The persuasive art of the reframe

I was working with a client for stopping smoking and who told me that she "failed" and now smoking 10 cigarettes a day instead of her usual 30.

That gave me a quick opportunity to let her know that she has gained a much greater skill in reducing her cigarette consumption to only 30 minutes a day and if she can just not smoke for 30 minutes less a day she'll be a non-smoker.

She liked the thought and expressed how much she dislikes the smoking habit.

There wasn't enough time for more work with her so I gave her another way of looking at it. I told her that if she reduced her cigarettes by from 30 to 10 a day it's not a habit. Now it's a choice. All she really has to do is every time she lights up a cigarette that she hates she need to recognize that she is choosing to do it and that she can choose not to have that cigarette just as easily, but it's just choice. Not good or bad. Just a choice.

Let's review -

• I reframed her "failure" to demonstrate that the hypnosis session had a positive effect.
• I reframed that all she has to do is cut back her smoking by 30 minutes a day and she'll be a non-smoker.
• I reframed her habit into a choice that she doesn't have to feel guilty about if that is what she is choosing.

The whole exchange took about 5 minutes.

The lesson I guess is utilization; always takes what's given and use it to get the outcome you intend.

Okay, will she quit smoking? I have no idea. What I do know is that she has now a new way of lowering at smoking, her "habit", and how she can look at changing it.

David Barron

http://www.theultimatepersuasionseminar.com/

http://www.changework.com/

http://www.power-persuasion.com/

http://www.embeddedcommands.com/

www.MoreDoneInLessTime.com

860-331-8048

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"To Wish, To Want, To Will, Desire. Transfix, Transcend, Transform, Transpire."