Dr. Noah St. John explains "head trash," the internal voice that says "I can't because," and his technique called Afformations, which uses empowering questions like "Why am I so successful?" to rewire beliefs. He breaks down habit change into five stages and argues that lasting results come from altering routines and beliefs, not willpower.
He's known for being a mental health coach to the stars and for helping people break bad habits in just a few weeks.
And he's also got some advice when it comes to New Year's resolutions. Joining us now is Noah St. John. And Mr. St. John, you're very focused on this concept of eliminating what you term self-sabotage. Let's get down to brass tacks. How do we do that?
Well, it's actually a term that I came up with called head trash. It's about getting rid of your, what I call your head trash. Your head trash is the voice in your head that says, I can't do it because. So for everyone watching, If you think about your goals, think about what you want to accomplish in this new year, and then immediately, for most people, what happens is they say, well, I really want to do this. I want to make more money. I want to write a book. I want to grow my business. I want to get a new job. I want to get a promotion, but I can't do it because dot dot dot. And then you just fill in the blank. They say, I can't do it. I'm too old. I'm too young. I don't have the experience. I'm not smart enough. I don't have the money. I can't afford it. Whatever it is. And what happens is people make themselves right. So one of the things you need to do, especially as we're talking about New Year's resolutions, Is look at the things that you're telling yourself that I call your head trash. And then you wanna make sure that you take out that trash because that's gonna be the number one thing that I've seen that holds so many people back.
Wow, that's amazing. I love that term. You know, people tend to make a lot of New Year's resolutions, but obviously not all of them end up sticking. Why do you think that is?
Well, it's actually very simple because number one, people don't, are not aware of what a habit actually is. This is something that I work with my clients on. And when I was speaking at colleges, universities, or doing workshops, I talk about what a habit What people try to do is they try to use willpower to change a habit. It's like saying, you know, you have a plate of chocolate chip cookies and somebody comes in the kitchen and says, now don't eat those cookies. Whatever you do, don't eat the cookies. What are you gonna do? You're gonna eat the cookies, right? We humans don't like to deprive ourselves of anything. And so instead, you gotta understand what a habit is. It's actually 5 stages: the cue, routine, the reward, craving, belief. It sounds complicated. It's actually very simple. And you have the trigger, and then you have a reward that happens in the brain, and that's why you keep doing a habit. So all we need to do is actually change the routine and change the belief. One of the ways that we do that is using my concept of Afformations, not affirmations, but Afformations are empowering questions that actually change your subconscious beliefs while you're not even paying attention. So it's a very, very powerful concept that's really helped a lot of people to not only change their habits but really change their lives. Wow.
One of the things that becomes so apparent is that if we say negative things to ourselves, that can really become, for lack of a better term, sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. How important is positive thinking in, for instance, breaking bad habits?
Well, it's very important, but what I always like to say to people is that I would rather have you do one positive action than think 1,000 positive thoughts. It's just like if you sit there and say, well, I'm going to be a millionaire, I'm going to be a millionaire. What are you doing? Well, I'm sitting here eating junk food and doing nothing really. It's like, well, that's not going to do anything, right? But thinking positive, no, it's not enough. You got to take action. It's like building a house. You can't just sit there and hope a house shows up. You have to take one little action every single day. But that's That's a really important thing for everybody watching. Just take little baby steps. You don't have to eat the whole elephant all at one sitting. You know, you just take little baby steps like I was talking about a moment ago. You know, looking at what a habit actually is, just changing those little habits every day and big doors can swing on very small hinges.
You're the type of guy that I like to call a wisdom wizard. Like, you have so much wisdom from your life experience, from your studies. What's one bit of advice that just completely rocked your world where you were like, whoa, I never thought about it that way?
Well, that's when I discovered Afformations. It was actually 25 years ago. I was in the shower. It was— I call it the shower that changed everything when I had an aha moment and I said, wait a minute, why are we going around making statements we don't believe when the human mind responds automatically to questions? And that's when I invented my Afformations method, which is using empowering questions. So instead of saying, I'm happy, I'm rich, I'm successful, you would ask a question: why am I so happy? Why am I so successful? Why am I always in the right place at the right time? And using the embedded Presupposition factor of the brain. Your brain actually searches for the answer to the question, and that is one of the ways that we help people literally change their beliefs at the subconscious level. You change your beliefs, change your habits, change your results, and that's how you change your life.
My goodness, this is a good friend to have. We're happy you're our friend today.
Okay. Absolutely happy to be here. Hey, let me— I'll be happy to come back anytime. This is fun.
Noah St. John, thanks for joining us today. My pleasure.
