want to lose weight don’t always see immediate results—usually losing a couple of pounds doesn’t miraculously transform you into an Elle McPherson or a Mel Gibson.

Anthony Robbins
Awaken the Giant Within