Module 3 – The Blueprints (Plans)
Create A Buffer Plan
A Buffer Plan is a plan you will create in which you decide 24 hours in advance (minimum), with your prefrontal cortex, how much, what, and when you’re going to buffer and that you will never buffer in response to an urge. This is a process of reconditioning, and when you buffer in response to an urge you interrupt this process.
A Buffer Plan can be made a week in advance, if desired, but must always be done at least 24 hours in advance of any buffering. No exceptions. Every time you buffer you must have planned it and written it down AT LEAST 24 hours ahead of time.
A Buffer Plan also includes anticipating how you’re going to feel before, during, and after you buffer. The power of the Buffer Plan lies in giving you a structure to use your conscious, human mind to make decisions instead of reacting to urges. “I don’t know” is never an acceptable answer on the Buffer Plan.
ASK YOURSELF:
How does a Buffer Plan sound to you?
Do you have any concerns?
What are your current buffering habits?
What’s working?
What isn’t?
Create a Buffer Plan for the next week using the worksheet given below. You are welcome to modify your Buffer Plan as long as you do it AT LEAST 24 hours in advance of any buffering.
Decisions Ahead Of Time
It’s important for you to understand how much control you have over your results when you decide ahead of time the actions you will take to get what you want and then maintain your commitment.
Some examples of Decisions Ahead of Time include:
I only buffer with what is on my Buffer Plan.
I complete my Buffer Plans with my prefrontal cortex 24 hours in advance.
I will not beat myself up for any reason.
If I do not follow my Buffer Plan, I complete a ‘Write It Down & Move On’ worksheet.
This process keeps your prefrontal cortex in charge, reduces decision fatigue, increases integrity with yourself, and can be applied in many other areas of your life. It requires discipline but can give you tremendous freedom from negotiating with yourself.
Making decisions from a place of willpower or resistance is not advised because willpower is finite. Instead, you will rely on a decision made ahead of time. The quality of our relationship with ourselves is what will determine whether we keep these commitments. If you have difficulty honoring a commitment, I do not want you to work on willpower; rather, I want you to work on your relationships with yourself.
ASK YOURSELF:
What types of decisions ahead of time do you think will benefit you the most?
Do you have a strong relationship with yourself?
Do you trust yourself to keep commitments you make to yourself?
Why or why not?
Exception Plans
I want you to understand that exceptions are part of protocol work. There may be times you want to make exceptions. I want you to understand that the key is learning not to react or respond to a presented urge but rather to use your prefrontal cortex to plan these exceptions at least 24 hours in advance and to make commitments to yourself and keep them.
I also want you to be prepared for the consequences of the exception. Perhaps you won’t feel physically well after the exception, or maybe you will feel foggy or have a headache. It’s important you realize that as part of the planning process. You are signing up for the full experience, consequences and all.
Exception Plans are optional and involve filling out a worksheet ahead of time, including any limits that you wish to place on yourself.
ASK YOURSELF:
Do you imagine an exception plan might be useful for you sometimes?
When? (Ideas if needed: wedding, vacation, special party, holidays.)
What are your thoughts about creating an exception plan?
Does the idea worry you at all?
Does it make you nervous?
Does it seem freeing?
Planning For Difficult Situations
Just as you may want to plan exceptions with your prefrontal cortex, you want to do the same for situations you expect will be particularly stressful or difficult and where you might normally have buffered more than is on your buffer plan in the past. You want to anticipate that your unconscious brain will attempt to make you think that you will die if you don’t buffer. Having a plan helps keep your prefrontal cortex in charge.
ASK YOURSELF:
What types of situations in your life do you think this tool would be useful for?
Why?
What has typically happened?
How would this tool help you create a different outcome?
Upsetting Event
Sometimes upsetting events happen that we then use as an excuse to buffer. Perhaps we are confronted, something unexpected happens, or we do something we wish we hadn’t done. Instead of buffering, we want to notice that something happened that upset us and grab this worksheet instead of buffering off protocol.
ASK YOURSELF:
Can you think of an event in the past that you felt upset about and your response to it was to buffer?
WORKSHEETS
(Click to download)
