Malik Mirza has requested:
"Could you pls write some thing on improving performance through NLP for my blog, if you have time?"
Here is my response to the above request.
If I had to specify exactly where I am with using NLP right now, and where I can improve my own performance - it would be in the area of my expectations. I will revisit that at the end of this article.
I will discuss two ways to improve performance using NLP:
1) How to remove or substantially reduce the power of negative beliefs or negative programs running in the unconscious mind
2) How to raise our expectations of our future performance and how things will turn out in the future
(i.e. to think and act more positively on a more regular basis)
But first, some Basic NLP Theory:
Basic NLP theory says that we all filter incoming information through "deletions, distortions and generalisations" in order to better understand the world we live in:
Deletions mean we leave stuff out ("They don't like me." - "Who doesn't like you?")
Distortions mean we lose a bit of accuracy along the way...(“He said this, she said that.")
Generalisations are where we might say "Everything is always going wrong!" whereas it would be more accurate to say, "Sometimes, some things go wrong."
These are all ways of creating a (simplified) “map” of the “territory” we live in, so we can filter the vast amount of incoming data we are constantly bombarded with and simplify it into something we can perceive as our reality.
NLP also tells us "the map is not the territory", i.e. that our perception of reality is merely a map or a model of our actual experience and not an accurate reflection of reality itself, merely our own working version of it.
If you look at an A to Z street map, an Atlas or a globe of the Earth, you know it is a representation or a model and not the real Earth.
This is less obvious with our own perceptions, which we all tend to accept as being accurate.
To us, the way we see the World appears to us to be... the way it actually is. But is it really?
Two people's experience of the same thing can lead them to react in different ways, because their respective maps of the world are different from each others, and so are their perceptions.
The best example I can think of in this regard is where two men had an alcoholic father. One ended up as an alcoholic, and the other didn't. When they were both asked why they turned out the way they did, they both said the same thing:
"I am like this because of my father. He was an alcoholic."
The same experience, two radically different outcomes.
One directly emulated his father's behaviour, the other used him as a "counter-example" and did everything in his power to not end up like him, thus successfully avoiding his father’s (and his brother’s) fate.
1) How to remove or substantially reduce the power of negative beliefs or negative programs running in the unconscious mind
We can all pick up limiting beliefs, emotional triggers and other types of negative programming that can make us feel bad (and thus affect our performance) as we go through life acquiring experience.
NLP gives us the opportunity to study our "Programs" (filters, beliefs, values, rules, scripts and maps) and identify and isolate any limiting or negative programs in order to free us from their power over us.
NLP can also give us the tools to “reconstruct” our experience by removing the deletions, distortions and generalisations, so we can gain a more informed and more accurate perception, a more accurate map of the territory we live in.
I think of negative programming simply as "baggage" and imagine a person running through a busy airport (being late for a flight) carrying loads and loads of excess baggage. Some of it might not even be theirs!
If we can identify this excess "baggage" and “let it go”, it frees us to be happier and more productive, thus boosting our performance ,
i.e. we can catch our flight easier because we can run faster!
One of the first NLP type exercises I undertook was to examine my own negative beliefs. This was after listening to an audio program by Anthony Robbins (Personal Power 2).
A good way to start this process is to simply list as many of your negative beliefs and expectations as you can. Simply write them down in a long list - and then having examined them in detail, write out their exact opposite.
Try to do this as if you are a scientist studying somebody else's beliefs and don't get too emotionally caught up in what you write as if it were actually true...
You might start by stating negative affirmations such as:
Beliefs: “I am useless at spelling.” Or...
Expectations: “Things always turn out poorly.”
All you are trying to establish is which limiting or negative programming [or simply put, self talk] runs in your head which makes you feel annoyed, angry, inadequate or generally makes you feel bad and saps your strength and enthusiasm for life.
Look particularly at any emotionally charged words (e.g. “useless”) and get a sense of how saying this over and over to yourself is likely to make you feel.
Get them out on paper, and they start to lose their power, because once they are actually written down you can start to see how ridiculus some of them are!
(Better still, get a trusted friend or partner to evaluate them as well. You can also swap pages with them and appraise each others. It is easier to be objective with someone else’s beliefs)
For example, if you catch yourself writing something like: "I am a rubbish parent." (which is, of course, a huge generalisation – “When exactly, all the time, always?”) then ask your spouse or partner if this belief is accurate in its current written form.
Hopefully they will say this is untrue (at least most of the time!) and will come up with some examples to prove this particular belief to be inaccurate. You will probably be able to think of some positive examples (e.g. of being a good parent) as well.
Thus if you initially wrote "I am a rubbish parent" you may then write afterwards (after consideration of the actual facts): "I am an excellent parent." Or even: “I am an adequate parent who is committed to improve with experience.” It will be helpful to have evidence to support and reinforce this new positive statement, which will at the same time devalue the original negative statement. Thus we can begin to "rewrite our scripts", "reprogram ourselves", or "recondition ourselves for success".
Anthony Robbins emphasises in his program that we need to condition ourselves for success through daily repetition, rather than just reprogramming ourselves once and expecting everything to be perfect from then on.
So this is an exercise worth revisiting from time to time because it gives you a chance to do a kind of "life laundry" and sweep away any accidental negative beliefs you have unwittingly accumulated along the way.
2) How to raise our expectations of our future performance and how things will turn out in the future
I have heard NLP defined as:
“The study of human excellence.”
Let's start with a pretty big generalisation, which appears to be true in my experience:
It would appear that successful people have predominantly positive expectations about the future and their abilities and they tend to focus on solutions instead of problems...
Whereas less successful people have predominantly negative expectations about the future and their abilities and they tend to focus on problems instead of solutions.
Therefore, the best way to improve your performance is to change your mindset/thinking/self dialogue (i.e. what you say to yourself) from predominantly negative to predominantly positive, (i.e. change what you focus on) AND change the quality of your expectations accordingly.
For example, if you focus on earning just enough money to pay your bills then that's what your subconscious appears to get to work with - you will end up with just enough and no more...
So why not up the stakes, and expect to double your income instead of merely maintain it?
Einstein is quoted as saying: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
If you raise the quality of your expectations [and make them believable to you – note this is vital for success], then you can become more conscious in your thinking and in your actions and thus you can proactively choose “success consciousness” rather than allow “failure consciousness” to predominate.
By doing this you are literally choosing and crafting new positive programs to run in your head on a regular basis instead of allowing the old negative ones to run on auto pilot or by default.
P.S. I recently read in Paul McKenna’s Book “I Can Make You Happy” that by putting coloured dots around your house you can train yourself to think positively more often.
Simply see the dot, and think a positive thought each time you see it. That’s it!
Regards
Neil Paddock
Certified Accountant, Certified Hypnotherapist, NLP Master Practitioner, Member of the Institute of Interim Management
http://52questionsthatwillchangeyourlife.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/neil.paddock1
27th February 2011
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