An NLP Strategy for meeting challenges
by Linda Ferguson
NLP works from the presupposition that anything one person can do, another person can learn to do (providing it is something of which s/he is physically capable). The flip side of this presupposition is the idea that anything you can do successfully can become a pattern for success in new contexts.
As you consider this presupposition, you will notice that it contains other beliefs about human beings; it contains, for instance, the idea that we are resources for each other. Our world is more easily influenced because we are not alone in it. Not only do we learn from each other deliberately: we also pick up moods and states from each other.
The obvious way to use NLP to meet a challenge is to find someone who is successfully handling a similar challenge and model them – observe them with such acuity that you can do what they are doing and get the same result they are getting.
There is a catch. In order to model successfully, you will need to be able to identify with your model – to find ways in which you can think, feel and act alike. This is hard to do unless you are feeling resourceful. Too often, we look at models from the depths of our anxiety and stress and feel the gap is much too wide to cross. It’s not. But it does lead to the first step in the NLP strategy for handling challenges.
Begin by gaining access to more of your strengths, skills and capabilities. If you are not feeling resourceful, you are unlikely to be resourceful. Without strength, flexibility, innovation or a sense of fun, you are also unlikely to meet your challenge successfully. In order to become more resourceful than you are feeling, you will probably need the assistance of someone who is already feeling resourceful. A coach can do this for you – so can anyone who is having a really good day and is willing to make a connection with you.
Once you are beginning to feel better, work the good feelings. Begin by moving: when you get your physical body moving with strength and grace, your mind is tempted to follow suit. Walk as though you were already on top of the world – and if you need help to stay there, then walk like a friend who has his/her stuff together.
Using anchoring, you can chain good states together and apply them directly to the places where you are feeling challenged. The key is to be so thoroughly engaged in your resourceful self that you make the challenges more manageable when you integrate the positive anchors. That’s why you should never begin with the anchoring process. Always wait until you have easy access to strong representations of positive states. Then enjoy playing.
Then begin to tell yourself the story of your success. Since it hasn’t happened yet, work with the real stories of challenges you have successfully overcome. You can be your own best role model. Stories are always most natural and most powerful when they have a listener. The key to this stage is to find someone to listen to your stories of success.
By this point, you might well find that you do not have a challenge: just work to do. If the challenge is really new or really big, you might need to go find new learning in order to meet it successfully. You are now ready to do what you need to do. Either get to work, or find a model who has one or more of the pieces you are missing.
You can thoroughly enjoy identifying with your model now. Just as you will thoroughly enjoy telling the story of how you met this challenge – with NLP!
About the author: Linda Ferguson, Ph.D. is a senior partner with NLP Canada Training Inc.,Toronto, Canada. NLP Canada provides intensive training in the practices and principles of NLP. Drawing on fields from the arts to business to neuroscience. Learn more at www.nlpcanada.com