My client arrived for her session a few minutes early. She's proud of herself because she walked every day for a week and feels great. Then she continues with "but I didn't do well with eating, I ate too much food again - even though I wasn't hungry! And then I felt terrible afterwords, as usual".

What should you do? The good news is that there is something Effective and Actionable you can do as the hypnotist to help your clients when they present a perceived "mistake".

Hypnosis Quick Tip #7 : How to Expertly Reframe Your Client's Perceived "Mistakes" in 3 Easy Steps

The first thing to do when you see your clients in your office again, is ask them "what worked for you this week" ? And I wrote a blog article on that technique [ Hypnosis Quick Tip #4 : Help Clients Succeed by Focusing on what’s Working  ] a few weeks ago that if you haven't read it yet, you should start there.

Your client is likely to have some success, and a few mistakes- especially when the issue is weight loss because there are so many aspects to healthy weight loss. So what do you do when your client presents you with one of their perceived mistakes? Here's a simple and effective technique I like to use :

1. Focus on the importance of AWARENESS as the first step

Ask your client when they became AWARE of the choice they were making. It's important that we teach our clients the first step in any change is AWARENESS. We can't change something we're not aware of. Once we are aware of the change we want to make, then we can consciously make it, then over time that change becomes a new habit and we don't need to be conscious of it anymore.

2. Praise your client for the awareness, regardless of when they  became aware of it.

If your client became aware of their "mistake" early on and did something anyway that is a clue that you may have something deeper to work on - perhaps a limiting belief, or fear, but praise them anyway for their awareness of their choice - it is still an important step in the right direction. Say something like "I think you did a great job being aware of this because in the past you wouldn't have noticed it [ until later in the day ], and next time you can take the next step, which is an identification of how to do it differently next time".

However if your client became aware of it after the fact, praise them that awareness is the first step, and the fact they became aware of their behavior at all is a good thing and give them a waking suggestion that next time they'll be aware of it sooner. Then follow up with this suggestion as a post-hypnotic suggestion in the hypnosis session.

3. Reframe the perceived "mistake" as a learning opportunity.

I believe "mistakes" are there to help us learn and grow, and as long as we take the time to learn the lesson, then they are not really mistakes. Help your client learn from this mistake by asking a very important question:

If you had a chance to do that all over again, would you do differently?

This simple but powerful question helps your clients to learn from the experience, and hopefully do it differently next time. Reinforce this change by doing a Age Progression, or Future Pacing with your client in the hypnosis session.

This 3 step process is just the beginning

This 3 step process helps your client to feel good about the changes they are making, and understand how they can continually grow and get better over time. As the hypnotist, it gives you resources to reinforce during the hypnosis session to strengthen the change, and personalize sessions for your clients.

But it's just the beginning - remember that anything your client shares with you before the hypnosis session can be helpful and something you can use in the session to reinforce what your client came in for (more on that in an upcoming blog topic). Your ability to expertly blend the right hypnosis techniques and language into the session for your client helps them achieve success - and often relief, faster.