The new technology of achievement- by Charles Faulkner &Steve Andreas: My book summary and Reflections
For our own metamorphosis and joie de vivre, we want to be able to move beyond fixing problems to creating possibilities. Many approaches are pointing towards human potential and increasing possibilities. Some of them are well known with names like positive mental attitude, visualization, affirmations, inner child work, goal setting and personal power.
Pain, struggle, suffering and waiting are signs that it’s time for different approach in life. They are optional additions to the change process and can be easily evaded. To change what we want we need to change the way we are designed to change, for example, be the way that you have always wanted to be: confident in times of crisis, tenacious resilient and motivated when it really counts as well as sensitive & receptive to loved ones and to life’s gifts.
With NLP we learn to turn those pieces that aren’t fitting to ‘flow on demand’; with NLP we are able to keep traits that are worth preserving and change those that we need to. Practicing NLP will put us in control of our own motivation, create a compelling future and a personal pathway to it, build closer relationships and enhance persuasion skills, clear up personal barriers that have held us back, enhance self-esteem and self-appreciation, create a positive mental attitude and achieve peak performance.
Regardless of the situation, NLP shows us how we can do more, have more and be more.
NLP is the study of a practical approach to personal change and human excellence. NLP suggests that our thoughts, feeling, and actions are simply habitual programs that can be changed or added by upgrading our ‘mental software’. This way even negative thoughts and remembrance of negative memories can be changed deliberately.
Just a while ago, exploring meditation techniques like ‘Yoganidra’, visualization seemed impossible and possibly a foolery; catnapping seemed the best outcome I could arrive at and happily so! .While I am still a learner Coach looking at the vast ocean of NLP techniques, experiential structures as ‘associated’ or ‘dissociated’ while calibrating the intensity of positive/ negative experiences and memories is something that I have tested and found great satisfaction as all my five senses are actively engaged.
NLP Presuppositions
NLP deals with 12 presuppositions and my favourite is ‘underlying every behaviour’ is a positive intention’ not only does this let me see the world and its inhabitants in a better light but, also be kinder and forgiving to myself.
Another NLP presupposition that has been of immense value to me is that ‘experience’ has a structure. Stepping into parts of a person’s painful past that is still impacting them and feeling the pain that they experience is not something I’d recommend that you subject yourself to, but the same technique can be used to decode an achiever’s mental map as well.
Yet another presupposition that I affirm by (before even discovering NLP) is ‘If one person can do something, anyone can learn how to do it’. Great minds think alike and achieve alike, there is a structure to it !
And, if you have tried all methods to achieve your goal, unending root cause analyses may not really get you anywhere. Working on your mental maps and discovering what can tilt the dial from failure to success can help and do ANYTHING, SOMETHING to create more resources for yourself using your Circle of Excellence and get moving!
Motivation, Purpose, Goals
The authors go on to talk about Motivation and that works in ‘toward’ and ‘away from’ direction. I think that a balance always helps. It is equally important to discover one’s values and how they impact motivation as well as the sub modality that influences one’s change in thoughts.
Discovering one’s calling or grand purpose is a game changer as it unifies beliefs, values , actions, life so far and a sense of who one is. Discovering my larger life purpose at the time that I did was very crucial for me and gave me enough fuel for the start of the rest of my life. It made me re- examine my deepest non-negotiable values and principles.
It is a wakeup call for people who slog like there’s no tomorrow (“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare!”, like William Henry Davies writes and I quote) that there is a bigger purpose beyond the mundane nature of your job (if you feel you are living your mission, you will know too and then you are on the right track, of course) and life that the Maker put you here on earth for. It helps one align all parts of oneself with one’s mission, thus ensuring an enthusiastic passionate perusal of goals even awakening the Universe to support you.
The outer- to- inner methods goal setting can have 4 pitfalls:
1. Vacation- craving- life: Once the incongruence within yourself is settled, the rigor fades.
2. Lure of the status- based advertisements: Media induced consumption or triggering the ‘neighbor’s pride’ could be a pursuit that is shallow.
3. If/ then financial goals: These can chase you to do something that every fiber of your being doesn’t cherish this leading to daily incongruence within you. It’s quite possible however that if the megabucks itself is a means to a larger- than- life purpose, you indeed find your zen.
4. Means versus end: If one acts within the ethics defined by ones’ deepest values, the goals fit within the mission, thus attracting well- being, success, meaningful actions and other tangible benefits.
The goal setting process itself requires life roles in various capacities for success- individual roles, work roles, personal/ family roles and citizen roles. Its important for one to determine which roles matter for ones’ mission. The individual role creates the foundation for all other roles. For example, to take up the role of a palliative caregiver as part of one’s mission they may want to demonstrate love, compassion, empathy and wisdom. Corresponding Citizen roles could be that of an Organizer, Change agent and Community activist.
Selecting a specific goal, measure of success and understanding where/ when/ with whom you want to achieve your goal and the alignment with your ecology are paramount to the success of your compelling goal.
Relationships, Persuasion and Peak Performance
Determination of mutually satisfying goals, establishment and maintenance of nonverbal rapport and producing positive feelings in others (perhaps by keeping the loss- of — rapport — detection — alarm sensitive) by aligning perceptual positions are key to relationship goals.
Powerful persuasion strategies in relationships include conveying to the other person ‘what is in it for them’ as a trade off to accepting your suggestion.
The authors go to on to discuss several techniques to eliminate fears, trauma and phobias by creating new perspectives and mental states using experiential structures and perceptual positions.
Building confidence is yet another application of NLP. Locating critical voices and discovering the positive intentions, acknowledging and thanking (reminded me of Marie Kondo) them while searching for alternatives helps one resolve problems by creating allies for future planning.
We hear many management gurus talk about this ‘You are a human being; not a human doing’ courtesy John Bradshaw (author of ‘Healing the shame that binds you’). The need for approval due to self-esteem challenges can even lead to co- dependencies whereas responding in a mature way to criticism by separating the useful feedback from the source of feedback can do wonders to one’s self esteem.
Interesting quotes:
What lies beyond us and before us are tiny matters when compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it
- Goethe
