photo by Scott Maxwell

There are many reasons we want to make changes in our life. Often, the greater the perceived reward the greater the motivation we have. Many times there’s more than one reason for making a change. Understanding these reasons can be key to our transformation.

For example, someone might want to quit smoking because they want to feel healthier, they don’t want long term health issues, they are a new parent not wanting to set a bad example for their child, and cigarettes cost more and more.

I have a hypnotist friend who requires his clients to come up with a list of six reasons they want the change before he will work with them. He only wants to work with clients who truly want change. One of the ways he tests their commitment is their ability to thoughtfully name why they want the change.

Years ago (before I was using tapping) I was working with a friend “Chris” who was having a hard time losing weight. He was on the typical yo-yo of lose weight and then slowly gaining it back. This repeated over and over again for a number of years. Finally, his doctor said to him, “Do you want to see your daughter get married?” who was 5 at the time.

Of course he said yes.

“Then you need to stop this.”

It was no longer a matter of wanting to lose weight; it was about being there for his daughter. Chris took his five-year-old daughter to a bridal shop and put her in a grown up wedding dress and took a few pictures. He put one picture on the refrigerator at home, another on the refrigerator at work, and he put one in his wallet. Whenever he craved a snack, he looked at these pictures. This helped him move beyond just wanting to make a good eating choice to the reason he was making that choice.

Understand Why We Want the Change and Tapping

Once we understand why we want to make a change we can integrate this into our tapping/EFT routine. There are times when we aren’t very motivated to do the tapping we know we want to do. We don’t want to have to face the issue we have or to dig up past emotions. We can use our list of why we want to make the change as a great way to start a tapping session. For example:

I want to quit smoking…because I want to feel healthier…I don’t want to worry about long-term health issues…I want to be a good role model for my kids…I want to save money…so we can do things the whole family enjoys…I know this make take some work…but the benefits of quitting outweigh the time and effort it is going to take…therefore I am going to do the work right now…because I know with every moment I spend working on this I’m a moment closer to being able to enjoy all these benefits of not smoking

If you start your tapping session with something like this you are going to be very motivated to do the work you want to do.

In many cases simply because you name the reasons you want the change to happen, aspects of resistance will arise and be cleared as you are tapping.

Two Types of Reasons Why We Want Change

As we have shown, the answers to the questions, “Why do we want a change?” or “What are the benefits from making this change?”, are very powerful. One more refinement will make these questions even more beneficial in our healing process.

There are two types of reasons for making a change. The first is to move away from pain; the second is to move towards pleasure. For almost every change in our life we are going to have both types of reasons for our change.

In our quitting smoking example, a reason to move away from pain is to stop feeling unhealthy. Being able to afford fun things to do with the family because of the savings that come with not buying cigarettes is a move toward pleasure.

This isn’t always the case, but often the most important motivation is getting away from pain. As this occurs, gaining pleasure becomes the primary motivation.

It’s important to note this because it is very easy to get stuck in the middle of these two motivations. Getting out of pain is a great motivation, but once the pain is gone it’s easy to stop doing the work because we no longer have the nagging feeling of the pain. For this reason it is very important that our list of reasons for changing includes some reasons that move us towards pleasure.

Focusing on the reasons we are going to gain pleasure from the change then motivates us to complete the transformation process.

The next time you tap on an issue, name not only the change you want but also why you want that change. Knowing this will more surely motivate you to achieve the change and transformation you desire.

[Note: Dan Cleary shares a very interesting point of view on this called “The 10% solution” in the interview I did with him. (link)]