Hypnotherapy to help achieve your goals by letting go of the past !
Matthew is anticipating an influx of clients who are seeking help with achieving their goals now that the enthusiasm and good intentions of sticking to New Year’s resolutions has, for many, worn off.
The optimism and revitalisation that most of us experience at the start of the year often fade when day to day worries and pressures begin to cloud our focus and weaken our resolve.
“Ruminating about the past is one of the biggest obstacles to success,” explains Matthew, uses Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and is practising at the Observatory Practice in Plymouth.
“People often find it difficult to develop the new habits required to achieve their goal because they subconsciously repeat old behaviours, whether those behaviours relate to food, relationships, exercise, studying or household finances.
“Initial momentum becomes dissipated when people unconsciously remind themselves of past unsuccessful attempts, and they erroneously believe that because that’s how they behaved in the past, they will inevitably repeat the same behaviour.
They spend more time focusing on how not to succeed than they do visualising their success.” Hypnotherapy can help!
The negative effects of ruminating were highlighted in a BBC Stress Experiment carried out in June 2011.
Preliminary results from the study of over 30,000 participants indicate very clearly that ‘a tendency to blame yourself for problems and, most importantly, a tendency to ruminate and worry are the most important factors when it comes to predicting your chances of suffering from stress.’
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy actively discourage clients from ruminating about the past. Instead they encourage clients to talk about their ‘preferred future,’ a future in which they are closer to achieving their goal.
New clients often express themselves in terms of what they don’t want, hanging on to their past behaviours, “I won’t be eating doughnuts,” “I won’t be shouting at the kids,” and so on.
It’s the therapist’s job to help clients let go of those unhelpful thinking patterns, encouraging them to express themselves positively, and helping them to maintain motivation to achieve their goal.
Matthew explains, “We learn by repetition. When we were learning to drive a car, we kept practising the same manoeuvre until we could do it automatically, subconsciously.
It’s the same with any new skill. I help clients by encouraging them to think about what they want, not what they don’t want. I also help them to identify times when they have been successful, thus breaking the unhelpful, negative self-talk.
By letting go of the past, they are better equipped to achieve their goals.”
