In this solo coaching video, Christoffel Sneijders outlines a nine‑step framework for creating lasting personal change and greater happiness. He begins by urging viewers to become sharply aware of the specific sources of their dissatisfaction, using simple self‑rating scales to expose hidden unhappiness. He then explains that most issues are stored not just in the mind but in the body, describing three distinct "brains" – the head, the heart (with ~90,000 cardiac neurons) and the gut (with ~500 million enteric neurons) – and how they influence behavior. The third step stresses the need to feel safe in order to change, confronting the fear of the unknown and social resistance. Steps four and five focus on recognizing outdated beliefs, habits, and emotions that were once useful but are now unnecessary, and on truly letting go of them by addressing root causes rather than merely masking symptoms. Sneijders critiques conventional therapy and pharmaceuticals for only covering up pain, likening them to mowing grass without removing the roots. The next step involves filling the resulting void with new, empowering beliefs and habits, preventing relapse. Throughout, he shares personal anecdotes (e.g., quitting tea, shedding weight, abandoning unnecessary muscle) to illustrate each principle. The overall message is that change is both simple and challenging: it requires deep awareness, safety, root‑cause work, and the active construction of new, supportive patterns.
Chapters
Of course, we're not born to accept. We're born to live, in my opinion. How can you live it? Now, what are the 9 steps? It sounds sometimes too obvious to be true, but just become aware of really your satisfaction and dissatisfaction. When I see people as a therapist or as a coach, they say, yeah, I'm not really happy. About what? About life. Wow, that's huge. About what? Yeah, that's hard. So really come aware, what is it actually what is bothering you or not? Or where can you increase that happiness? Because if I ask now numbers from 1 to 10, who dares to say that in happiness he or she is a 10? Almost nobody dares. Yeah, they can say 9.5, but almost I never saw somebody who dares to say a 10. Except Anthony Robbins, and we can still discuss that part if he did. And then the next step is to become aware how you really— what it does for you and how you feel about it. And how you feel about it, that's something extremely important when we come in touch later, because your issues are not in your head. Most of the issues are in our body, as we call the subconscious, but I split the subconscious in different kinds of things. And people have to become aware that they can change. They don't have to accept. If people accept they have an illness, they will have an illness. If people accept this is what life is, they will accept this is life. But you don't have to accept. Just imagine— do you know how many times you fell down on your butt before you started to walk? On average, 1,000 times. According to my sis, I, 5,000 times, because I'm clumsy. Don't believe your old sister. Just imagine as a baby you had a resistance to get up 1,000 times to start walking. Now you just accept, I cannot? Doesn't make sense. But you have to get that awareness, yes, it's possible. Then an understanding how the head, the heart, and the gut brain works. So not about conscious-subconscious, but that we actually have a brain there, and they stop you 9 out of 10. Listen to more the music, broken hearts and those kind of stuff. We all know a heart can break, but physically you have 90,000 brain cells in your heart. It can remember. You have 500 million brain cells in your gut. That's the size of a cat brain. Then also, and that's where most things stop, That you are safe to change. Most people don't feel safe to change because change means I have to do something different, and that's dangerous because you know what you have, you don't know what you will get. So if people like to change, they have to know it's safe to change. And it sounds sometimes like safe to change, but if somebody has a real issue, not getting out of it. Yeah. Always drinking tea, and said, okay, I'm a non-drinker of tea now. She goes back to England. I never drink tea anymore. Just imagine a number of people say, but you're English, don't you drink tea? She has to get over all that resistance of being called whatever. So you know it's safe to express your own needs and your own things, and dare to stand for that. And then also have an understanding why those old Beliefs, habits, emotions are not needed anymore. Because when we installed them as a kid, they made sense. Everything we learned made sense the moment we learned them. Once I was bullied— now, not once, I've been a couple of years bullied in school because I was a sweet boy, and sweet boys get punched. So I went on kickboxing, martial art. And it took me a long time to get aware that I lost 10 kilos, and I don't need muscles like this. At one moment I was doing my weights, and I thought, why am I doing this? I don't like this actually, but I've got huge arms. I thought, I love to swim, I love to bike, but biking gives you big legs but small shoulders. And I thought, I'm an adult, it doesn't make sense anymore. Nobody will beat me up now. And by the way, I can bike so fast nobody will get me. So in that moment I stopped, lost 10 kilos, and I feel more happy than ever. But you have to get away, it is also safe to get rid of those. And then the real solution, really letting go of them. Knowing and doing is different. Because just think in your life, we all have habits or emotions we like to get rid of. And maybe you thought about it already for years. Maybe you did even therapy, went to psychologist or counselor or all of them above, took some medications, and you still have them. So it's not only willpower, it is something more you need. You're really letting go of them. That's why I say it's extremely easy if you leave the root cause behind. Most therapy, most pharmaceuticals, almost every medicine pharmaceutical makes will not heal you, will not make you better. Antidepressants, anxiety pills, whatever, only mask the emotions. They don't make you better. That's why you stay on it for years and years and years, like mowing the grass every time. And they make shitloads of money with it. For me, it is getting the grass out at the root cause. If you get it out, it will not come back anymore. Then install new beliefs, because the moment you get rid of something, there's a void. And if you don't install new beliefs, New ideas, new habits. It will somewhere come back. And a smoker who stops smoking but has this muscle memory, on one moment when the stress is there, something else is going to happen. Hop, hop, hop, hop. They start eating because we did not solve the anxiety that's underneath it. And then live a new belief in your happiness. It sounds so easy. It is easy and it is hard on the same moment. It's both.
