Scott Gallagher

Stimulate Their Wanting

This is a brilliant insight that comes from the work of Abraham-Hicks. When you want to encourage a new behavior in someone else, “stimulate the wanting of the other.” What that means is, help them grow the motivation and desire within themselves to go towards what they most want.

That doesn’t happen by pointing out what they’re doing wrong. This simply stimulates their thinking about what’s wrong and what they don’t want. So go the other way...

Look for behaviors in the other person that you want to support, encourage and reinforce. (It’s like the whale trainers I described earlier.) Ask about what truly makes them feel good inside, what kind of life they’d like to live, and how they would feel if they were. In helping them focus on what’s positive for them, you’ll contribute to raising their vibrations – and your own at the same time.

‘Stimulating the wanting of others’ is also what I do in my coaching. For example, I’ll say to someone: “Just imagine that you don’t have your unwanted habit or addiction any more. It’s gone. Now what would you want? What would you want your life to look like?” If I were to just say, “Hey, drugs are bad. Don’t do that,” their logical response would be, “Yeah, but what am I going to replace them with?” That’s why stimulating their desire for something better is so much more effective.

One of my 12 steps sponsors once told me, “I used to love heroin so much, I had to find a drug more powerful than that in order to stop. And I did. It’s called God.” What he was saying was that he needed a power even greater than heroin to make him feel better, and that’s what worked for him. But what that ‘higher power’ or source of good feelings is will be different for each of us. It’s whatever creates that “entire psychic change” within us that shifts how we look at, feel about and live into our life.