Jay Shaw explains why fighting old habits backfires and what works instead. The law of reverse action says trying to suppress a behavior makes it stronger, like the pink elephant thought experiment. Instead, embody the state you want: pretend to be asleep rather than trying to force sleep.
So it ain't even about getting over the self-talk. It's about designing your new self-talk and getting so wrapped up in it that you forget to remember and remember to forget about the old self-talk. I tell people all the time, I don't hypnotize you to stop doing stuff. I hypnotize you to start doing stuff. And you get so busy doing this new stuff that you forget about the old stuff. The way that you accidentally run in that old self-talk, I want you accidentally running this new self-talk. I don't want— anytime you try to stop doing something, you run into what we call the law of reverse action. Law of reverse action says the harder you try, the harder you fail. You ever tried to fall asleep? Good luck. You don't fall asleep, you relax into sleep. The quickest way to fall asleep is to pretend to be asleep. Pretend like you already sleep. Your subconscious mind doesn't negate information. If I say, Nicole, don't think about a pink elephant, first thing you're going to think about is a pink elephant.
