Maybe I should say “give yourself a GOOD talking to”! What’s your inner voice saying to you most of the time? Is it saying: “I’m a truly wonderful human being” or “I am worthwhile” or “I’m always good enough”? I’m guessing that, most of the time, it’s more likely to be “Oh no, I failed again” or “Loser” or “What can I do/say/think in order to be accepted and loved?”
I’m a life coach, not a psychologist, so I can’t tell you why we do it, but as a member of the human race I can vouch for the fact that we definitely do it. Here in Ireland, maybe we even have an extreme habit of doing this. Our historically Catholic ethos does not promote our ability to be proud of ourselves, congratulate ourselves or speak confidently of our own achievements.
So with that sort of background and schooling, I’m guessing that most of you know the kind of self-talk that I’m getting at here. Fair enough. But what can we do about it? In my life coaching business, I regularly come across people who are very keen on positive thinking, affirmations, visualisations etc. Great. Great for about the 20 minutes that you are doing your affirmations/visualisations etc. What about the other 23hrs 40mins of the day? Hmmmm?
Here’s where I’ve got to so far. I started out doing yoga when I was about twenty. I thought it would change my life. I enjoyed doing it. I loved meeting other people who were interested in yoga. But it didn’t change my life.
Years later I trained in massage and aromatherapy. I thought “This is it! This will change my life.” I loved/love being a massage/aroma therapist. It’s very fulfilling. It’s part of who I am. Helping people is what I enjoy. It didn’t change my life.
I studied Life Coaching. Now - if ever there was something that would change my life - this would be it! I trained and practise now as a life coach, helping clients, blogging and writing an e-newsletter. I LOVE it. I get great feedback from readers and clients. It didn’t change my life.
When I started learning/studying NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) I began to see what was going on in my life. I read books by Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Michael Neill, Paul McKenna, Owen Fitzpatrick and Brian Colbert, among others and these writers helped me to make sense of my life so far. Things that fall into the “DO” category, do not change my life. They are actions I take in my life. I can use them to help me make positive changes. But they are not the changes, they are just the tools.
Things that fall into the “BEING” category, are the ones that change everything. When the things that I DO are in tune with the person that I AM, then my life starts to flow in a way that no amount of training can achieve. I am very proud of all that I have studied and achieved (although even being so proud of myself took years and lots of positive self-talk), but most of all I am proud of the person that I am. That is who I am 24hrs of the day. So, while I may spend time visualising, time meditating, time doing positive affirmations, the most useful thing I can do is to tell myself, 24/7 that I am loved, that I am worthwhile and that I am always good enough, just as I am.
Try telling yourself that, 24 hours a day for even a week, and see how you feel. You’ll sleep better, feel more relaxed and more positive about each new day.
I wish all of my readers a very happy, healthy and joyful new year for 2010. The capacity for joy and happiness exists within all of us.
Portmarnock Beach
It is like a rich seam of gold that can be ignored and left undetected for years, hidden out of sight. At any time, we can decide to uncover that treasure in all its glory and use it for our own good and that of our neighbours and the world.
I’m looking at what new levels of “treasure-hunting” I can get up to this year. I am freshly accredited with NLP Life Coaching skills from the Irish Institute of NLP, building on my existing six years of coaching and NLP qualifications. I have my website and blog up and running, newsletters going out regularly (sign up if you want to be included), have completed my first four Toastmasters speeches, got the job of Sgt-at-arms in my local Toastmasters club, have exhibited my art in various local venues with the Portmarnock Art Group, have finished my coaching with the Jack Canfield coaching organisation and have been co-founder of a Skype mastermind group (with members in Spain, Germany, Ireland, and others joining from Switzerland this year, we hope) arising from the Canfield coaching programme.
This all sounds like blowing my own trumpet and - y’know what? - it is! Try it! It’s good for the soul! It took me most of my year with Canfield to learn to acknowledge my achievements, allow myself to take credit for my hard work and just rewards and to learn to plan for more successes in my future.
So I’m recommending that you start your year with a nice long list of all your achievements/successes in 2009. What a great way to head into a new year. And let me remind you that often the things that you take for granted are really successes. For instance, what if you stay at home to care for an elderly or sick relative? You might think - well, I don’t go out to work, so I’m not really achieving anything. Wrong!! You can write down as achievements: caring, nurturing, sharing, nursing, showing love, supporting, helping, organising. You can write down as skills you have: patience, caring, love, willingness to help, interest in others, using your strength to ease others weakness, compassion and understanding.
Start now. Write down lists and lists of achievements, successes. Don’t try to categorise them or rate them. They are all valid. In my personal life I often find that at the end of a day, my greatest success might have been to show understanding and a listening ear to my teenage son, when I might really feel like screaming at him instead! Any of you with kids will know that this is a REAL achievement!!
I’d love to hear how you get on with this. You are my readers, my clients, my supporters. Without you there would be no reason for me to write this. It’s a two way street. If you have something to say, tell me.
For now I leave you with my best wishes again, for your health, happiness and the uncovering of great “seams” of joy in your life for 2010.
What a fantastic day it is here in Dublin today! The sun is shining. It’s a beautiful autumn day. Makes me feel great.
When the sun is shining, like it is now, it’s so much easier to feel cheerful and positive. Has anything changed? Has the recession gone away? Have the people in charge suddenly started taking responsibility for themselves and the importance of the jobs they hold? No. It’s just that the good weather puts me in better humour.
How often do you say that the weather makes you feel good, or bad (if it rains)? How many times do you say someone, or something, made you feel a certain way? In relation to the weather, I do it all the time. At this time of year, when the days get shorter, I feel more melancholy and have to remind myself to change my mood, since I can’t change the time of year or the weather.
We even extend our power give-away to people:- “He made me really angry”. “She made me do it”. We give other people the chance to affect our mood. What a waste! What a loss for us.
One of the greatest powers we have is our ability to change our mood or our state. We can decide to remain upbeat when we meet a group of friends who do the whole moan-a-minute routine. We can choose to be positive about our health rather than assume, at the first sniffle, that we’ve got swine flu’. We can even choose not to respond angrily to someone who does something we don’t like.
We might like to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that they are acting like that because of some sadness or upset in their lives. We could see it as feedback rather than criticism. We could even use it as a tool to encourage ourselves not to be like that.
But it is always a choice. We often rush into a comment, or a response that afterwards we might realise was less-than-useful. A pause for a quick assessment of the situation can often help us to put that little bit of distance between ourselves and the situation, give ourselves a moment’s breathing space. Time to choose a better option. Or - as I read in one of the personal development books I have - “think a better-feeling thought“.
So get out there and practise thinking a better-feeling thought. Your choice. Your response. You choose the outcome.
When I first set myself the task of reading Richard Bandler’s book “Guide to Trance-formation†I allowed myself a week to read it. Big mistake. This book is full of information, comment, case history and exercises in personal development. I mean FULL!
So I re-timetabled, and I’ve been reading for weeks. Now - maybe it’s a mistake to try to be doing the exercises as I go, but I would feel only half-hearted in my review if I hadn’t made an attempt to do at least some of the exercises too.
The thrust of the book is the power of hypnosis, both of ourselves and others, to help create change for the better. Before you say you don’t like hypnosis, or you don’t trust it, or you once saw a show where the guy made people squawk like a chicken - don’t kid yourself - you’re being hypnotised all the time. Don’t look around to see who’s doing it. Look in the mirror.
We are hypnotising ourselves and others all the time, with our repeating patterns of words, actions and beliefs. In effect we “programme†ourselves. As Bandler says “We are the only machine that can program itself. We can set deliberately designed, automated programs that work by themselves to take care of boring, mundane tasks, thus freeing up our minds to do other, more interesting and creative, things.â€
“Guide to Trance-formation†is both a textbook and a workbook for self development. The first section of the book “Patterns of Process and Elicitation†deals with how to discover the way in which we (and others) map our world, i.e. how we represent the world to ourselves through our senses. This is how we have set up all the programmes we run in our lives, the ones that work and - just as importantly - the ones that don’t. Bandler‘s book is seasoned with references to Milton Erickson, Gregory Bateson, Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir - all renowned therapists with whom Bandler worked to discover how they achieved the successful results they did.
In Bandler’s opinion there are three steps to “making enduring change: (i) People must become so sick of having the problem that they decide they really want to change (ii) They have to somehow see their problem from a new perspective or in a new light (iii) New and appealing options must be found or created, and pursued.â€
The text will be equally intriguing for those who have studied Bandler previously and those who are new to him. It sparked my curiosity, so that I felt like finding out more and reading books Bandler referenced in “Guide to Trance-formationâ€. Even though I have no formal training in hypnosis, the exercises are simple and straightforward and I found myself wondering whether it was possible to be hypnotised just by reading it! I’m guessing Yes, since we are often influenced by what we read, so why not in this instance?
The exercises in this (first) sectionof the book are:
· Changing Feelings by Dissociation
· Identifying Your Sensory Preferences
· 2 exercises each on the Meta Model and the Milton Model
· Stealing a Skill
· The Visual Squash
· Foolproof Planning
· The NLP Spelling Strategy
· Getting Things Done
· 2 exercises in Submodality Change
· Swish Pattern
· Belief-Change Pattern
The second section of the book “Patterns of Induction†is about developing and improving the skills of hypnosis. It gives examples, stories and exercises on how to use language very specifically, how to use the voice - tone, depth, rhythm etc. , stories-within-stories and other skills to induce an altered state in the subject (yourself or someone else), a state in which you (or they) are more open to change. In Bandler’s words “Whenever you are communicating with other people, be aware that words are power, and the way in which you use words has to be as precise as the results you desire.â€
The exercises in the second section are very specific to inducing, deepening and maintaining trances or altered states.
· Using signs of developing trance
· Creating Inductions
· Toning Inflection
· Using Truisms to Induce Hypnosis
· Overlapping to Increase Skills
· Overlapping to Induce Trance
· Previous Trance Induction
· The Handshake Interrupt
· Stacking Realities
· Nested Loops
· Hot Button/Cool Button
· Advanced Synesthesia Change Pattern
In section three “Patterns of Utilization†covers the uses of the skills learned in the book, to create a better way of thinking and being in our lives, in short - to make us feel better. According to Bandler “you just need to know how to get good feelings to replace the old ones - or, even better, to drop them in to what happens just before you feel bad, so you start to go down a new pathway.†The chapters of this section deal with creating a better reaction now, to events that caused us trauma in the past. If we are still suffering from issues in our past, it is not because the problem keeps happening, but because we have formed a response to it that keeps us stuck in that negativity. Using the exercises in this section can help us change the way we feel about past traumas, overcome our phobias, stop blocking ourselves and start taking positive action.
Exercises in section three:
· How Much Pleasure Can You Stand?
· Fast Phobia Cure
· Putting a New Spin on the Past
· Overcoming Hesitation
· Going over Threshold
· Installing Positive Memories
Section four is a set of transcripts of client sessions with Richard Bandler. The text of the session is printed on the left hand side of the page and the analysis of the language patterns is printed on the right. I found it too confusing to try to read both together on my first reading of this format. So I read through the transcript of just the dialogue, as it would have flowed in speech. I found it was worth reading the script through first, before reading the analysis, partly to see what patterns I could identify myself and partly to let the script flow as it would have done in the live session.
Overall I found the book a very useful combination of textbook and workbook. It is something worth reading once for interest, a second time to try out any/all of the exercises and, after that, any time you want to reference Bandler’s work on trances, their analysis, uses and effects.
Richard Bandler - one of the co-creators of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) has written a book called “Get the Life you Want”. In it Bandler has distilled many of the NLP tools that he uses himself, to help people to make positive changes in their lives.
Let me say straight away that Richard Bandler is not a sweet talkin’ guy. He’s a straight talkin’ guy. And whereas many self-help books tell you that they’ll let you in on secrets, and hitherto unknown techniques you can use, I often find that they weren’t secrets. They were things we all knew already, but presented in a new way.
Not so with this book. The exercises throughout the book are ones that have been specifically designed using NLP. The book is packed with hands on exercises that anyone can do to help themselves. There is a glossary at the back to explain some of the NLP terms, but I would advise you not to get hung up on the terminology. Read through it all. If you don’t understand it all, use the glossary. But - do yourself a favour - pick this book up believing it’s going to be easy.
By page 6 Bandler has introduced us to the submodalities, which is the sensory language we use to understand our world and organise our thoughts and feelings. We intake everything we experience, through our five senses. Then we file it away and it becomes our store of experiences. This is the file we access when we want to understand something new. How does it look compared to what I already know? How does it sound compared to what I already know? How does it taste, smell and feel?Becoming aware of how we interpret our world and make sense of it is the key to the exercises in the book.If something makes me “feel” sad, where in my body do I feel that feeling? Which way is the feeling moving in my body? What is my experience of the feeling of “sadâ€. It might seem a little odd, at first, for people with no experience of NLP. Most of us are not used to thinking of where we feel a feeling, or which way it moves, or what colour it is.
Bandler then focuses on how we view or “mentally code†time (timelines). When we think of a past event, where do we picture it? Behind us?To the left?The now - where do we picture it? Underneath our feet?Overhead?The future? Discovering how we represent Time is also a prerequisite of some of the exercises. This too can be used to change our view of past events, and our difficulties with current or future events. Bandler says:
“We think about time in certain ways. The images of the past will be in a different place than the images of the future. … The key is in learning how you can begin to change the way you think and feel about your past, present and future.”
This is all dealt with right at the beginning of the book, and for a very good reason. He uses the power of our submodalities and our timelines, in the exercises, to effect change in our feelings and behaviours. From the very beginning, every chapter has exercises to do straight away. There is no need for equipment, or meditation, or anything other than commitment to engage fully with the exercises. They are done in a step-by-step, simple, fluid way. There are no difficult instructions, or language or psycho-babble, just straight talking guidelines.
This is very much a hands-on type of book. Don’t just read it. That will be interesting enough, but the power lies in doing the exercises. They are easy to understand, once you’ve gotten used to the idea of the submodalities.
Like a lot of “exercise”, it may feel odd at the beginning. It might seem strange to be doing an exercise in “How to feel Wonderful” or “Changing bad feelings”, but that’s exactly what these exercises are designed to help you do.
It’s well worth getting used to the idea of submodalities right from the start, because you will see them repeated constantly throughout the book. Every exercise focuses on how we see, hear, feel, taste and smell everything in our world. The premise of the book is that the only thing that WE have the power to change is OUR view, OUR belief, OUR behaviour. Trying to change the other person, or the situation we’re in, is like trying to hold back the tide, or trying to change the world to suit our beliefs. But where we do have power is in changing our own view of, and interaction with, the world.
And that is the genius of this book.
It’s like, by learning to understand our own intrinsic language, we are learning to understand all the languages of the universe.
The sections of the book (that are crammed with practical exercises) are:
Getting Over: Bad suggestions; Fears and phobias; Bad memories; Grief; Bad Relationships; & Bad Decisions.
Getting Through: Habits and Compulsions; Recovery; Resignation; Big Events; Tests; & Obligations.
Getting To: Fun; Love; Meet People; Important Duties; Exercise; Be More Organized; Make More Money; & Make Big Decisions.
All this is done using exercises focusing on changing our submodalities, our feelings about events, and our choice of reaction to the events life presents us with. Bandler uses case histories (presumably with name changes) and stories to help us understand the changes in a subtle way. Ever since we were born, we listen to stories - the stories of our parents, our teachers, our friends; the stories of people we admire and want to be like; the stories that help us identify our values; the stories that become our deepest held beliefs. So Bandler is very cleverly using stories to help us access those beliefs and make the changes that are most useful for our lives.
There is also a free CD with some editions of this book (I now own two copies of the book - because firstly I bought the hardback that had no CD, and then I bought the paperback with free CD!). This is to help you access the part of your mind (your subconscious) that is responsible for making the changes at the deepest level. Don’t worry - it’s not hypnotic or trippy! It’s just relaxing and enjoyable. I listened to it in the evening, when I relaxed before bedtime. I found it easy to listen to and it complements the exercises in the book, but you don’t need to use it for the book to be effective.
At the back of the book, there is a Glossary of Terms, a list of Recommended Resources and some information about The Society of Neuro Linguistic Programming.
I love Bandler’s own view of the book:
“The lessons that I have presented in this book are nothing more than lessons in how to manage life. They are lessons in how to manage your thoughts, your feelings and your time, so that life becomes more wonderful. This isn’t a philosophy. This isn’t an ideology. It’s not a religion. It’s just a set of tools to make things easier. The easier you can make it inside your head, the easier it will make things outside your head. It will not only be easier for you but for those around you. It will allow you to live more happily.”
And that’s what this book is - a DIY guide to making your life more happy. Sounds good to me!
Here is an NLP exercise that is a really easy and effective technique you can learn and apply every day on any number of problem areas. If you’re anxious about something - try this. If someone gets you really angry - try this. If you have to do something that needs more confidence than you believe you have - try this.
This NLP technique is very useful when you want to change a negative feeling you have about something, or change your approach to something. It’s easy to hear how “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting on what you’ve always got”, but it’s not always easy to change what we do. Self development requires work and attention, but it doesn’t have to be hard work.
If you have an issue that causes you a problem (e.g. a colleague who “rubs you the wrong way”, or recurring problem that never seems to change for you no matter how many times you tackle it) here is one way of dealing with it:
Picture the problem, whether it be a person or event. Bring it to mind as fully and accurately as you can. Make it as clear as if it was happening now. Give it the colours, sounds, movement, smells etc. that the real situation would have.
When you have an accurate visualization of the problem - change the elements of the picture. So - if the image is big, horribly real-life size, movie-like and loud, then move the picture far, far away. Turn down the volume on the picture. If it was a movie, then make it still. Drain all the colour out of it. Allow the accompanying emotion also move far away, grow paler and quieter.
Notice how much differently you feel about it as a tiny image, far away, black & white, silent and still.
Repeat the process, changing the picture/visualization of the image or event, weakening it, paling it out and allowing your emotional response to it to weaken too.
When you’ve repeated this a few times, test it by bringing to mind the original problem. Now how much better do you feel about it?
You can do this with anything at all. If you have to make a speech or presentation, if you have to face someone who intimidates you, if you have to chair a meeting of your peers, if you need to remove the anxiety you feel at some forthcoming event - you can use this exercise.
The trick is to repeat it as often as you feel the need. Consider it your daily self development boost. Never underestimate the power of such a simple personal improvement technique.
I’m finally sitting down to write the review of Owen Fitzpatrick’s book “Not Enough Hours”. The subheading is “The secrets of making every second count!” The foreward is by Dr. Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). This is a book about time management. You have to understand that my version of time management is to put off all the things I don’t like doing, until the very last minute, then panic and do them all in a hurry. Now this has its advantages for me. Firstly, I get all that free time to do things I like to do. Secondly, I seem to operate better when I have left myself less time to do something e.g. write a book review!
All these weird and wonderful versions of people and time management styles are captured in Owen’s book. I love the fact that the book does not tell you all the things you HAVE to do to be a great time manager. It starts off by giving loads of information from science and history about why we are the way we are. I love lots of background information, simply presented. I also like the cartoon like drawings. I’m a very visual person.
That struck me as I read, in fact. This book appeals to everyone. If you want background information - it’s got it. If you like scientific fact - it’s got it. If you like funny anecdotes - it’s got it. And if you’re someone that just wants to know what to do to be a great time-manager - you just skip to that part of the book and do exactly what it says.
Even if you’re already a great time manager and want some quick and easy tips & tools to try out for your further self-development, just flip straight to the back of the book for pages and pages of suggestions on how to make your time management even more streamlined.
Don’t worry when you start to read the different personality types if you begin to feel that you are, in fact, ALL of the types mentioned. I did. Well, ok, not the Workaholic! But I certainly recognised elements of myself in the Perfectionist, the Hesitator, the Hurrier and the Busy Bee.
It’s nice to read that Owen knows what it’s like to struggle to develop time management skills. He understands how easily I can sit down to write my blog, then I research something, find a really interesting article I want to read, which leads to a great website on NLP where there’s a video I really must watch, followed by a link to …
You know what this is like (the book calls it “Time Crime 1: Distractions & Interruptions”). You really did mean to do just one bit of research. And Owen understands this. He doesn’t wag his finger and frown because you’re not a good manager of time. He has helpful suggestions for all types of people and all levels of time manager. I find there’s nothing worse than a self-help book that criticises me for being the way I am and sighs deeply at me when I don’t make instant and extraordinary progress in my self-development.
“Not Enough Hours” will leave you feeling that someone understands you and the difficulties you have managing your time. You will find real guidelines, helpful tips and genuine support for your efforts and determination to improve. It’s full of useful information that you can go back to again and again.
As Owen says early on in the book:
“Change is simpler than you think. It involves being aware of what you are doing, learning to do something else instead and disciplining yourself to continue doing the new behaviour until it becomes a habit”
It’s not rocket science. The book is full of common sense. I began reading it with a highlighter pen at the ready in order to mark the really useful passages. After a few bright orange pages I accepted that the book is crammed with useful stuff, so there is very little that doesn’t need highlighting.
After all that praise, have I any suggestions for improvement? It’s for the publishers really. I think a spiral bound, hard backed version of the book (in a better quality paper) would make a superb desk-top book. Another suggestion? Why not have a desk-diary to accompany it, giving little time-management tips on each page e.g. on Mondays it could have “Make your weekly to-do list”, or last thing on the day could be “Tick off all completed tasks and move incompletes to tomorrow”. Oh, and if that idea catches on - I want commission!
I’ve been proud to claim that I am a qualified Master Practitioner of NLP, and to say that I use NLP skills in my life-coaching in order to help clients make positive changes in their lives easily and effectively. Responses to this vary. People in the personal development field nod knowingly, or raise their eyebrows questioningly. Those outside the coaching or therapy professions often wonder what it is but don’t want to appear lacking by admitting they don’t know.
And then there’s the ordinary guy in the street, John Doe, Joe Public or - here in Ireland - Sean Citizen. I love you and hate you - all Johns, Joes and Seans. I love you because you come right out and ask “What the hell is that when it’s at home?”. I hate you for that very same reason. How on earth do I explain NLP?
First of all it stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. When I heard that first I thought “Ya wha’ Gay?” and I have to say it still causes me to stop and rack my brains. Richard Bandler, one of the co-creators (with John Grinder) of NLP, defines it in a recent book as:
“NLP is an attitude, methodology and technology that teaches people how to improve the quality of their lives. It is an educational tool that teaches people how to communicate more effectively with themselves and others. It is designed to help people have personal freedom in the way they think, feel and behave.”
For me the most informative part of that explanation of NLP is “teaches people how to communicate more effectively with themselves” because that’s how change comes about in our own lives. Someone else telling you to give up smoking, get over your fears, pull yourself together and make the changes - is NEVER going to work. But if we can get inside our own thinking and find out how to communicate with ourselves how much we WANT to give up smoking, or how there has been a perfectly good reason for having fear in the past but now we want a new way of believing and thinking - imagine how much we could improve our lives every day!
That’s what I love about NLP. It’s about story telling. It’s about the stories we tell others about ourselves, and more importantly, it’s about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
I think it’s telling that Bandler and Grinder called it Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) because their own background was in technology and linguistics. But as a term, it doesn’t explain itself to the ordinary punter very well.
As I said earlier, for me NLP is about stories. We hear, create and learn stories and patterns of behaviour from the moment we’re born. We hear that we are “the cutest baby”, “just like your Daddy” etc. all harmless enough. When we’re older we learn “if you don’t eat up all your dinner you won’t grow up big and strong” which in our own mind can translate into food being a contentious issue. We learn “don’t talk to strangers” which can translate into a lack of trust in people and a difficulty in making new friendships.
I’m not trying to sound like everything we hear is bad, but we hear a “story” then we tell ourselves a “story” and pretty soon we have formed a pattern around it, and forget the original story. Our personality development is filled with patterns we adopt based on the stories we’re believing.
I used to have a fear of dogs. Now that may have stemmed from an incident with a dog when I was tiny, or it might have been an imagined drama that I created in my own mind. I don’t remember. But for the rest of my life I was left with a fear of dogs, that - at its worst - meant that I wouldn’t go outside the door on my own and couldn’t even enjoy a walk.
I went to a therapist to help that. Turns out it’s not stemming from a fear of dogs, but a fear of being alone. But that’s another story!
The great thing is we can decide or choose - at any time - to believe a different story! This is the genuine magic of Neuro Linguistic Programming. When an NLP practitioner listens to us telling our stories, they can see what language we use to tell ourselves stories. They can then speak our language back to us and help us to choose a more useful story for our lives.
In one line - what’s the best thing about NLP? NLP is about finding and choosing the most useful beliefs, stories and patterns to live the life we want for ourselves. Apologies to Richard Bandler, John Grinder and my tutors Owen Fitzpatrick and Brian Colbert if I’ve just negated all your years of training me!
Well, so far I have displayed my self-doubt and stuggling-perfectionist issues for all the world to see. I have passed on gems of wisdom I have picked up from my own coach. And all that by 15th January!
Today I’m going to share with you that most precious gift of humanity - laughter. I don’t know if you guys know Eddie Izzard the comedian? But this is a sketch he does about the canteen on the Death Star (if you’re not a Star Wars fan - you’re already lost).
Have a laugh. And if you want to see how some clever kid made a Lego film to go with the dialogue of this, have a look at this
Aaaaagggghhhh! And so the nightmare of year-beginning starts. I began a programme of coaching for myself last year. It’s like a lot of professions, if you’re giving help to others - you have to be getting help yourself. Also, in December I did a five day course to update my own coaching skills. So now, at the start of a new year, I am up to my proverbials in reading lists, blog entries, newsletters for the new website (which will go live soon, I promise), new website etc.
All this at a time of year when I do most of my self-questioning. You can see the problem straight away, can’t you? Eternally self-defeating. And then I can add to that the feeling that if I can’t coach myself to perfection, how can I help anyone else?
Now THERE is the crux of the problem. Perfectionism. I have borrowed a wonderful phrase from one of the Jack Canfield coaches I spoke to - “I’m Daria, and I’m a recovering perfectionistâ€. I love it, because perfectionism is something that is so ingrained that you really do have to tackle it on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis. Perfectionism is the worst kind of “ism†because there is no end to it. It pervades every aspect of your life. Nothing is ever “perfect†and especially not yourself. And what is the outcome of all that striving? Just that - more striving. They say that you get what you focus on, and perfectionists don’t focus on perfection (you see how twisted this is?) they focus on Imperfection. They (and by “they†of course I mean “we†or “Iâ€) focus on how we aim for perfection, but miss. So we are focusing on the “missing†instead of the excellent work we have done, the excellent result we have already achieved.
No matter how big a pain in the face we are to you (the rest of the world) we are an even bigger pain in the face to ourselves. So have a little pity, and a boot ready to kick us up the backside when we need to get outside of our own attempts at perfection, and back into the real world where everyone is always doing the best they can.
So the best thing I can do for myself (and perhaps help you) is to share with you something my own coach sent me last year (thanks Sheri):
