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!

 

To get NLP straight from the horse’s mouth, check out www.nlp.ie and www.richardbandler.com .

 

We all want the best for ourselves in our lives.  We want the best job, the best salary, the best partner, the best kids, in short - the best life.  That’s great.  We are built to go after what we want in our lives.  We don’t always know, or acknowledge that we know, how to do that.

 

I think I’ve mentioned before that I am engaged in an ongoing coaching relationship with the Canfield Coachingteam in the U.S.  It is constantly providing me with thought-provoking and challenging issues.  Change and growth are all part of the process.  Sometimes I feel like I’m going round in circles.  At others I feel like I’m stuck in the one spot, going nowhere at all.  I even feel, sometimes, that everything is changing too quickly and I can’t cope.  Here is a brief list of helpful tips I got from one of Jack Canfield’s motivational CDs.

 

What do we need to do?

 

Overall you’ll have added greatly to your knowledge and experience, right now, in the present.  You’ll also have identified new skills to use to create a better future for yourself.

 

Let’s stop pretending.  Of all the things going on in the economy, the world banks, the welfare systems of many countries, unemployment, lay-offs etc. let’s just stop pretending.  People are going round speaking in whispers about “the R word”, as if we daren’t say the word RECESSION.  Stop it people!  This is like not saying the name of a disease in case you might catch it just by speaking about it.  It’s not going to happen.  You are not going to lose your job because you talk about the jobs situation where you are.  You are not going to keep your job just because you never said the R word.  It’s real, it’s here and it’s here for a while.  So let’s stop pretending it isn’t, or that whispering about it will make it go away.

 

 

 

Another I’d really like is that - if you have notbeen affected by unemployment, or your pension going up the swanee, or the bank going boom with all your savings - I’d really like it if you would stop pretending that the recession is hurting you.  Stop being embarrassed by having a good job, that pays you well, and gives you enough money to continue to enjoy the good things.  You’ve worked for it.  Enjoy it!  Don’t buy into the drama of everyone having to suffer together.  I don’t mean you should gloat about your good fortune.  But you should be grateful for it and acknowledge it.

 

What you can do is to continue to spend as you would have before.  Support your locality by shopping in your local stores, use local tradespeople when you need jobs done, go to your local theatre, cinema, clubs etc.  Keep the economy moving as much as you can.  Keep employment going by paying fair wages to staff.  Keep morale high by not buying into the “ain’t it awful” brigade.  Don’t join them.  It will not help anyone.

 

Let’s look at what we can do, that might be useful.  How about volunteerism?  Why not look at volunteering in your neighbourhood.  You’ll find some activity that will suit your time and your nature, while serving the needs of your community.  It might be helping out with a local sports team, coaching, doing meals-on-wheels, being a driver for a day-care centre, collecting, fund-raising.  There is a huge range of things going on right now, in your own neighbourhood, that you can help with.  It’ll be good for your self-esteem, good for your self-development and great for your community.  How satisfying is that going to be?

 

The time has come. Tonight I make my Toastmaster’s Ice-Breaker speech. That means it will be the first speech I make at my Toastmasters club, since I joined last September. With the weather looking none too good, it may be a very small audience to hear it!

 

I joined Toastmasters after hearing about it yyyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaaaarrrrrrss ago from a friend of mine. She joined way back in 19?? and recommended it to me then. It always sounded like a good idea, but I constantly have a list of things that I think are a good idea. It doesn’t mean I will necessarily get around to any or all of them… ever! But this one finally came to pass because I decided it was high time I got over my anxiety about standing up in front of groups of people and speaking to them. I’m great at the one-to-one, but have some difficulties translating that into speaking to groups.

 

Also, last year, when I started the Jack Canfield Success Principles coaching, my breakthrough goal was/is to increase my self-belief and confidence. The breakthrough goal is defined as the one goal that, if you achieve it, it will have a huge impact on every other goal you have or set. For me, increasing my belief in my own skill, abilities, learning and intuition was what I identified as the biggest breakthrough I could make.

 

As part of that, it came back to my mind that my friend had recommended Toastmasters to me years ago. I thought it was a good place to start, since its whole focus is standing up and making speeches in front of people. My experience so far has been very positive and it already benefitting me and helping me towards my goal.

 

The atmosphere at Toastmasters is one of welcome and support. From the moment I attended my first meeting I was greeted warmly and given lots of information about the group and its work. Members were friendly and I was never left to feel isolated or on-the-fringe. I found the evening very inclusive, but I was assured that guests were not called on to speak, but could answer topics if they felt the urge. I didn’t! But within a couple of months I was asked if I would like to do Poet Master (which is to select a poem and to read it at a Toastmasters meeting, and to say a few words about the poet and why I chose the poem.

 

The support and goodwill at meetings is such that I found myself agreeing, and even looking forward to it. I have since done Poet Master again, and tonight I will do my Ice-Breaker speech. Wish me luck!

 

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 perfectionist”. 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 “I”) 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):

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s to the journey - for 2009!