Welcome to this new lesson. You’ve made it this far in the program. I love your progress!
When we designed a porn reboot program with one of my clients, Fabio, I told him that he needed to punish himself for relapses.
And he felt very uncomfortable.
So I had to convince him how important it was.
And then he committed to it.
And he was lucky enough to relapse just once.
Right after that relapse, he applied the punishment.
He got up immediately from his couch and went to the kitchen.
He cooked pasta.
And then Fabio gave it to a colleague whom he disliked.
That was something that he didn’t enjoy, so next time, he didn’t want to relapse.
That’s how we’re going to rewire your brain to hate the old habit.
We both don’t want you to relapse but let’s face it—you might.
And we’re going to use each relapse as an opportunity to teach your brain to dislike porn.
Every time you relapse, you get a negative consequence (NC) for that.
So your brain starts associating pain with relapses rather than pleasure.
The next thing you know, you won’t want to relapse—miraculously.
Note that ideally, something good must come out of your punishment.
This makes it even more effective.
Here are a few ideas for punishment:
- Donate money to a cause that you don’t support.
- Cook something for someone you don’t like (just like Fabio).
- Do the dishes and clean the kitchen.
- Give up coffee for 30 days and donate coffee to a donation bin at your grocery store
- Give up TV for 30 days
- Use a non-smartphone for 30 days.
- Shave each day.
Now here’s the most important thing in your porn reboot process.
You need to exercise the discipline to actually apply the punishment.
As your coach, I am your biggest supporter but I can’t run your laps for you.
First, you need the discipline to do the replacement habit.
Second, you need the discipline to apply pleasure for sticking to the replacement habit and pain for relapsing.
Unless you do it, nothing works.
With that said, thank you for your time and energy in this lesson. I will see you in the next one!