I just looked at this:



Apart from the fact I suspect a dig at Paul McKenna's work, presumably "I Can Make You Thin" (and maybe NLP in general) in this ...

There were two comments particularly interested me.

First, the idea of visualising the steps you'll take in achieving a goal rather than just 'the outcome'.

Now, I must say, when I'm doing coaching work, it has always made sense to me to future pace 'the doing' as well as 'the being'. And it ties up with the idea of thinking of 'directions' instead of 'outcomes'.

Nevertheless, is it really 'a disaster' to pre-visualise you being the perfect you, as Wiseman states?

Second, the idea of rewarding effort instead of (or perhaps, as well as) results as this creates resilience (tenacity).

Any comments?

Anyone read the whole book?

Cheers

I haven't read the book but I agree with the enjoying the journey to get to where you want...

After training for the NY Marathon in 2007 my friend could only run for 30 seconds at a time, eventually non stop completing the 26 + miles... He regretted on reflection being that focussed on the goal that he forgot to cherish the steps taken to get there... Running for 45 seconds at one time was a big achievement for him but he never took the time to realise so...

Now, through knowing what I want (the big Chunk)... I ensure that I cherish the steps taken to get there no matter how small they may seem... It's where them magic moments live as you reflect in smaller and smaller chunks and realise they are part of the greater whole...

That way also you can track your outcomes and enjoy the process of changing them as you change along the way...

A nice frame I like to use for future pacing once the big picture has been realised and I've took them beyond that what they originally thought in the larger frame of purpose is:

What are the first steps or what is the first thing that you're going to do that will let you know you've already started the process of achieving this outcome...

I then ask them to let me know when they've done this... The intention is so I can pace and lead the significance of what may have seemed such a small step for them...

I think as far as tenacity is concerned by using this process it's easier to allow your own flexibility and consider the outcome/s in different ways. As in it's not the end of the world if you don't get what you set out to do as on the way you may find you can reach higher or completely change direction knowing you are driving the bus through to your chosen destination...

Happy is the person who can enjoy the scenery on a detour

Wayne

Hi Steve,

I have not read the book, but unless his methods include the 'states' of either outcomes or the process - this will fall flat in any of them.

Putting a plant on your desk.. means you have be in that place at your desk to be creative???? Very limiting idea that - so when you go outside do you take the plant or the desk?.... yes I am being fascisious (is that you spell it - hmmm where did I put my creative spelling strategy - let me go sit at my desk......)

Plants are symbolic - of creativity...as Nick Haynes has demonstrated with Spidy plant metaphor - nice idea to carry around in head and use in all contexts - much better than sitting at the desk as 'Wiseman' states - pardon the pun

Setting goals can be counterproductive I agree - depends on many things for it to work well, with visualisation just being a small part of it. Gotta build in ecology, values, solutions to obstacles along the way - plan for success wisely - rather than 'fools' rushing in etc.

Happy New Year and good visualisations for 2010
Love Nina x

Social psychology and neuroscience has added much in the way of information that we can add to our 'bag of NLP tricks'. I don't see it being an either/or proposition, but rather a yes/and solution. By including relevant information (gathered through empirical research) along with NLP process our models stay flexible. I pre-ordered Wiseman's book, because he holds an additional (not necessarily different) perspective. His book, Quirkology, along with other non-NLP books - like Influence, Predictable Irrationality, Stumbling on Happiness, or How God Changes Your Brain, etc - force me to re-evaluate how I approach a client's needs. And when it comes to change, I guess for me it's always been 'Do More of What Works, and Less of What Doesn't'. I don't give a darn who and where the information is coming from.

As to this issue of states, strategies, etc. I don't believe that Bandler or Grinder ever separated them. The 'cybernetic' relationship that Robert Dilts' so elegantly proposes in his Logical Levels is an inclusive blueprint. I think it's more a matter of ascertaining, on a case by case situation, where a client's model is falling apart. A client may already have the state, but lack the capability (skill) to 'create' a book, for instance. Perhaps they need to take a few writing courses first. Then again, maybe they lack the proper environment (relationships/physical space/tools). So a room with a view and a plant on the desk might just do the trick http://www.nlpconnections.com/images/smilies/wink.gif - but only if the problem exists at that level.

IEMT Trainer Andrew Austin (God love 'im) says "The Universe doesn't give a f@!k about your feelings. It only cares what you do." I tend to agree.

However, I think you still need to be in the relevant state, with the supporting values, and identity/life beliefs, with the necessary capabilities and behaviors (strategies), in the proper relational and physical environment to 'do whatever is necessary' to truly reach a goal. If any one of those is lacking it all begins to fall apart.

I believe that Wiseman has something here ~ insofar as he is evaluating an aspect of what it takes to reach a goal. It may or may not be relevant depending on how it fits into the 'big picture'.

As an aside, I'm pretty sure that Wiseman's veiled criticisms are more likely fueled by the groundswell of interest around "The Secret" than any attack on NLP. But, even if it is, so what? Why take offense? I say do more of what works, and less of what doesn't. The Universe doesn't give a f@!k about your feelings. http://www.nlpconnections.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Visualizing an outcome is vague. I think the distinction he's making is that visualizing steps means you have done research to make educated guess on what is effective, while visualizing outcomes can mean any situation a person can visualize. As an example, a person may want as a outcome: "I want to become a billionare while sleeping in bed all day." Although very extreme, how many self help / NLP products out there promise easy, quick ways to get whatever you want? I am against NLP products that promise success. They totally cannot. They can promise mental well-being which can help, but not success.

As far as effort, I think that it's best to encourage effort. Effort is how you act in the situation you're given. Achievement can also come from luck, and bad luck can give minimize your achievement even though you've done a good job from what you were given.

The story of a how a nobody visualized his way to becoming an international DJ with a couple of TOP 40 hits, residency at Ministry of Sound (and other clubs) and headlined at many big parties around the world.

I remember a time when I knew nothing of this thing called NLP. I also didn't know how to mix records never mind the writing of my own music and recording it in my non existent studio. However - I did have a passion. A fire, a burning desire!

I used to lie in bed at night listening to mix tapes of other DJs and performers with my eyes tightly shut looking at myself on stage playing this amazing music that I had produced. I used to imagine feeling like I was actually there hearing and seeing the crowd going crazy.

I loved hearing the roar of the bass bins as the new bassline dropped and hearing the roar of the crowd as I turned to my proud girlfriend with a big smile on my face mouthing the words "I did it - I did it - thank you!" I would regularly feel so proud of myself each night and, for those few moments, I felt like I was actually there...

...as I bathed in this nightly fantasy I thought about the money I'd saved to get the studio - the hours of blood sweat and tears of learning how to use it and then doing so - the frustrations that turned into absolute pleasure - the release of my first record - the house parties I'd played at before getting to the after parties before playing in the second rooms before getting the first slot in the main rooms before headlining the event I was in... then... each night...I fell asleep.

Gradually over the coming months and years I found doing all the things in my fantasy. I met the right people and I helped the right people, I worked hard (although it didn't feel like work - most of the time) and I ended up doing everything I had been dreaming of and more...

…then one day during a particularly bad spell of “writers block” (urrggh what a horrible label) and after a particularly dark period of “I can’t do it anymore, I’ve lost it” (which every musician I know of has had at some point) I discovered NLP – or should I say rediscovered one application of NLP… I just didn’t know that I had been doing it until that moment. I realised that I had just forgotten to do some things during my “dark period”.

So..

Now I understand what certain NLP techniques are - do I believe visualization works?. You bet I do. You know I do. I am living proof that they do and the most important word in this paragraph is "DO". However, it is the what to “do” that sometimes perplexes and this is where visualisation and future pacing techniques help massively. The how will just happen if you just do!

You can dream all you like and roughly figure out the steps to your dream and then do them, be them... BE the person you want to be and do what that person does - you are after all that person. Look to role models and take the bits you love about them and try those things on and then BE you in what was their position.

So…

Yes to a continually morphing visualisation of where you desire to be

Yes to planning your way to achieving what it is in the visualising

Yes to never getting there because you keep chunking higher and higher and the visualising keeps changing

Yes to not thinking too much while you are doing it.

Live it - Be it – Do it!

------------
I remember playing at a festival in front of thousands of people for the first time and thinking to myself “how the F**K did I get here!” and then quickly remembering that thinking was not always the best thing to be doing right now and that I will just love the experience or learn the lesson of it going seriously tits up again!

Hi James,

Thanks for sharing your success story. Congratulations!

I think what really stands out for me is the way in which you naturally included all the elements in your visualizations of your future success that I was writing about earlier

You visualized who you would be (Identity)

Why it was important to you to achieve it (States and Values)

You had faith in the possibilities and yourself (Identity/World Belief)

You had the raw and learned talent to do it (Capabilities)

You had the acquired experience and behaviors to be able to act on opportunities that would take you toward your goal (Behaviors)

And you visualized the necessary environments where it needed to take place (Environment ~ relational/physical/things).

Because your Unconscious Mind doesn't distinguish the differences (at a physiological level) between your subjective (internal) reality and the your external immediate circumstance, by rehearsing your success you were creating a history that allowed your Unconscious Mind to learn what it had already done to be successful. So by rehearsing success in all these areas you trained your neurology to recognize even the minimal cues for opportunities as they arose and act on them.

Additionally, you had a strategy for handling obstacles as they occurred and the commitment to learn new ones.


What you didn't do was simply 'feel your way' into success.

True change occurs when what we are doing is happening almost automatically. It's occurring naturally (as in your story) because all these elements are cybernetically supporting and informing each other.

Futuring visualizations fail when there are missing elements. For instance, if you had not already acquired the necesssary behaviors and capabilities it would not have mattered how much belief you had in yourself. You would still have needed to acquire them. Just look at some of the people who try out for the show "American Idol". Some of them truly believe they are indeed "the next American Idol". They'll tell you they have been visualizing this day their entire lives and then . . . they open their mouth to sing.

So I believe that ~ as NLP Practitioners ~ taking someone out on their 'timeline' to visualize success without checking the 'ecology' of their logical levels is just very possibly creating just another "American Idol wanna-be success story". At some point reality is going to step in and 'crush the dream'.

Totally impressed by your achievement James, but not convinced by Lucia's focus on so-called logical levels. Immersion in a desired future is plenty enough to move you towards it -- Mr Dilts's levels risk pseudo-intellectualising a process that works in large part because the states you create in fantasising become something to aim for in reality. Magical traditions have taught the same for centuries, with knobs on in the form of achieving elemental or other balance regarding the vision.

Thanks Adrian and Lucia,

I tell the story to emphasis the point that its the whole package that matters. a person must do to achieve.

Something I tell myself everyday and something I will listen to more often

Well James,

I'm impressed... Hard Trance always goes down a treat with me... And i've always wanted to spin those decks ever since I was hitting the clubs in the 90's

What a great modelling project that would be...

All the best

Wayne

Well done James,

Your story is way inspiring!!!