This article is particularly focused at dentists and helping them improve performance in their dental practice using an understanding of NLP and communication techniques.

What’s your CHUNK SIZE?

Chunk size… Horrible name I know, but that’s what this ‘filter’ is called. We all have filters in our brain that filter the world around us so we can make sense of it.

This filter looks at the size of the chunk of information that we can process at any given time.

There are two discernible chunk sizes:

1. Big picture. This is the largest chunk of information that it’s possible to give anyone about a specific topic. It gives the overall plan, the big picture, where are we going, what’s the point? A good example is a full mouth treatment plan where the big picture might be to restore function to the patient’s bite, ease TMJ pain and improve the smile line.
2. Detail. This is the smallest chunk of information that it’s possible to give anyone about a specific topic. It is essentially the contents of the big picture. In our treatment plan example the detail could be crowning the upper anteriors with zirconia crowns, & opening the bite with a dahl appliance.

Most of us will want all of the information, but it’s in which order we like to receive it – that’s the real key to understand.

1. Some people like the big picture first. They like to know the overall plan of where they are going and can’t cope with the detail until they know where all of that detail fits in with the big picture.
2. Some people like the detail first. They like to know the fine detail and can’t conceive of the big picture until they know what the detail is, they can then work out how it all fits together.

Neither is wrong, and it’s important to understand that different people like to perceive and receive information differently.

Some patients might prefer a big picture first treatment plan, which leads gently into the detail.

Some patients might prefer a detail first treatment plan, which gently leads into the big picture.

So ask them, “When I present this treatment plan to you, would you like the big picture or the detail first?”

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A DENTIST

This is where I think it gets interesting. Dentists are often brilliant at going from BIG PICTURE to MICRO DETAIL in the blink of an eye.

“Hello Mrs Jones, I haven’t seen you for 6 months, what’s been happening in your life?” (Big picture) – “Now let’s look at the mesio-buccal cusp of your LL6” ( micro-detail)

You do this everyday – Big picture > Micro-detail really fast.

It’s what you do.

But not everyone thinks the same way.

So be aware – dentists have a tendency to think big picture down to micro-detail incredibly fast!

We can now understand this in a clinical setting, but it also works when communicating with your team and thinking about your business, it’s easy for dentists to miss out a whole load of incredibly useful information that sits in the middle of the big picture and micro detail – and when we are communicating with others or thinking about managing our business, that information in the middle can be vital to our success!

If you’d like to help with your thinking, achieve more in life and business and restructure the way you communicate then book a discovery call to talk about Elite Breakthrough Coaching, it comes at no cost and no obligation!

This article is primarily focused at healthcare professionals, particularly dentists although the content is relevant to anyone in business.

Did you know there are four primary ways that we make sense of the world around us:

1. Visually
2. Kinaestheticly
3. Auditory
4. Auditory digital (logical structured)

When you understand which one you are primarily it makes it far easier to recognise why you think in certain ways, it also will help you communicate with people which represent the world around them differently to you, but when you think the plans patients or dealing with other team members.

Visual

People that represent the world around them visually think primarily in pictures. Most of us do this to a certain degree although some people do it far more than others. Visual people will often be artists, designers, photographers or anything to do with visuals.

When these people think in pictures they will literally create a picture in their mind’s eye… Even a visual speller will visually see the letters of the word in their mind (by the way, this is the strategy to use if you are not a great speller, visualise the letters in the word rather than try to use simple memory).

A visual person will often say things like:

• “do you see what I mean?”
• “do you get the picture?”

The words they use literally explain how they represent their world.

Top Tip: if you are presenting a treatment plan to a visual person then use plenty of photographs and diagrams to explain what you mean

Kinaesthetic

People that represent the world around them in a kinaesthetic way are more connected to feeling. This is both emotional feeling and physical feeling. Kinaesthetic people will often have touch related jobs e.g. massage, reflexology or even something like a potter. They may also be counsellors and connect with feelings and emotions in their job.

A kinaesthetic person will often say things like:

• “does that feel OK?”
• “What do you feel about that?”

Top tip: If you are presenting a treatment plan to a kinaesthetic person have study models that they can hold and feel, have physical models of implants and crowns so they can touch and hold them.

Auditory

One of the least common representational systems. Auditory people will be very focused on the way the world around them sounds. They may be musicians or work in jobs relating to sound. An auditory person will also a very distracted by sounds around them and will often want to work in a quiet environment. If you’re talking to an auditory person they may find it difficult to hold a conversation with you if other people are also talking in the background.

An auditory person might say things like:

• “How does that sound?”
• “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Top Tip: If you are presenting a treatment plan to an auditory person it will be absolutely fine to explain by voice alone what the treatment plan is. You could also record your explanation and send it to them as an auditory file.

Auditory digital

This relates to internal dialogue and logical thinking. Auditory digital people will often be engineers, scientists or people which think in very clear, logical straight lines. An auditory digital person needs order, flowcharts and processes.

I’ve run many courses looking at these different types of representational system and by far the greatest percentage of dentists are auditory digital. Auditory digital people like to think, plan and organise.

An auditory digital person might say:

• “there is logic in what I’m saying”
• “does that make sense?”

Top Tip: if you are presenting a treatment plan to an auditory digital person use statistics to back up your argument for example, success rates, number of treatments completed etc. Present your treatment plan logically using reason, systems and analysis to present it. And above all, if you are a dentist the chances are this will be your primary representational system, so be flexible in the way you communicate.

So how do you represent the world around you?

Which of the representational systems looks, sounds, feels or logically is more like you? (See what I did there!).

If you do some digging around online you should be able to find a representational system preference test (alternatively send me an e-mail and I can provide one for you), this will give you an idea of what your own representational system is.

And the biggest tip I can give… Just because something seems right to you, does not necessarily mean it is right or make sense to someone else… Remember, most dentists are logical auditory digital thinkers, and most people in the general population are visual. Remember to present your treatment plans in a way that makes sense to the person you’re communicating with.

In this podcast edition I talk in depth about how NLP works. NLP is primarily a system for understanding how we encode our subjective view of the world. When we encode our subjective view of the world we turn it into a program in our mind. NLP looks at that program and encoding and seeks to change the parts which are less helpful.

Join me as I walk you through some practical exercises  to experience how your encoding works for yourself. I know you will find it enlightening!

Show References:
Noam Chomsky – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

Transcript

In this episode, I want to explain what NLP is and how NLP works. So how NLP works to affect such large changes in people and make such big differences in their lives often very quickly. And by very quickly, I can mean in a matter of minutes sometimes.

NLP is fundamentally a principle and a system for looking at the way you take your subjective view of the world and encode it. Once we understand how you encode the world around you, then we can break encoding down into a program. We can work out the effective parts of that program, and we can work out the non-effective parts or perhaps the unhelpful parts of that program. And then we can recreate that program in a way that serves you better.

So I’m going to give you some examples so you can experience this for yourself. So what I’d like you to do is to think about something good that happened to you in the past. I mean, something really good. It could be a particular birthday celebration. It could be a wedding. It could be a birth of a child. But anything that you would consider to be really, really good. And as you think of that, I would like you to picture it. Create a picture in your mind of that really good, happy, joyous, momentous event. So create that picture.

Now, we’re going to start to break down the program, this encoding that I’ve spoken about. So now I want to ask you is there sound with this picture? And if there isn’t sound, give it some sound. As you look at that picture, are you looking at that picture through your own eyes? Or can you see yourself in that picture? I want you to make sure that you can see through your own eyes, that you are looking through your own eyes.

Now is that picture static or is it moving? Is the picture very clear? Is it very focused and sharp or is it slightly de-focused? Are there any noticeable smells happening around you? So you can see that as we start to play with this picture, we can pick up things that we call submodalities and these submodalities can make a huge difference to the way we store and encode things that have happened to us in our life.

So if I were to say to you, if that picture is moving, make it still and make it silent, and make the picture now small. So move the picture away from yourself so that it seems small. And now see yourself in that picture rather than looking through your own eyes. Now, make that picture black and white.

We can immediately start to feel the way we represent that event in our mind can start to change. And we do this with all things in our brain. Every time we think about perhaps a habit, smoking, drinking, doing things that we enjoy going out, dancing, meeting friends, we have little programs that we run. We have memories that we run and we will encode that memory, and we can change how we feel about it by changing the encoding. And that’s what we call submodalities.

So that’s one way of changing these programs and changing the encoding. We can use NLP and a series of techniques to uncover some of these events that have happened in the past that may be affecting you or things that you view coming up in the future. We can change the way it’s encoded. We can literally change the way you view it in your mind by changing these submodalities. We can even do things like switching out submodalities.

So there’s a great technique called a like to dislike. It takes the submodalities of things that we like, but perhaps we know we shouldn’t eat like chocolate biscuits perhaps. We can change the submodalities of how we represent chocolate biscuits to change everything so that the submodalities are of something that we actually dislike. What that does in our brains is it starts to mess up how we encode eating chocolate biscuits.

And the result of that is when we encode eating chocolate biscuits and mix it up with something that we don’t like, the desire and drive to eat chocolate biscuits disappears. It’s incredible when we start to mess and change the encoding in our brains. We also have another series of this encoding called meta-programs. And meta-programs are little programs that we run all of the time. We have programs for pretty much everything that we do. We have programs for cleaning our teeth in the morning through the program to falling in love, through he programs to buying something.

So let’s just look at this at the moment. Let’s just look at buying something and think about how that gets encoded in our brain because lots of people struggle with continuously buying things they don’t need perhaps, or spending money that they don’t have. And that’s because there will be some unhelpful part of their buying or decision-making process and the way they’ve encoded that.

Let’s just think about buying something of value. So imagine that you’re going to buy something that has quite a bit of value and this could be different for every person. But I want you to think of something that you wouldn’t usually buy that would stretch you. So it’s an item that you wouldn’t buy just without thinking. I want you to think of an item that you’d buy that would actually stretch you financially that you’d really need to be sure that you were going to buy it.

So it could be a new item of clothing. It could be a new fancy watch. It could be a car. It could be anything.

So I want you to think of something that you would like to buy, but that item is going to stretch you so that it’s not just a very quick decision. You’ve really got to think about it. When you’ve got that item, I want you to close your eyes. So now I want to imagine that you have already walked into the shop where this item is located and you see the item there.

I want you to think now, what is the very first thing that causes you to notice that you want to purchase that item? Is it something that you see or something that you hear? And some people, it may just be seeing that item, seeing the item triggers, emotions in them, triggers thoughts in them, or sometimes people can hear. They might hear their own voice in their head. Say, wow, you’d look good in that. They might hear a voice in their head saying, just buy it. They may hear a voice in their head saying, “You would look really good in that.”

And it may not be their own voice. It may be the voice of their partner, of their mother, of their father. Something that they hear in their head. So we will all have an initial trigger that causes us the desire to want to buy something. And that trigger will form part of the program. I would then say, what is the next thing? So when you’ve decided, okay, I’m going to move a bit further forward, what’s the next thing that causes you to notice that you want to purchase this item?

Is it something that you see, something that you hear, or something that you feel? At that point we might say, “Oh yeah, once I see it, or once I hear that voice, I get a feeling. I kind of just know.” Then I would say, “Well, where is that feeling? If it is a feeling, where is that feeling? Is it in your head? Is it in your stomach? Is it lower down? Is it an arm? Is it in a leg? It could be anywhere? Where is that feeling?”

What we’re actually doing here is starting to work out the encoding process. What is the process that we go through when we make this purchase decision? We will all go through our own little process or process will be very different. Sometimes people will see, they will hear, they will feel, but there will be a little process, a little series of encodings that we go through when we make a purchase. Sometimes there is a loop. So sometimes we get a loop in that process where we end up getting looped back to the beginning.

When we get looped back to the beginning, as you could clearly see it, it becomes really difficult to make a decision. We go round and around and around not being able to make a decision. The opposite end of the spectrum, some people’s purchasing program is very, very short and has very few steps in it.

Their program might be, I look at it, I feel that I want it. I buy it. And a person like that may end up purchasing too many things.

So we might want to adjust either of those programs. We might want to adjust the program that has a loop in it to take the loop out. So this person can make a decision better. Or if the decision happens too quickly to buy something of high value, then we might want to look at extending that program to put in some additional checks so that we can prevent this over purchasing, this behavior which is unhelpful. So you can see even making a purchase decision, we have encoded in our brains and all of this is linked to our emotions and the emotions it triggers within us and the memories because the memories that we have again are just encodings.

Noam Chomsky talks in great detail about deletions, distortions and generalizations. And I’ll put a link to him in the comments of this podcast. So deletions, distortions, and generalizations. We delete the world around us. We delete things we don’t need like the sound of a computer buzzing in the background, like the sound of birds tweeting outside, like any other extraneous sounds that are going on around us, that we don’t need to be aware of all of the time, because we’d go into overdrive if we were aware of them all of the time. So we delete things.

We distort things around us. Distortions, deletions, and we generalize as well. We generalize things that people say. We generalize emotions and we generalize if someone says, “I don’t like that.” We generalize it. So why would I think that? I don’t like that means. And we turn their emotions into our emotions by comparing it with ourself.

So we delete, distort, and generalize all of these things around us. So as we creating our memories, our memories become encoded in our brain and actually are not true.

They are just our encoding of what happened. They are not the reality. They are not the truth. All of this encoding, all of these programs, this is what we work on with NLP. This is what we work with a client to identify which programs are helpful, which programs are unhelpful. And then we break that program down and we rebuild it in a helpful manner, which works better for that client.

So that is how NLP works. And all of the NLP techniques and ideas that you see out there, they all work on this basic principle of taking the encoding of the world around us, breaking the encoding down into a series of stages, understanding how we encode, and then re-encode in a more helpful manner.

And as ever, I would absolutely love to hear your feedback.
Thank you for listening. If you have liked what you have heard, please rate and review, and subscribe. If you’d like to ask any questions, please send an email to succeed@mysuccessfullife.co.uk. Or to find out more about the Performance Academy, what we offer with our online verifiable CPD courses, please visit mysuccessfullife.co.uk.

I’ve had 3 discovery calls in the past week and I thought I’d share with you some common themes that so many people experience, do you recognise any of this?

1. Freedom vs Security. It seems so many people want to have both. Freedom – to live life as they want and freedom from having to work all hours. Security – that there is a regular income. If these two parts are not reconciled then they will continuously pull in different directions and you’ll find business and life does the same. This way, that way, never really getting anywhere.

2. Not having a clear goal. Unless you know exactly what you want to achieve in life, and have it shining brightly as something to walk towards, almost magnetic, pulling you irresistibly towards it then focus in life can become difficult. As soon as things get tough you will lose focus if you’re not absolutely crystal clear about what you want to achieve in LIKE. (and I’m not talking about a five-year goal with a business plan!)

3. Past experiences/emotions holding us back & becoming a barrier. Even if we have a shining bright goal that we know where we are going in life, if we have unhelpful thoughts, experiences or beliefs these can hold us back and prevent us achieving… Even if we think we have all of the business tools available to us.

If you recognise these things, you aren’t alone.

If you recognise these things, the good news is that something can be done!

And so, I’m off to coach myself… Today I’m writing my 10 year, 20 year and 30 year goals.

I love all this stuff 🙂

There’s lots of talk about manipulating people, how bad it is & how we should never do it.

The problem is, the people that say this are often the worst offenders and manipulate all of the time without even knowing it!

You see we are born manipulators and by the time we reach adulthood we are expert at it.

A baby realises quite quickly that if it cries in a particular way it gets fed, or changed or put to bed.

As the baby turns into a toddler it begins to experiment with other ways to manipulate its parents to get what it wants. It tries the two-year-old tantrum lying on the floor screaming, if that doesn’t work, our darling toddler resorts to the doughey eyed “oooh mummy I love you” look, you know that look, the one that parents can’t resist!

As the toddler works out which strategy works best to manipulate its parent it begins to use those manipulation strategies more and more. The parent learns and the parent adapts… And so as the toddler grows and turns into a teenager the teenager adapts its manipulation strategies too.

In an attempt to get what the teenager wants the use of classic “It’s not fair, all of my friends have got one!” manipulation strategy gets used – and if you have kids I’m sure you can think of many others.

By the time our stroppy teenager has turned into adult it has become a master manipulator. Our adult can now manipulate without even thinking about it, and therein lay the problem!

The manipulation strategies we use as adults may be more subtle, but they are there:

• That knowing look you give your assistant over the top of your glasses when they ask you a dumb question.
• The obtuse reply you give someone when you want to tell them you disapprove.
• When you ignore a comment completely.

The problem is, we cannot not communicate.

It’s absolutely impossible to not communicate anything at all. Even the act of ignoring someone and not speaking or messaging, is still communicating (I’ll leave you to decide what it communicates) and is still manipulating.

The cleverer person amongst us realises that.

They realise that they accidentally manipulate situations all day long.

They become aware of how they communicate, they become tuned in to the other person, realising that they have accidentally manipulated the other person, they then adapt their communication strategy to communicate their true intention without manipulating at all.

So is this person manipulating? Well, yes… It’s inevitable, it’s what we all do, the difference is that they are manipulating the conversation with positive intention to allow the other person to understand the true intention, and to communicate in a way that makes sense to the other person. It’s a complete win/win.

It’s what the expert communicators do without even thinking. Some people have learned the knack of doing this implicitly, all we are doing is making their unconscious, conscious.

So which do you choose? Conscious Competence, where you are aware of how you communicate, the problems you can accidentally bring about and are actively working to make a difference to communicate better… or do you wish to stay completely in the dark, ignoring the fact you do it and remain unconsciously incompetent?

A Look at Neuro-linguistic programming

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a personal development technique that can be used to treat anxiety, depression, and a wide range of phobias. It can also be used to help people change their thought patterns and achieve greater success in their lives. NLP uses behavioral and communication methods to help people change their thoughts, actions, and emotions. 

If you’re a successful, ambitious health and wellness professional, you may be interested in joining My Successful Life’s NLP Academy. This article will look at the benefits NLP can bring to your life. 

What is NLP?

NLP is a technique that was developed in the ’70s by John Grinder and Richard Bandler. They studied people who excelled in their field, were amazing communicators, and effectively implemented personal development. They began to research why some people became successful, while others seemed to struggle and fail. NLP was created by discovering the belief systems, mindset, values, and strategies used by successful people. 

NLP allows people to implement personal and professional change in their life quickly. It’s a powerful behavioural science that enables people to change how they feel, communicate, and behave. 

If you’ve noticed that you keep repeating patterns in your life, whether at work or in your personal relationships, NLP will help you to change them. It will help to make you a more effective communicator with all types of people. 

Why is Noam Chomsky so important?

Noam Chomsky is a famouscognitive scientist who’s work inspired the research and development that was carried out to create NLP. He has a significant impact on the field of linguistics and was also a philosopher and socio-political critic. Chomsky studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed his theory of transformational grammar, which later was instrumental in redeveloping language study. 

Noam Chomsky is important as he is often known as “the father of modern linguistics” and is one of the cognitive science founders. During his career, he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Columbia University. He founded a graduate program in linguistics in Massachusetts. 

Noam Chomsky studied various topics that are important to Neurolinguistics programming, including psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and linguistics. Chomsky helped to change cognitive science ideas, particularly his ideas that disproved Skinner’s behaviourism theory. 

 Is non-verbal communication more honest?

It’s common for people not to say precisely what they mean or to hide how they feel. Non-verbal communication ismore honest as it’s unconscious and often shows people’s real reactions to situations. For example, if you see something that you like the look of, your pupils will dilate and your face my flush.

Many people unconsciously gesture with their hands while they speak. This type of non-verbal communication is automatic and more challenging to control than verbal communication. Research shows that your body communicates more non verbally then it does verbally. Scientists have often be quoted as saying that up to 93% of communication is non-verbal, however this is actually a myth!

Hand gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice are all examples of non-verbal communication. These are all very powerful in human interactions and often show people’s authentic feelings. 

 What is NLP good for?

NLP practitioners help people change their thoughts and behaviours to help them achieve the desired outcome. Nuro-linguistic programming can be used to treat phobias and common mental health problems such as anxiety disorders or PTSD. It can also be used to improve workplace performance, achieve greater success, improve productivity, and increase levels of happiness. NLP aims to help individuals change their thoughts and actions using a variety of behavioural and communication techniques to change how they perceive the world. NLP works on a diverse range of issues that people commonly face. 

NLP helps to identify and change thought patterns that are holding you back. It also looks at successful people’s behaviours and teaches personal development skills, such as confidence building, self-reflection, and communication skills. Professionals can use NLP for career advancement, as it helps people achieve work-orientated goals. 

The quality of your life is dependant on your emotional states and the quality of your relationships. If there are things in your life that scare you and stop you from doing things, NLP can help you change the situation. 

NLP can help you at work as it will help to further your success. If you fear presentations, NLP techniques can be used to allow you to excel at public speaking and be able to present information to groups effectively. If you work in the health care field, it’s important to deliver information clearly and concisely to your patients and colleagues. Whether you want to inspire or motivate NLP will help you become an influencer of others. 

Many people have internal conflicts and waste time and energy being in two-minds about situations. NLP allows you to change your thought patterns to help you make clearer decisions and find direction. If you’re sometimes able to achieve your goals, but sometimes don’t, you’ll be looking for more consistent results. 

If you’ve recently been feeling like you’re stuck in a rut and want to make changes in your life, but don’t know how to begin. NLP can help you make the changes you need and deserve and will help improve the quality of your life. You’ll be able to move away from negative emotions and can consciously choose how you want to feel instead. 

Many professionals have an unhealthy relationship with money; NLP can change that. The techniques can also be used if you’re into sports and are looking to master techniques and improve your performance. 

 The meta model demystified

The meta model allows people to find distortions in their thinking patterns. We rely on communication to share experiences. However, we are often unconsciously limiting ourselves through the language we use. Distorted thought patterns change our perception of reality. The meta model helps people identify distortions in their thoughts and language to improve their relationships and have an improved internal dialogue. 

The meta model has three categories, known as distortion, deletion, and generalisation. This model helps people to challenge their verbal patterns to help change their situation. There are thirteen patterns that are present in everyday language.

NLP practitioners work with clients using the meta model patterns. Each pattern has a set of questions and associated challenges that allow the client to make changes to limitations that have been holding them back. Mental maps are used to indicate clients’ values, beliefs, and thought patterns, which helps clients access choices within themselves.

The meta model has three elements that help people to modify their language to create more positive outcomes. 

 Distortion 

Many people experience distorted thinking, which can come in many different forms and hold you back from achieving success. In the worst cases, distorted thinking can be destructive and contributes to mental health problems. 

Common distortions include ‘mind-reading,’ where you are imagining what another person is thinking or feeling with no basis in any form of logic or sensory observation. ‘Black and white thinking’ or ‘distorted assumptions.’ The meta model allows questions to be asked that will challenge these types of distortions. 

Generalisation 

Being too general and not looking at the bigger picture can be a problem for many people. You may find yourself going over a specific experience and generalising the situation, making it difficult to move on. Everyone sees the world and their place in society slightly differently; we create our own set of rules with which we live life by. Humans generalise their experiences so that when they come up against a similar experience in the future, they will know what to do. Working with generalisation and challenging thoughts can help people let go of phobias. 

Many people have unconsciously created rules and values that hold them back from achieving the success they deserve. NLP helps to create a code in the mind map, which can rid clients of language and thoughts that are no longer serving them.  

Deletion 

Thought or language patterns that include deletion will omit parts of the mental map, which won’t appear in verbal expression. If we delete information, we will hold ourselves back from achieving success as we will think of ourselves as having limited options. 

 Conclusion

If you could change anything in your life, what would it be? What if you were able to make this change? How would your life be then? The performance academy can help you make positive changes in your life. Using NLP techniques, you’ll be able to avoid procrastination, improve communication with clients and patients, and maintain your work-life balance. The performance academy will allow you to learn practical tools that are accessible and easy to implement in your day to day life. 

Interested? Find out more about what the Performance Academy, created by My Successful Life, can do for you!

Success for many people can seem elusive, some people seem to achieve their ultimate success criteria incredibly easy, Yet for others it’s a continuous struggle.

There’s also a large group of people that achieve success with relative ease, yet also seem to have the ability to have huge failures following quite rapidly afterwards. This yo-yo success/failure is incredibly common and many people know of others that have managed to build businesses only to watch them fall apart again… Often over and over.

Why is this? Why does success come so easily for some yet seem so difficult for others?

Why does this yo-yo effect exist and what’s the solution?

Let’s take a look…

How to define success for yourself

For many people they define success as being happy. And yet, happiness is a state and should never be a goal in itself. Think about a fabulous event in your lifetime, perhaps a wedding, a party or a holiday where you had an absolute blast. See what you saw, hear what you could hear when you were there and feel the emotions of that event.

Can you feel the happiness?

See what I mean? Happiness can be invoked at any time, all we need is the correct mental stimulus and we can feel happy.

Therefore, happiness should not be a goal or definition of success… What we need is something more.

Here are a few ways to define success for yourself.

• Growth and connection with people with similar mindsets.
• Being aware and living with my own values, not societal norms or cultural expectations.
• Achieving a defined work/life balance.
• Self-awareness and development of my potential.

Once you have defined success for yourself, look carefully at the words. For example, ” self-awareness and development of my potential”…

1. What does self-awareness mean specifically?
2. What does development mean? How quick, when, how will it be measured?
3. What does potential mean specifically?

And then, how will I know that I have reached full self-awareness and development of my potential?

This can be quite some process, but begin to think now about what success means for you, then have a dig around in the words you have used to come up with specific meanings for them.

How to write success criteria

The best way I can describe this is to set yourself a Chief Definite Aim, I use a 13 point sequence to ask a series of questions to gain my success criteria.

Those 13 questions to ask of yourself are:

1. What specifically do you want? And I mean SPECIFICALLY!
2. Where are you now?
3. What will you see, hear and feel when you have it? This makes it oh, so very real and attractive.
4. How will you know when you have it?
5. What will your goal/outcome get for you or allow you to do?
6. Is it only for you?
7. Where, when, how and with whom do you want it?
8. What do you have now and what do you need to get your goal/outcome?
9. For what purpose do you want it?
10. What will happen if you get it
11. What won’t happen if you get it?
12. What will happen if you don’t get it
13. What won’t happen if you don’t get it?

Listen to a pod cast about this topic.

The last 4 questions can be deliberately confusing, this uses a process called Cartesian logic and is deliberately designed to push you out of your comfort zone. This isn’t thinking outside the box, this is getting rid of the box completely!

Making effective decisions

Here are my 3 top tips to making effective decisions:

• Understand your decision-making strategy. Do you have an internal locus of evaluation or an external locus of evaluation? This is about knowing you are making a right decision (internal) yourself… You just know. The alternative is constantly seeking other people’s input and seeing their point of view to the degree that stifles your ability to make the decision (external). Simply being aware where your locus of evaluation is can really help if you find decision-making difficult.
• Be aware of your modal operators. Do you use words like could, would, should or ought? This can help you understand your incentive for making the decision. Are you deciding something because you think you should? Are you deciding something because you think you ought to? As your coach I would then say to you “Who says you should or ought?”. If it’s someone else then perhaps this is why you find making decisions difficult. Bring the choice about making a decision back to you, give yourself total authority over the motivation for making the decision. If someone else says you should or ought, then perhaps it’s their decision to make and not yours!
• Don’t try. Never try to make decisions. In fact, never try anything. Our brains cannot cope with the word try. You either do or do not. If someone says to you they will try to come to your party, are they going to be there? Let’s not try… Let’s decide right now that we WILL.

Here’s what to do next

I’m proud to say I have a whole course catalogue of communication, mindset courses which include lots of information about making effective decisions. Take a look at the whole course catalogue here, or sign up for a free trial and take the first course absolutely free.

FREE COURSE >>

As an extra bonus, you will also get a CPD certificate for 2 hours after completing the 1st free course.

A team based University College London found that when they performed a meta analysis of 13 existing European studies covering nearly 200,000 people they found “job strain” was linked to a 23% increased risk of heart attacks and deaths from coronary heart disease.

So if we were to think about that for ourselves, how many people have said to themselves ” I am stressed”?

In NLP we call this a complex equivalence, it is where a person is saying that one thing is the same as something else… In this case “I” is the same as “stressed”. I AM STRESSED

This is clearly not true, ‘stressed’ is a state, and is separate to the person doing that state. To say ‘I am stressed’ is to suggest that the person is the same as the state . All a person is doing is choosing to do the activity of being stressed, and this activity is separate to themselves as an individual.

The first thing anyone needs to do in order to change, and to decide not to be stressed is to realise that ‘stressed’ and themselves as a unique individual are not the same thing, saying ‘I am stressed’ is factually not correct. Once an individual is able to separate themselves from the stressed state/activity then that person has moved into a place of taking control, and once in control change can happen.

All the time that an individual believes that they are the same as a ‘stressed’ state, and does not understand that they are separate to the activity of being stressed then change will never happen.

I am a man – this is factually correct.

I am English – this is factually correct.

I am stressed – is not factually correct, I can choose to do the activity of being stressed but it is impossible for me to actually BE the activity of stressed… It is always something separate to me.

This is about being in control of our mind, when we are in control of our mind we can be in control of our results, a fundamental principle of NLP.

No I’m not suggesting that simply accepting this fact solves the problem of stress, but what I am suggesting is when we get into the right mindset then resolving the issues and dealing with the problem becomes a reality.

I’ve used this technique personally so many times. When I was sadly bereaved 7 years ago I could say ” I am sad”, however this is again actually not correct. I may be very good at doing the activity of being sad, but sad is a ‘state’, not something physical. So it’s impossible for me to actually BE sad.

Recognising this allowed me to sometimes be overwhelmed by the emotion of sadness, then recognise that what I was doing was the activity of being sad incredibly well.

As soon as I had the recognition that what I was doing was an activity, rather than an actual state of being, I could regain control of my mind and decide not to do the state of being sad for another hour… Often until my mind became overwhelmed and I accidentally slipped back into that state.

And so the cycle repeated!

The words we say every day have a profound impact upon our lives, and saying things like ‘I am stressed’ or ‘I am sad’ sends a very strong message to our unconscious mind. In order to make changes we need to bring it into the conscious and then make a conscious decision not to draw the equivalence between ourselves and the activity of stress or sadness.

It’s OK to do the activity of stressed.

It’s OK to do the activity of sadness.

That is very different from actually BEING the activity of stressed or sad. This is factually not correct!

Profound? Yes, but also true, and when you begin to adopt this thought process you can find that it also allows you to make the changes you need and begin to live longer without the associated heart conditions!

The way we use language represents how we view the world around us, and how we use the world around us influences what we do, and ultimately our success in life and business!

These are some of the core principles of mindset management which are included in the courses in The Performance Academy. The Academy is a series of mindset and communication courses designed to help those working in health and wellness achieve success in business and life.

Membership to the Academy includes free access to all courses, pod casts, webinars and earn verifiable CPD for everything – All for £25 per month.

What is neurolinguistic programming and how does it work?

Let’s get one thing straight, there isn’t actually anyone definitive thing which is neurolinguistic programming (NLP). The term NLP was coined by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the 1970s and is made up of 3 words:

• Neuro – to do with the brain
• Linguistic – to do with language
• Programming – to do with making change in our brains using language

NLP follows a process that is driven by adopting an attitude of curiosity, this attitude leads to a methodology which leaves behind a trial of techniques.

So NLP is really changing the way we think using words, coupled with an attitude of curiosity.

How does NLP work?

NLP works because a skilled practitioner will remain constantly resourceful, continuously looking at problems from a different angle and being infinitely flexible. This infinite flexibility is the real key to making NLP work.

The core principle of NLP is to ensure we are all thinking at ’cause’. Being at ’cause’ means we accept full responsibility for our actions, the way we think and our behaviours.

The complete opposite of this is being at ‘effect’. This means that we blame the effects of what what the one around us for the way we think, our actions and our behaviours.

A person at ‘effect’ would say “I behave like this because of an external influence, the way I behave and think is therefore out of my control“.

A person at ’cause’ would say ” I choose the way I behave even though there are external influences, the way I behave and think is completely within my control.”

Being at ’cause’ is very empowering, it means we have choices, it gives us freedom and ultimately leads to a more successful life.

NLP techniques

All NLP techniques are designed to ultimately take someone from ‘effect’ through to ’cause’, to give them choices, to empower them, to build them up and to help them solve their own problems.

Many NLP techniques work by using sub modalities.

Everyone construct internal representations of what is going on around them. We might think that we perceive and remember everything, but our perception and memory is flawed. We delete, we distort and we generalise information and throughout this process the encoding of what is happening around us creates an internal representation.

We very often create a picture in our mind and it is to this picture which sub modalities relate.

Try this little experiment:

Picture in your mind something which you really enjoy going, it must be something you REALLY enjoy doing. Make the picture as big as it needs to be in order to be the most compelling picture. Is the picture moving? If it would make it more compelling, then make the picture the a video picture. Does the picture have sound? Give that picture enough sound to make it really compelling and really enjoyable, you may need to turn the volume up and make it very sharp sound. Is the picture colour? Adjust the colours to make it really compelling. How close is that picture? Try moving the picture closer in your mind to make it more compelling.

Feels good right?

What we’ve adjusted are the sub modalities of the picture, typically:

• size
• moving or still
• sound, volume and sharpness
• colour or black and white
• distant or close

What’s really bizarre is that we can adjust sub modalities, without thinking about it we always create pictures when we create internal representations.

If I said to you think about the most amazing food that you absolutely love, you will create a picture in your mind. You may even be able to smell it, you may be able to see you soon on your plate, that picture will be the correct brightness for you, it will be moving if that makes it the best picture.

Now, if I said you think about something which ABSOLUTELY disgusts you! Something like a dog poop. Imagine that on a plate in front of you.

let’s adjust the sub modalities of the poop picture. Make the picture smaller and move it further away, remove any smell, make the picture black-and-white, remove any sound, make the picture still, make the picture the focused. Notice how your internal representation changes.

This is NLP in action, adjusting the sub modalities can help us view things in a different way.

We can even swap them.

This is how a ‘like to dislike‘ is done. A like to dislike technique is used if we wanted to help a client give something up, nailbiting, chocolate or eating biscuits are classic ones.

All we do is elicit the sub modalities of something which is disgusting (think about that dog poop) and place the exact same sub modalities over the top of what the client wants to dislike. If they wanted to stop eating chocolate and we made the internal representation of chocolate the same as dog poop it would make eating chocolate virtually impossible.

The client now NEVER wants to eat chocolate again!

There is a specific technique for making this happen however this should only ever be done by NLP qualified practitioners.

How NLP changed my life

My own story of NLP began in 2004 when I was first introduced to it during my Masters in business degree at the Open University. One of my lecturers was an NLP master practitioner and used NLP principles whilst teaching. It left such an impression on me that I decided to investigate further.

7 years later I qualified as a master practitioner in NLP myself. NLP has changed my life enormously, I feel empowered, I feel motivated, I feel able to choose my own definition of success and live by that choice.

NLP also helped me through one of the most difficult times of my life when my wife died. I knew I was in control of my mind (I was at ’cause’) and I would not be at the effect of what was happening around me. This gave me the strength to face my own emotions head-on, knowing that I would come through.

On a business level, NLP has helped me with communication with clients and team members, as well as help to write content for websites (like this). It’s helped with goalsetting as well as making sure I stay positive, the techniques I learnt have enabled me to lead a successful and highly performing life!

Summary

So, can NLP change your life? You bet it can!

If you work in the healthcare sector, possibly a doctor, dentist, chiropractor or physiotherapist then you may like to find out more about The Performance Academy, this is a lot online learning platform dedicated to helping you improve success, performance and client communication.

Here’s a little story about a man that chose to see things slightly differently:

Roberto de Vincenzo, the famous Argentine golfer, once won a tournament, and after receiving the cheque and smiling for the camera he went to the clubhouse and prepared to leave. Sometime later he walked alone to his car in the parking lot and was approached by a young woman. She congratulated him on his victory and then told him that her child was seriously ill and near death. De Vicenzo was touched by her story and took out a pen and endorsed his winning payment to the woman.”Make some good days for the baby,” he said as he pressed the cheque into her hand.

The next week he was having lunch in a country club when a PGA official came to his table. “Some of the guys in the parking lot last week told me you met a young woman there after you won the tournament”. De Vincenzo nodded. “Well”, said the official, ” I have news for you. She is a phoney. She is not married. She has no sick baby. She fleeced you, my friend.”

“You mean there is no baby who is dying?” said De Vincenzo

“That’s right.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week!”

Quoted from “Do Nothing” by Damian Smyth p159

So here is my question to you…How are you going to see things differently today?