Please check out the full guide to beating porn addiction in this and upcoming issues (For the first in the series, please refer to issue #1436). The creators of the infographic have taken each of the 25 strategies and provided clear practical actions to take in detail:
Visualisation – And It’s Backed By Science
Most visualisation techniques have little evidence to support them, except one.
The scientific name for it is Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions and is the result of 20 years of scientific research by New York University psychologist Garbiele Oettingen and her colleague Heather Kappes.
How does it work?
Well you don’t imagine the way you want the future to be, as most pop psychologists will suggest. That will make it harder to achieve. Think of yourself viewing less porn and you’ll watch more porn.
In order to replace a bad habit with a good habit you have to methodically combine negative and positive thoughts or, as Oettingen named it, WOOP for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.
The four stages are:
• Think about what you want to achieve for five minutes – a porn free life, for instance.
• Then vividly imagine the best thing you associate with having achieved that outcome (an emotion, more time, feeling happier, more in control).
• Ask yourself what internal obtacles are most likely to prevent you from achieving this – this is about the internal rather than external issues you have. Why can’t you stop watching porn?
• Then create an ‘if-then’ plan in order to take action if that obstacle arises. “If I find myself wanting to watch porn, I’ll remember how it makes me feel and leave the room, or use an internet blocker immediately”.
This technique works by showing you what you want, but helps motivate you to achieve it by ensuring you create a plan to deal with any obstacles. You can’t achieve your aim just by dreaming about it.
Check out the official website here: WOOP My Life.
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