NAC MASTER STEP 6

Test It!

Let’s review what you’ve accomplished: you’ve decided upon the new pattern of emotion or behavior that you desire; you’ve gotten leverage on yourself to change it; you’ve interrupted the old pattern; you’ve found a new alternative; and you’ve conditioned it until it’s consistent. The only step left is to test it to make sure that it’s going to work in the future.

One of the ways of doing this that’s taught in Neuro-Linguistic Programming is “future pacing.” This means that you imagine the situation that used to frustrate you, for example, and notice if in fact it still makes you feel frustrated or if your new pattern of feeling “fascinated” has replaced it. If normally you still have this urge to smoke every time you feel overwhelmed, imagine yourself in an overwhelming situation and notice if instead you have an urge to read or run or whatever new alternative you’ve conditioned. By imagining the same stimuli that used to trigger your old emotion or behavior and noting that you do feel certain that your new empowering alternative is automatic, you will know that this new pattern will work for you in the future.

In addition, you must test the ecology of the change you’ve just made. The word “ecology” implies the study of consequences. What will the impact of these changes you’ve made in yourself have on those around you? Will they support your business and personal relationships? Make certain that this new pattern will be appropriate, based on your current lifestyle, beliefs, and values.

On the next page is a simple checklist that you can use to help yourself be certain that your new success pattern will last and that it’s appropriate.

If your attempt at creating this pattern didn’t last, you need to recycle back to Step 1. Are you really clear about what you want and why you want it?

Review Step 2; most people who’ve tried unsuccessfully to make a change usually don’t have enough leverage. You may need to make a public commitment in order to get more leverage on yourself. Make it to those people who will not let you off the hook!

If you feel that there’s enough leverage, check Step 3: if you know what you want and you’ve got enough leverage, it’s very possible that you’re like the fly beating itself repeatedly against the window pane. You’ve done the same things over and over again, with more and more intensity, but you haven’t changed your approach. You must interrupt your pattern.

If you feel that all these steps are in place, go to Step 4. If your efforts still have not produced a change, you’re clearly demonstrating that you’ve left out this step. Find a new, empowering alternative for getting yourself out of pain and into pleasure that is as powerful and convenient as your old approach was. All this means is that you now have an opportunity to explore being a little more creative. Find a role model—somebody else who’s been able to eliminate this habit or negative set of emotions that you want to change.

If you’ve started to make a change, but then not followed through, you obviously haven’t reinforced your pattern with enough pleasure. Use Step 5, conditioning. Utilize both variable and fixed schedules of reinforcement to make sure that your new, empowering pattern lasts.

The six steps of NAC can be used for anything: challenges with relationships, problems in business, being stuck in a pattern of yelling at your children. Let’s say you worry too much about things over which you have no control. How can you use the six steps to change this disempowering pattern?

1) Ask yourself, “What do I want to do instead of worry?”

2) Get leverage on yourself and realize what worry does to destroy your life. Bring it to a threshold; see what it would cost you ultimately in your life so that you’re not willing to pay that price anymore. Imagine the joy of getting this monkey off your back and being truly free once and for all!

“Hey, bucko … I’m through begging.”

3) Interrupt the pattern! Every time you worry, break the pattern by being totally outrageous. Stick your finger up your nose, or belt out “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!” at the top of your lungs.

4) Create an empowering alternative. What will you do instead of worry? Pull out your journal and write down a plan of what you can do immediately instead. Maybe you can go for a run, and while you’re running, you can think of new solutions.

5) Condition the new pattern; vividly imagine and rehearse this new pattern with tremendous emotional intensity and repetition until this new thought, behavior or emotional pattern is automatic. Reinforce yourself by taking the first step: see yourself succeding again and again. Seeing the results in advance can give you the pleasure you desire. Again, use repetition and emotional intensity to condition the new pattern until it’s consistent.

6) Test it and see if it works. Think about the situation that used to worry you, and see that you no longer worry in this situation.

You can even use these same six master steps of NAC to negotiate a contract.

1) The first step is to lay the groundwork. Get clear about what you want and what has prevented you from getting it. What does the other person want? What’s in it for both of you? How will you know you have a successful contract?

2) Get leverage by getting that person to link pain to not making the deal, and pleasure to making it.

3) Interrupt the pattern of any belief or idea that’s keeping the deal from moving ahead.

4) Create an alternative that neither of you thought of before that will meet both your needs.

5) Reinforce that alternative by constantly reinforcing the pleasure and the positive impact of this alternative.

6) See if it’s going to work out for everybody, a win-win situation. If so, negotiate to a successful conclusion.

The same principles can be used to get the kids to clean their rooms, improve the quality of your marriage, boost your company’s level of quality, get more enjoyment out of your job, and make your country a better place to live.

By the way, sometimes our kids use these same six steps on us in abbreviated form. Remember what I said: if you get enough leverage and interrupt somebody’s pattern strongly enough, they’ll find a new pattern and condition it. A friend of mine tried almost everything he knew to stop smoking. Finally his pattern was broken. How? His six-year-old daughter walked in one day while he was lighting up. She knew what she wanted, she had massive leverage, and she interrupted his pattern by crying, “Daddy, please stop killing yourself!”

“Honey,” he said, “what are you talking about? What’s wrong?” She repeated herself. He said, “Honey, I’m not killing myself.” She nodded her head, pointed to the cigarette and sobbed, “Daddy, please stop killing yourself! I want you to be there … when I get m-a-r-r-i-e-d …”

This was a man who’d tried to quit dozens of times, and nothing had worked—until then. The cigarettes were out the door that day, and he hasn’t smoked since. With his heartstrings firmly grasped in her tiny hands, she instantly got what she wanted. Since then he’s found many alternatives to smoking that give him the same pleasurable sensations.

If all you do is the first three steps of NAC, that may be enough to create tremendous change. Once you’ve decided what you want, gained leverage, and interrupted the pattern, life often provides you with new ways of looking at things. And if the leverage is strong enough, you’ll be compelled to find a new pattern and condition it—and you can pretty much count on the world to give you the test.

Now you have the NAC of change! The key is to use it. But you won’t unless you know what you’re using it for. You’ve got to know what you truly desire; you must find …

* Find out more about these principles in my Living Health seminar, or read Unlimited Power, Chapter 10, “Energy: The Fuel of Excellence.”

* Mann, Nancy, “A Diagnostic Tool with Important Implications for Treatment of Addiction: Identification of Factors Underlying Relapse and Remission Time Distributions,” The International Journal of the Addictions (1984).

* See also Chapter 17 of Unlimited Power, “Anchoring Yourself to Success.”