Have you ever wondered why some people seem to almost miraculously overcome their problems and challenges whereas other people go from therapist to therapist, spending thousands of dollars and seeing no results?

How can one person suffering from stress or anxiety or a phobia suddenly completely and utterly overcome it?

The answer itself is simple, doing it yourself, is slightly more complex.

People overcome these problems because they have quite simply made a decision. They have decided that from that day forth they are no longer going to have that problem. Or they visit a therapist convinced that they are going to get rid of their problems and walk out of the office cured.

Making the decision is the easiest part of this equation, you need to add to it leverage, or the will to get rid of the behaviour.

How do you get this?

Human beings are motivated by two things - pleasure and pain. We generally move towards pleasurable experiences and away from painful ones. To get this leverage you need to associate great pain with continuing the damaging behaviour and great pleasure with being free from it.

When you have this leverage, you are ready to let the behaviour go once and for all.

Tony Robbins tells a story at his seminars about one of his friends who is a grandfather. Being a typical grandfather he smoked and rather enjoyed it. His family and friends had been nagging him to quit for years, but he liked it and kept doing it, even though he was only ever allowed to smoke in his study at home.

One day his granddaughter came to visit. She'd been to school that day and learned all about the dangers of smoking and what it could do to you. When she saw her grandpa go into his study for a smoke she ran over to him and threw her arms around him crying whilst she said, "I don't want you to die grandpa".

As you can imagine, this was a very emotional experience for him. That very moment he threw his cigarettes into the trash and never smoked again.

How's that for leverage?

You need similar leverage in order to let go of the old habit that has affected your life so much and to create a new, empowering way of being.

A close friend of mine used to have a phobia of spiders. We're not talking about a "oh there's a spider" kind of fear, we're talking a "OH MY GOD THERE'S A SPIDER" jump on the chair, run screaming out of the room phobia.

One day she got rid of it in moments. She didn't see a therapist or spend weeks agonizing over it. She was sat in the garden with her son when a spider crawled up into her hair. She sat rigid for a moment and thought, "If I panic, it's going to terrify my son and give him a fear of spiders". That was her leverage - she didn't want to give her son a fear of spiders - so she calmly took the spider out of her hair and released it onto the ground.

Leverage is the key to making any change in your life.

One thing to be aware of is what therapists call secondary gain. This is where you have an almost hidden reason for performing the behaviour. For example, a child who is starved of attention will misbehave in order to get attention - the secondary gain from the bad behaviour is to get attention from his parents. A hypochondriac enjoys being ill because they get lots of attention and pity from the people around you - the "poor me" syndrome.

Any behaviour you have in your life - whether it is anxiety, panic attacks, phobias or fears can be overcome through having big enough reasons why to get rid of it. Get your leverage and get yourself free from those behaviours that have held you back so long.