Integrate!

Reflection is powerful when it is specific and directed at the future. People are often afraid to reflect on their experience because they confuse reflection with beating themselves up for what they did or didn't say or do. They're also afraid that recognizing what is good in the present will somehow stop them from making change. This is a reflex that keeps people stuck in old patterns. They may be thinking about the future, but they aren't building the bridge they need to get from here to there. The results are daydreams, wishes, and dissatisfaction without motivation. The group above is finishing up a process that began with connecting to their curiosity and energy and then moved through going deeply, vividly into their lived experience. They were reflecting not just when they were sitting and writing privately, but also when they were asking questions, remembering, and laughing together. The group experience drew them into a kind of reflection that is often ...

It's Friday afternoon and you're looking back at a week of work. What did you accomplish this week? If it feels like nothing, look again. You did make progress and if you don't notice it, you will probably lose it. So if something is better now than it was on Monday, it's a good time to pay attention. Paying attention to progress helps stabilize it in your mind so that it becomes part of the assumptions you take into Monday morning. It's often not enough to prevent slippage. What you need is to add a little oomph to progress so that it stays in place until you can get back to it. Here's three ways to add oomph to your progress, illustrated with examples from my own week. Notice the progress and give it a metaphor.  For instance, this week I have been away at sea without my usual landmarks to chart progress.  But when it's dark, I can look at the stars and begin to notice that I have moved.  Sometimes it is only in the dark that we can focus on the sign...

One of my favourite high school teachers used to say "We grow through pain." I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now.  I look at small children and small plants. They are wonderful examples of growth. And no sane person believes that pain makes them grow faster or better. It's the sunshine the brings out the crocuses, not the ice storms. I think we all want to believe that pain causes growth because it makes sense of pain. Since we all experience pain, it's rather nice to think that we gain something from the experience. We are even motivated to make that seem true, motivated to turn our thoughts or our actions in a new direction after pain. For the past two months, I have had the opportunity to explore pain from the inside. A yoga injury led to a back problem which led to problems standing.  I have become creative at manoeuvring through my day without being too limited by my limits. It does not feel to me like growth. It feels to me like being stoppe...

Often often do you catch yourself wishing you could change something about you? It can be easier to wish for change than to do the work to make it real, whether that change is personal (weight loss, addiction, or bad emotional habits) or professional (time management, diplomacy or confidence). We often know what we need but feel like it's unreachable. The change you want will be unreachable until you reach for it.  And then you need a process that will help you manage your will power and persistence until the change becomes natural. There is no road to intentional success that does not require some hard work and discipline. But the FACT process will allow you to be more effective with less suffering and no room for the self-loathing that sometimes accompanies failed efforts at personal change. FACT begins with focus. To get something you want, you have to be willing to know what it is that you want, to spend some time developing a representation of it that is detailed enough to...

There's a kind of rule that people stop having bodies when they get to work, at least in jobs that do not involve obvious physical labour.  To be professional is to stick to ideas and tasks and objectives. That means that while we may ask "how are you?" we really mean something like "of course you are fine because you are at work." We mean this although we all have experience of the difference between working when we feel well and working when we are in pain. How do you feel when you think about police officers, fully armed and allowed to drive, on patrol while suffering from migraine, back pain or sleep deprivation?  What about when you think of your doctor or nurse making decisions or giving medication while distracted by pain?  Perhaps the person marking your child's exam is suffering from a repetitive strain injury or nerve problem. Someone in pain is and is not disabled. They do not want to give up the chance to do their work and we, as a society, d...

I'm going to suggest that there are four things that everyone wants, and that you can chart them on a quadrant.  The first axis has autonomy (control over one's own life) at one extreme and relationship (connections with other people) at the other.  The second axis has living comfortably with one's body at one extreme and escaping the confines of one's body at the other.  Everything that people want falls into one or more of the quadrants. It seems that anything we want serves one quadrant at the expense of the others. If we want autonomy for our bodies (perhaps the ability to support ourselves financially), that comes at the expense of escaping the body through connection with others (perhaps through reading fiction). If we want to be physically connected (to hang out with people we like), that comes at the expense of setting our thoughts free.  It's obvious that we cannot simultaneous move to both ends of the axis. It's obvious, but it is not always true. ...

Here's something that you might have encountered: training in coaching or therapy that puts you through an emotional wringer.  Often, people that take courses that produce this effect end up saying good things about the course and much less good things about themselves. I'd like to think of this as a hint.  Don't let people mess with your head if they are not going to clean up after themselves. Twice this weekend, I ended up in conversations about people who had taken training that they said was terrific but which clearly wasn't making them feel more able to function in the way that they wanted to function.  This is possibly a good marketing technique since it clearly has the potential to make people pay still more dollars to follow up the original training with more (terrific?) training so that they might finally be able to put the skills they are learning to work.  It's not as clear that there is value for the client. Sometimes I make my clients and students u...

When people ask me what NLP is, I tell them what the words mean and then I tell them what we do at NLP Canada Training. The two things overlap, of course, but they are not the same. Neurolinguistic programming means combining experience with language in patterns to produce tangible, predictable results. NLP offers a set of practices for using the natural processes of the brain to accelerate learning and decision making.  The work we do at NLP Canada Training gives people improved flexibility in determining what they want and communicating in ways that help them get it. And, what does that get them? If you practice NLP, you'll recognize the question.  The answer is why NLP Canada Training is a special place and why it matters where you choose to study NLP.  The people who love our training are people who want to stretch and grow and have a sustainable, positive impact. They are people in the process of shaping a life well-lived. We all choose different paths to get...

It's crazy hard to know exactly what you want. That may be part of the reason that the people who take the time to figure it out have so much power.  In a room where most people are a little fuzzy about what they want, the person who really knows is much more likely to move effectively. Have you ever wished for more patience? The true answer is no. People don't want patience: they want results. Patience is a sort of consolation prize at best.  When someone says they want patience, what they really mean is they want something they can't see unless they open their eyes to a bigger picture. What they want is most likely a combination of certainty within themselves and a positive relationship with someone around them. Patience indicates that the frame is too tight for them to see a possibility of moving forward together. That tight frame makes patience much less likely. That tight frame makes it hard to see beyond a moment of irritability or conflict. That tight frame mea...

Have you ever known that you were absolutely in the wrong mood for what you had to do next? You know that your attitude changes your effectiveness.  The question becomes how you can change your own attitude. Your current attitude colours all your perceptions. That makes it very hard to perceive the differences that would allow you to build a different attitude.  Many people don't even try. They just wait it out, hoping that the next mood that hits will be more useful. Or they pretend that attitude is something that only happens to other people. A more useful approach has three steps: 1) Move your body. 2) Connect with a new rhythm. 3) Borrow the best available attitude. It's hard to change your own mind. It's easier to change your body.  If you want to signal yourself to get moving, try moving.  A walk, a run, a climb up stairs: any of them will get the blood flowing, adjust your breathing and rhythms, and suggest to your whole brain that it look for ways o...

It is the way our brains are made. We fixate on problems and danger and obstacles. Ask anyone about their pet peeves and you will unleash a flood of words. Ask someone what they want, and you are liable to hear about all the reasons that what they want doesn't matter. It is easy for a conversation to grind to a halt when it is carrying the weight of so much that is wrong. If you want to move forward, you need the word instead. Repeat some of the troubles you hear (to show that you are listening) and then ask: what would you like instead? Instead means in the place now occupied by the trouble. To answer the question, the speaker has to imagine a world where the trouble no longer exists. It has been replaced by something else. The something else may, of course, be accompanied by new troubles.  Once again, repeat what you are hearing and then ask: what would you like instead? After two or three repetitions, the speaker will pick up the pattern and begin to automatically replace ...

It seems to me that the people I know who are effective influencers are also people who are willing to own their influence. They don't pretend that they are disinterested. Sometimes they don't even pretend that they are particularly interested in you or your well being. They own that one thing that they want to change in you. I recently read a comment in a Linked In group by a coach who believed that he could not change anyone's perceptions, he could only open up possibilities.  This is nonsense. You cannot change anyone else's conscious choices but it is a relatively easy thing to change their perceptions and thereby to influence the choices they make unconsciously.  If you are not sure that this is true, stand on a busy corner and point up at a building as though you were seeing something really interesting. Then watch what happens. You will find that some people stop walking, change their posture, and become curious. You have effectively changed their perspective. ...

How would practice change the way you handle this? Say, for instance, that you are managing someone who is declaring that the sky is falling because the market has changed. Ask that sales rep: "What would be different if you already had lots of practice in handling these conditions?" Say, for instance, a new parent is frantic because s/he had no idea a baby would be. . . a baby. Ask that parent, "What would be different if this was your third baby?" Say, for instance, someone close to you has just been laid off, someone who has never before lost a job. Ask that person, "What would be different if you had been laid off in the last recession? What would you know or do that is different now?" Here's how the question works. First, it normalizes the situation as something that one could expect to have 'practice' handling. We practice things that occur regularly and are therefore not entirely unpredictable. Second, it is a tricky way to ask som...