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For the majority of people, the boulevard to personal transformation and self-improvement is a long and winding road filled with complicated barriers. Drug companies in particular have capitalized on and created gigantic fortunes based on the elusive search for the "Magic Pill" that will make all of your dreams come true. As it turns out, there is a secret formula for success, and it begins in the unconscious mind.

One of the rules of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that "there is a positive intention behind all behaviors." And based on that law, when it comes to eliminating negative behaviors, there is a formula that we should always keep in mind. I'll let you in on the secret equation in a minute. But first, I have a riddle for you to solve.

Riddle: A minister made his son drink lye, which burned out his vocal chords. What was the positive intent behind this behavior?

If you are like 99.9% of the clients who have visited my office since 1978, you'll say something like: "There isn't any." But you would be completely mistaken. To answer this riddle, first you must disconnect the behavior from the positive intent of the behavior.

The preacher's son was cursing. And the minister believes that if his child curses, his soul will be condemned to Hell. So the answer is that the minister was burning out his child's vocal cords so that he couldn't curse. By doing so, he was saving his child's soul from being condemned to suffer in Hell.

The secret formula for successful personal change works as follows:

We must always respect the positive intent behind each behavior. If we have an urge to exercise a behavior that we do not like, we can easily get rid of the impulse to use that behavior. All we need to do is to find another behavior to substitute in its place. To be successful, the new behavior must be as available and efficient at accomplishing the same secondary gain, but be more consciously acceptable. We call this a REFRAME.

When clients come into my practice, the first thing I do is to take a thorough case history. Let's imagine that they come to me and ask me to help them overcome their appetite. Conventional wisdom tells us that the two main reasons that people eat too much are: (1) for relaxation and pleasure; (2) because eating can be a behavior triggered by other behaviors that it has been associated with (a conditioned response). For example, if a person eats while they are working on a computer, they will develop a conditioned response, and thereafter, every time they work on a computer they will get cravings for food.

However, the above answer only takes into consideration the possible secondary gain from the eating behavior. What if they also have another behavior that is concerned in the equation? For instance: What if being heavy is also a behavior for this person? I can hear your mind grinding right now as you think, "Being chubby isn't a behavior, what are you talking about?"

Sorry but you could be absolutely wrong. Here is one simple classic textbook example that will clearly demonstrate the fact that being chubby can be a behavior. It can be a behavior because it can supply secondary gains.

Example: A woman falls in love. Her partner leaves her, and breaks her heart. Her unconscious mind wants to shield her emotionally and prevent her from ever having her heart broken again. So it motivates her to get chubby to keep her out of relationships. By doing that she cannot get her heart broken again.

The point is that everyone is totally different. And sometimes there are unconscious elements at work that cause uncontrollable behaviors. These are elements that are different for each person.

Here's another example: A woman comes to my practice complaining of an out of control urge to overeat at mealtime. During my case history, upon questioning, the woman tells me about how she has never been able to please her father.

We did an age regression, and one of her early memories was of eating dinner with her family. And dad was insisting in a very loud voice that she eat everything on her plate, even though she was stuffed. So she finished the food on her plate out of fear, and her father praised her for eating everything. It was one of the only times in her life that she could recall her father telling her that he was happy with her.

Jump forward to the present. Dad has been deceased for years, but the unconscious program he programmed is still functioning. She still has a powerful urge to clean her plate, even if she is feeling full, because by cleaning the plate, in her unconscious mind she is getting her dad's approval, and eliminating her own fear!

So if you have a problem making personal changes, please remember that there is a positive intent causing all behaviors. And the secret formula for success is to substitute another behavior that will achieve the same positive intent, but in a mode that is more consciously acceptable to you, as an individual. The most efficient way to get your unconscious mind to take the responsibility for making this kind of alteration for you is through a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Six-Step Reframing Technique.