Breaking Negative Patterns: Why It’s So Freaking Hard

“I just can't break this habit.”

“I said I would never get myself into a relationship like this again, but here I am!”

“I try and try to do something different, but I just can’t stick with it.”

“I’ve been doing so great on my diet, why did I need to eat a donut at 3pm today?”

If you have ever tried to break a negative pattern, you may have said many of these same things. From attracting the same kind of negative relationships over and over to trying to quit smoking, breaking negative patterns can seem almost impossible to do. Worse, once you go back to your old ways yet again, you may feel like you are a hopeless case with no willpower.

The good news is that you are not hopeless and it isn’t because you lack willpower.

Rather, most negative patterns are simply because of a preprogrammed response in your mind that reacts to an outside trigger, causing you to repeat the same action again and again. 

Blame it on your remote control. (Your mental one, anyway.) 

It’s a lot like setting a favorite TV station on your remote control. Let’s say you love the Discovery Channel, so you decide to set that station as the first button in your favorites. What’s going to happen if you push that first button again? Obviously, you will tune right into the Discovery Channel.

Now, let’s say you decide you'd like to watch the History Channel, but you push the first button again. What’s going to happen?

Not too hard of a question, right? You'll tune into the Discovery Channel.

Would you scream, cry, and give up because you didn’t tune into the History Channel? Not likely. What you'd be more likely do is look down and realize you pushed the wrong button for the desired result (to tune into the History Channel).

Yeah, that's all well and good with a TV remote, but...

Obviously, this is simple to figure out when it's a remote control, but it isn’t so obvious when you say you want to change but keep tuning into the same old patterns. Just like pushing the favorite button on your remote, when a specific “trigger” outside of you occurs, your “internal TV” wants to tune you into the same old program - in this case, an old habit, experience, or pattern. When the same thing happens again—even when you consciously have tried to break the pattern—you may find yourself frustrated, sad, or hopeless.

However, just as you would have to reset your favorite button on your remote to tune into a different channel, until you retune that trigger (mental "favorites" button) to react a different way, you will not get a different outcome. 

The message? If you are repeating patterns in your life even when you are trying to change, give yourself a break. You are reacting from habit due to unconscious programming. Now that you know that, you can learn how to change the programming and succeed in breaking the negative pattern.

If you are ready to get to the underlying programming and finally retune your bad habits and negative patterns, grab your copy of my book, The Flow: 40 Days to Total Life Transformation!