Who is driving your car on your journey through life? People talk about a journey through life, don’t they?  Why would you want to feel empowered to drive your own car?  Think about it. Have you ever been in a car with a ‘backseat driver?’  What a nightmare!!

I for one would definitely like to decide how fast I go, wouldn’t you? Wow, I’ve been in the 85 mile per hour queue in the outside lane of the motorway, it’s a scary place to be.

If there is a shortcut then I want to be the one who decides whether or not I take it, and if we need to stop to refuel then I want to be in charge of what grade of fuel that I put in, thank you very much.

It’s your car, why would you let anyone else drive?

Think of two positions A and B.  I can spend time in A, and I can spend time in B.   A is at cause and B is at effect.

Which position do you think most people spend the majority of their time in?  That’s right, they are mostly at effect.  Effect is where it is always someone else’s fault.

“I didn’t get that job done because someone made me angry with what they said to me and then I wasn’t in the the right frame of mind.”

“I can’t concentrate on getting this job done properly because the workmen are making too much noise….”  These are just reasons!!! Excuses!!!

How much better to be at cause.  “I’ve had a great day, I managed to get that job done despite someone trying to wind me up earlier.  I brushed that off because I have more important things to use my energy on than to be annoyed at someone.”

“I am so proud of myself, I had a challenging day.  I had to concentrate really hard since the workmen were making a racket.  Once I had decided that I was going to concentrate on the job though, it’s funny, the noise didn’t bother me.”  These are results. Empowering results.

Looking back in the future, do you want to say, “if it wasn’t for this or it wasn’t for that then I could have made a lot more out of my life?”   When you are on your deathbed, do you want to be looking back blaming other people for not having realised your potential?

On which position do you think that most successful people spend their time? Yes.  Position A, at cause.

You have a choice which side of the equation to put yourself on.

I was struggling with a new job once. My boss said to me “successful people make things happen.”  I thought about that a lot at the time and thought that he can’t apply that rule to my situation because I do not have enough customers to make a success of myself.

I was sitting by the pool in Darwin Australia on the last week of my three week trip and I was considering my career back home in England.  “Big time coming up for me…I’m worried about losing my job….I’ve got a mortgage to pay…etc” Then I thought, “No, I’m not having this! I’m going to take my life by the scruff of the neck, get my head down and really work hard when I get back to the UK.”

I decided that I was going to do as many sales appointments as I could, I told my boss that I was aiming for ten per week, bearing in mind that the top sales person at the time was only doing six.  My boss said that I couldn’t do ten a week, it would “kill” me she said.

Anyway, I did my ten appointments per week, with a positive attitude, focussed on my goal, and surprise surprise my sales started to rocket.

In fact doing more appointments became a habit, as it does, and although I did not keep up the ten appointments per week, by the end of the year I averaged seven, I was also the top sales person in the company and had brought in a record level of income to the company and record earnings for myself in return.

It could so easily have been a different story.  What a difference that decision that I took by the pool in Australia made. I put myself at cause.

Top mountaineers are at the extreme of cause and effect.  They put themselves at cause in that if they succeed they can be recognised throughout the world as a top athlete and they can be pioneers in adventure.  If they fail and they fall to their deaths then we can conclude that they were at effect. However cruel it may sound they put themselves in the position where they lost their footing, they were at effect since they lost concentration momentarily and that caused their foot to slip. At the moment that they lost concentration, they were at effect. That moment could have had a different conclusion if they had maintained their concentration and been at cause over the mountain.

They could have decided to turn back and go down because they knew that they were getting tired and may start losing concentration, or they may have decided to turn back because the weather was looking bad.  These are results, they are empowering themselves in an extreme way by taking responsibility for their future.

Luckily for us it is not always as serious a situation as that.  We get to make mistakes and have another go.  Further your personal development and improve your happiness, your life, be at cause, keep the cause inside you.  Make sure that you get results, empower yourself by taking full responsibility for your future.

You decide. Either “I am in charge” or “things happen to me and I am the victim.”

I challenge you to experiment with being in charge for a day, a week and see what happens, notice the results that you get.

Have you heard the phrase ‘you get what you focus on?’

It’s true. Focus on solutions not your perceived limitations..drive your own car and control your destiny.

Cause and Effect is what in NLP is called a frame. It is an empowering frame and it is one that we remind ourselves of in all of our training courses.   Certify as an NLP professional or just learn how to become a better communicator, the choice is your with our NLP training online.