Tony Robbins' Neuro Associative Conditioning - does it work?

[psychfan]

In "Awaken the Giant Within", Tony Robbins discusses neuro-associative conditioning (NAC) which is a technique he advocates for greater personal effectiveness. In short, he instructs readers to associate pain with not taking the action that we know we should take, and associate pleasure with taking action.

Has anyone here tried this?

[stayfly]

Originally Posted by psychfan

In "Awaken the Giant Within", Tony Robbins discusses neuro-associative conditioning (NAC) which is a technique he advocates for greater personal effectiveness. In short, he instructs readers to associate pain with not taking the action that we know we should take, and associate pleasure with taking action.

Has anyone here tried this?

it definitely works

you do it naturally anyway

TR just teaches you how to use it to your own advantage

have you tried conciuously applying it to an area of your life yet?

[psychfan]

Originally Posted by stayfly

it definitely works

you do it naturally anyway

TR just teaches you how to use it to your own advantage

have you tried conciuously applying it to an area of your life yet?

Yes, I agree that your mind does this all the time, associating pain and pleasure to various actions/inactions, though this is mostly done at the very short-term level - i.e., your mind is constantly seeking short-term pleasure and avoiding short-term pain.

I'm just wondering whether you can consciously harness this to serve your bigger picture/longer term purposes.

No, I haven't tried using this technique yet; wanted to see if others could vouch for its effectiveness.

[stayfly]

Originally Posted by psychfan

Yes, I agree that your mind does this all the time, associating pain and pleasure to various actions/inactions, though this is mostly done at the very short-term level - i.e., your mind is constantly seeking short-term pleasure and avoiding short-term pain.

I'm just wondering whether you can consciously harness this to serve your bigger picture/longer term purposes.

No, I haven't tried using this technique yet; wanted to see if others could vouch for its effectiveness.

cool. I can definitely vouch for this technique working. I've used it consistently throughout my life and have got great results from it. here's some examples of how I've used it to help me;

1. in a three month period I went from being below average performing to the top 5% in my field by conditioning the pleasure of meeting and exceeding the standards set by the company I worked for

2. used it to condition the importance of saving money, allowing me to save a 20% for the deposit of an apartment I bought and love

3. used it to develop the habit of exercising and eating healthily 6 days a week, every week

there's so many other things I've used it for but those are three of the bigger ones

is there an area of your life you'd like to improve? if so, I might be able to make some specific suggestions on how you can use NAC to benifit you and achieve your desired result.

[ajkumar]

Yes it works...

and a great example is putting a rubber band around your wrist.

every time you do something you shouldn't, snap the rubber band That way your brain links that thing you shouldn't do to pain....


Hopefully that answers your questions.


I wrote an article about pain and pleasure:

Leverage with Pain & Pleasure | Persuasive.net

[psychfan]

Originally Posted by stayfly

is there an area of your life you'd like to improve? if so, I might be able to make some specific suggestions on how you can use NAC to benifit you and achieve your desired result.

Yes, I am a chronic procrastinator, and I've tried various strategies to combat this, but I think ultimately the problem is that I associate pain (as in "oh, this is going to be so difficult") to doing the work I need to do, and so can find a hundred things I would rather do even though none of those things provides anything other than short-term pleasure and avoidance of short-term pain.

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by psychfan

In "Awaken the Giant Within", Tony Robbins discusses neuro-associative conditioning (NAC) which is a technique he advocates for greater personal effectiveness. In short, he instructs readers to associate pain with not taking the action that we know we should take, and associate pleasure with taking action.

Has anyone here tried this?

I don't like that concept
I tried it and it did not work for me
but what has worked for me lately is

-what will lead me towards happiness and away from suffering -

[Keith]

Originally Posted by psychfan

No, I haven't tried using this technique yet; wanted to see if others could vouch for its effectiveness.

I fall into that trap too. It's simple procrastination.

If you want to know if it works, just try it and see.

[stayfly]

Originally Posted by psychfan

Yes, I am a chronic procrastinator, and I've tried various strategies to combat this, but I think ultimately the problem is that I associate pain (as in "oh, this is going to be so difficult") to doing the work I need to do, and so can find a hundred things I would rather do even though none of those things provides anything other than short-term pleasure and avoidance of short-term pain.

you can definitely use NAC combined with other techniques to overcome procrastination

here's my suggestions;

1. each day, write down 3 important things that you want to do that day

2. do those three tasks and as you do and complete each task, give yourself the feeling of pleasure for taking action and completing the task. simple take 2 minutes and say to yourself something like "I'm very glad to have completed the task and to be building an exciting future for myself, then envision the perfect like you are working towards and feel good about it. by doing this you are linking pleasure to doing and completing tasks

3. create some type of reward for yourself so that if you complete all three tasks each day for a month you buy yourself something you really want or reward yourself some other way.

4. over time, increase the amount of tasks you do each day and continue rewarding yourself for taking action and completing tasks

5. if you ever do slip up miss a task every now and again. don't worry about it, in fact feel good about it. say, "I don't feel like doing this today and that's ok. I will do this tomorrow instead".


other than that, my other suggestion would be a small trick you can do to trick your brain into doing stuff. if there's something you don't feel like doing but you know you should do it, say to yourself "I'm not going to do this" but do it anyway!! this REALLY works (it's explained more why it works in "Do It Tomorrow").


let me know if that helps. if there's a specific task or activity that you have trouble doing I can possibly offer more specific advice on how to overcome procrastination for that particular task or activity.

[straysweeper]

I have gone through a lot of TR's material, and to be honest, up until now I have barely put much of it into actual use. I have done two UPW events, and got something different from them both times. Conditioning and reinforcement are important. There is also a difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it emotionally. I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself a question and not answered it, even though it would probably only take an extra 15 seconds to give a thoughtful answer.

Go fig. Yes, pain and pleasure work. Some can go based on just one. I envy those that go just based on pleasure.

[Will Edwards]

For me NAC is NLP by another name - or, at least, in part. I believe Tony ran into trouble with Bandler & Grindler the founders of NLP and, rumour has it, he paid some amount in settlement, so I think that basically confirms the observation.

Not meaning to knock Tony here by the way. I think he has done a good job in taking NLP to a wider audience. Also, I notice that these days, he openly uses and refers to NLP in his seminars.

Will

[magi13]

Originally Posted by psychfan

In "Awaken the Giant Within", Tony Robbins discusses neuro-associative conditioning (NAC) which is a technique he advocates for greater personal effectiveness. In short, he instructs readers to associate pain with not taking the action that we know we should take, and associate pleasure with taking action.

Has anyone here tried this?

^,^ hedonic view. People are just reviving old knowledge. haha it's nothing new

[stayfly]

Originally Posted by Will Edwards

For me NAC is NLP by another name - or, at least, in part. I believe Tony ran into trouble with Bandler & Grindler the founders of NLP and, rumour has it, he paid some amount in settlement, so I think that basically confirms the observation.

Not meaning to knock Tony here by the way. I think he has done a good job in taking NLP to a wider audience. Also, I notice that these days, he openly uses and refers to NLP in his seminars.

Will

true to some extent.

the difference is that NLP "programs" the person i.e. one session to program you to stop smoking (as an example)

NAC "conditions" the person, thus creating a stronger reality i.e. conditioning yourself everyday to be a non smoker and to value health and fitness (as an example)

TR discusses it in more detail in his books and audio programs

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Will Edwards

For me NAC is NLP by another name - or, at least, in part. I believe Tony ran into trouble with Bandler & Grindler the founders of NLP and, rumour has it, he paid some amount in settlement, so I think that basically confirms the observation.

I don't know a huge amount about NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) , but NAC (Neuro Associative Conditioning) is a much more appropriate name for what Tony covers in "Awaken the Giant Within". It's more about conditioning than programming, and it's not particularly linguistic in focus...

[Will Edwards]

Originally Posted by stayfly

true to some extent.

the difference is that NLP "programs" the person i.e. one session to program you to stop smoking (as an example)

NAC "conditions" the person, thus creating a stronger reality i.e. conditioning yourself everyday to be a non smoker and to value health and fitness (as an example)

TR discusses it in more detail in his books and audio programs

Yes - not much difference to me - NLP calls 'conditioning' ... anchoring.

[spirit4711]

Maybe you like to follow me in this thread? I'm now following his Personal Power program. It's full of NAC.

I experience it actually working. It's practice, awareness, practice, awareness etc. NAC is a method that is powerful for me. I guess it's powerful for many, but they must experience that themselves.

So far I'm very happy doing that progam!

[Orecle]

Not to knock Tony, cos he was mine and probably most peoples intro into Personal Dev. But i have been studying NLP lately and I am shocked at how much of it, is in his material. At least over 75%.

Rapport, Know your outcome, sensory acuity, physiology dictates state, power of belief, I could go on

Tony has a program he did for business and he does attribute NLP directly. and I think in personal power original, but not so much later.

To Tonys credit, I do not think NLP would be anywhere near as popular without his help. No body can sell it with the enthusiasm that Tony does.

But most of Tony tools are from NLP. But to be fair, there is no reason for hm not to teach it, after all Bandler and Grinder modelled somebody else.

As A test, next time you are in a book shop, flick through NLP for dummies

[Matiasfx]

Actually, Tont talks about NLP directly lately (for example in the program "Creating lasting Change") and he also talks about Bandler & Grindler directly and he said those were 2 of his first mentors and he also told a few of their bests and more bizzare stories when interrupting the pattern of some patients.

Great stuff

Cheers

Matty

[Orecle]

Originally Posted by Matiasfx

Actually, Tont talks about NLP directly lately (for example in the program "Creating lasting Change") and he also talks about Bandler & Grindler directly and he said those were 2 of his first mentors and he also told a few of their bests and more bizzare stories when interrupting the pattern of some patients.

Great stuff

Cheers

Matty

Why do some of the NLP guys seem to have a dislike for him. Paul Mckenna even has a dig at Tony in one of his programs? I have never understood it

NLP comprehensive and Christopher Howard show respect for Tony in the programs, but I have seen 'Tony bashing' on a few NLP discussion forums

Does anyone know the origins of the feud?

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by Orecle

...
Does anyone know the origins of the feud?

Nope, but it could be jealousy. Tony is hugely successful.

Tony talks a bit in the Personal Power program about NLP. Basically he said: very powerful, learned a lot, but what turned him off is that many NLP people where like fanatical, as if NLP was a religion or a church.

Moreover he says that NLP is very very powerful but it's not the only thing that works. I guess he uses more techniques than only NLP.