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I have learned that very often I remain in the comfort zone without pushing myself to the best of my ability for fear of not succeeding. This learning has given me more confidence in making better choices that can help give me more focus and a pathway to get more empowering results in my life. It has made me realise that I am in charge of my own destiny and that I can achieve whatever I put my mind to as long as I am prepared to be flexible and motivated.
Learning about the frames of NLP has given me a better understanding regarding the information we take in and how it can determine our perception on people and our environment. This has made me realise that I need to change what is on the inside first before I can change my perception of people or things on the outside. I also need to be more mindful of the language I use with other people and how I communicate with them and the impact this can have on their own internal representations and how they may perceive me.
I have also learned that the mind cannot process negatives and I realised through this learning that I have been internally critical and negative towards myself, and this has also made me realise the importance of using positive and specific language in order to define exactly what I want in certain situations. Over recent weeks I have been adapting a more broader and positive outlook on myself, others and life in general in a way to seek out alternative possibilities to improve my emotional well-being and happiness.
I can be highly motivated to change and support people to change when in the context of my job, where the job role is about delivery, meeting measurable goals, coaching others, modelling good continuous professional development, etc.
I am also beginning to understand comments I have received from colleagues in recent years along the lines of ‘you’re always so happy’ or ‘you’re always so positive’. The comments are true, but I am only just beginning to understand that I am happy and positive not just because of my personality, but largely from a conscious decision some time ago. Over time, I realised that I needed to focus on what I could achieve rather than what I could not, and chose to focus on the positive). Cause and Effect suggests that we get what we focus on, and over many years I have become a positive person.
I know that I am more at cause in general in the different area of my life hence the NLP training. But acknowledge that there are areas I could be more at Cause. Regular assessments help me to identify the areas I could be more at Cause (using the wheel of life).
I am aware of my comfort zone and stretch zone and can encourage myself to move to the stretch zone through positive thinking and self-talk. I have a good “I can” attitude especially when it comes to learning or doing something new. I am not aware of all my self-limitations but I am working on it.
In the acronym of NLP I understand the concept of Neuro and Programming but I am interested to discover how the language part works out. At this moment in time I feel that it might just be to represent one’s communication or interpretation.
I know that I can choose the type of day I want to have and often use visualisation and self-talk. I also aim to be more mindful and grounded. I also make a conscious effort to be objective, non- judgemental and to think out of the box. I am regularly questioning my expectations and challenging my perceptions of my own children. I strongly believe that by challenging my belief, my self- limitation, my inner dialogue… you create my own happiness.
The first sections of the training proved very exciting to me as they drew my attention to one crucial point: I get what I focus on and that means I’m responsible for my state of mind, my decisions and own life. So if I focus on positive decisions that will make positive change to my life, but if I focus on negative decisions, I will get negative outcomes. It’s all down to the way I think – the thoughts I put in my head. It’s me and only me who can change my thoughts and thus change my life. For example, I chose to think for a very long time that having some health issues was a real challenge and that has made me prone to feelings of fear, anxiety and lethargy, but now I realise that it was a negative decision that put me at Effect. I also learnt that I am emotionally too much sensitive which makes me feel easily hurt by other people’s insensitiveness – that again is the result of being at Effect with my emotions. The first sections have taught me that my health and sensitiveness are the product of a weakness in me that needs to change and be transformed into a shield that will protect me from getting hurt and that will pave the way for me to achieve the best of myself in all areas of my life.
On the other hand the first two sections of the training have also made me reflect on myself and see the areas where I can be proud of and which I need to keep and maintain. I realise that I have achieved amazing outcomes in relation to family, education and work. The NLP sections I’ve learnt so far taught me that if I’ve been successful in some areas of my life that could be replicated to other areas. I can say that it changed my attitude to what I saw as challenging barriers to my progress. Now I believe that I can do what I thought I couldn’t do before.
Much more, I have also learnt that past life experiences accumulated bad memories which were stored in association with some unhappy emotions by my unconscious mind. I realise now where my anxiety, fear and lethargy come from and which are playing a prime role in my health issues (CFS). It must have started with some negative perceptions that were projected on my health. I’ve experienced detrimental treatment which put me under extreme stress and worries for many years until my body lost it all and stopped giving me the energy to even walk or sit up. That is what doctors called burn out. but when I stopped thinking about it and started focusing on getting back to normal life, I started functioning again and my encouragement was that I’ve been functioning very well all my life even when I lost my mum and brother in a car crash some time ago, I moved on with my life; so why wouldn’t I be able to function again. My Unconscious mind literally helped me to bring those negative emotions to a resolve though not complete but enough to resume my life with a limited energy but still able to function. I must say that these two sections of the NLP course have given me a clear picture of myself as to why I am the way I am and how I could survive my reality. If this is the case, NLP also says that if we send positive messages to our mind our body will be listening in and that positive self talk is crucial for best results which puts responsibility on me in making sure I keep telling myself “I have improved a lot and I will get even better when I change the way I react to life events”. “Life will continue to throw unpleasant events on us, but it’s up to me now to filter these events in a way that will not make me ill again.”
It was quite interesting really because I´ve actually known about cause and effect for a long time as I used to teach this to my team many years back. I also think that most of my time I am at cause. However, being faced with it again, I realised that I have been at “effect“ in some current situations. Also, I didn´t realise that my tiny brain could receive more than 2 million bits of information per second. That´s incredible. I picked up a lot on the “self talk“ topic and realised that I actually do this alot, and that we do get what we focus on. This is something that I need to work on for myself. Also, I should stop saying „don´t“ especially to my 5 year old son! No wonder he does all the things I ask him not to do!!
Reality is a construct that can be reconstructed, focusing on success and redesigning external representations. I can have a big impact on my reality, but mine is the responsibility of introducing a positive change.