A swish pattern is a way to reprogram your behaviours. It works by creating an association between an unwanted habit and the behaviour you would like to replace it with. What you are actually doing is using a bad habit to trigger a positive self concept. You then have the willpower to choose a more empowering behaviour. The combination of repetition and visualisation makes this technique very powerful in eliciting change.

1. Start by identifying exactly which behaviour you want to change, and then imagine yourself acting in that way. It is preferable to imagine yourself in the same way as you would experience, not from an external perspective.
2. Next, visualise yourself as you would be if you made the desired change. This image can be from an external perspective and can be as idealistic as you like.
3. Once you have two clear visualised images, arrange them in your mind’s eye so that the image of the unwanted behaviour is large, bright and central. Set the picture of the person you want to become in the bottom right hand corner, and make it small and dark.
4. Once you have the two images ready, you can swish them together so that the unresourceful behaviour automatically triggers the resourceful one. Do this by imagining that the small picture in the right hand corner suddenly grows in size and brightness until it dramatically bursts through the picture of the old behaviour. At the same time say ‘swoosh!’ and clap your hands with as much excitement as you can muster.
5. The key to the swish pattern is that you need to repeat it a number of times, as quickly as possible. Repeat the pattern a minimum of five times and try to pick up speed. It works more effectively if you can keep clapping and swoosh!-ing without long pauses in between.

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