Success
in never a coincidence, they say. Unlike most forms of therapy that seek to
understand the reasons why we feel bad or why something is not working for us,
NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) focuses on what works. NLP is a model of
success and its developers have studied extensively what the most important
factors of success are, regardless of how you define success.
After
studying countless studies and models, I have come to realize that success in
practically anything in life can be crystallized on six elements. The six
elements of success are, in fact, perhaps best understood by questions that you
can ask yourself:
1. Where are you?
How
happy and successful are you right now? What kind of thinking and what kinds of
actions have taken you to where you are at the moment?
What
are your assets and liabilities? Make a list of them and take a good inventory
of your current state.
From
now on, rather than thinking how far you still have to go to reach your goals,
enjoy the distance you have already travelled.
2. What do you want?
What
is the worthy goal that you want to achieve? How do you know when you have
achieved what you want?
“If you do not know where you are going, any road will
get you there.” – Lewis Carroll
3. Why do you want it?
Do
you have a genuine motivation to work on your goal? Is the goal coming from
within you or is it, in fact, set by an outside authority? Does your journey
toward your goal enhance your level of happiness?
”The most
successful people are those people who truly ‘believe’ in what they do. Not
that they just say they do. They have a passion for what they do.” – Richard
Bandler & John La Valle
4. What stops/has stopped you from reaching
your goal?
What
are your limiting beliefs? Do you have all the necessary resources to reach
your goal?
”Beliefs
shape the way we feel, think, and act.” – Mandy Evans
5. How do you reach your goal?
What
is your strategy and, above all, what kind of action and behavior is required
from you to reach your success?
What
is your first step toward your desired outcome? When will you take it?
Take
action.
“Without
action there’s no possibility of success.” -Richard Bandler & Garner
Thomson
6. How are you doing?
Remember:
there are no failures along the way, only feedback. If one way of acting is not
getting you the results you want, act differently.
Keep
refining your actions until you get what you want.
“Doing the
same things in the same way will only get you the same results. If you want
different results, something has to change.” – Hannu Pirilä
The
formula for success is, after all, quite simple, and it can be executed by
anyone. Some of us have found the formula and its elements by themselves. For
most of us, however, figuring out the things listed above, can be tricky (if
this wasn’t so, most of the people in the world would define themselves as
being successful).
NLP
based Success Coaching helps the client especially with these six elements. It
contains, however, also a lot more when needed. We all define by ourselves what
success means to us. The purpose of Success Coaching is to not only help the
client to define that, but also to provide them with assistance and insights to
figure out how to achieve the success they want – and to enjoy their journey.
”When you
make great, big goals – whether you get to them or not – the things that happen
along the way are what makes life wonderful.” - Richard Bandler
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In the business world,
values and mission statements have been discussed for a long time already –
although in many cases they have been more like just plain words and a part of
the company image, than actually guiding operators of action. If we, however,
really give them some actual focus, they can have a huge significance in our
lives, especially in a long run.
Very few of us have
considered these things on our own personal level, though. This is a pity,
since values and meanings play a remarkable role when it comes to achieving personal success and happiness.
“Knowing what your values are is excellent, because
happiness comes from living your values every single day, regardless of how
close or far away your goals may seem to be.” - Paul McKenna
Consideration of this
subject is good to start by asking yourself: “what is important to me?” – and
wait for the answer. As you ask yourself this question, you will probably get a
small list of values like money, love, happiness, success, kids, work etc.
These first values are usually more or less obvious and therefore we should not
necessarily settle for them only.
We should go and
examine this first list a little deeper. You can do this by asking yourself:
“what is important to me about money?” or “why is love important to me?” and so
on. Ask these questions regarding every value on your list.
Now you probably start to
get some different kind of answers, like “with money I can feed my family,”
“with money I can improve my quality of life,” “being loved makes me happy,”
“having someone to love means that I care for other people” or perhaps
something similar or maybe something totally different.
You can continue asking
these “what is important to me about…?” and “why is (X) important to me?”
questions for quite a long time per value. This way we can very often reveal
some deeper values that are, in fact, more important to us than the values that
first come to our mind.
After you have listed a
total of about six to ten values, it is important to put them into an order of
importance. This can be achieved by comparing the values in pairs.
So, take the first two
values on your list and ask yourself, which one is more important? After you
know the answer to that, take the one that is more important to you and make
the same comparison to the third value on your list. For example, if the first
two values on your list are money and love, ask yourself first: “which one is
more important to me, money or love?” Let’s say that you find love to be more
important of those two and the third value on your list is happiness, you then
ask yourself: “which one is more important to me, love or happiness?” Again,
take the more important value from these two and make the comparison between
that and the fourth value on your list.
Go through your whole
list of values this way, all the way down to the last value. Whatever value
“wins” the last comparison, is your most important value. Write it down on a
new list as your Number 1 Value and strike it out from your original list.
Now go through the
comparisons again with the rest of the values on your list. Whatever value
“wins” this round is your second most important value. Write it down on the new
list as your Number 2 Value and strike it out from your original list. Keep on
working this way until you have put all your values into a value hierarchy.
Next it is time to
examine your value hierarchy a bit closer. Are there any value conflicts
present? A value conflict may be born when one value, in one way or another,
prevents the fulfillment of another value. For example, let’s say that you have
“freedom” as your Number 1 Value and “family” as your Number 2 Value. Now, in
some level, you might feel that having a family prevents you from achieving the
freedom in life that you desire and that might be a remarkable value conflict
for you.
Value conflicts are
quite common and they can significantly prevent us from achieving the success and happiness we desire. A value conflict can in fact very well be the key issue
there.
Another thing to look
for is if there are any values in your hierarchy that are based on avoidance of
something. This is important because if there are values that are based on
avoiding something, it means that your focus is then on the negative, and every
time you focus on something that you don’t want, you’ll feel bad (you can read more about this subject in my blog article "Feeling Bad vs. Feeling Good."). For example, if the importance of family is
based on your avoidance of being lonely, it means that at least part of your
focus on family gives you, in fact, bad feelings.
What has been explained
above, is a rather simple way of finding out what is important to us in life.
When we examine the questions long and deep enough, we might find an answer to
as big a question as what is the purpose of our life.
Whether you find your
purpose of life through defining your value hierarchy or not, it would be quite
beneficial for you to write your own mission statement, based on your values. A
mission statement is a compressed, one or two sentence long, description of
what is most important to you. It could be something like: “My mission in life
is to help in a best possible way my children to start their own independent
lives and live my own life to the fullest.”
Okay, that might not
touch you, but do write your own mission statement!
As I have stated
earlier, companies have declared their mission statements for ages already.
Microsoft, for example, states that their mission and values are the following:
“At Microsoft, our mission and values are to help people and businesses
throughout the world realize their full potential.” As another example, Nike’s
mission statement is “To bring
inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
So why is finding out
our values and mission or purpose in life so important? Values and purpose give
us a direction. Without direction and purpose, our life – or in a company’s
case, their business – will easily drift to areas that do not bring us
satisfaction, not to mention happiness. Values and purpose, along with
well-formed goals, will help us keep the right direction in our lives and in
our actions. And when we keep moving toward a direction in our life that brings
us the most satisfaction and pleasure, then life itself will be worth living.
To bring that business
aspect along a bit more, just imagine how it would feel like to work in a
company that has a clear direction and that has products or services that
really matter?
“Effective mission statements have three qualities in
common: passion, purpose and direction.” - Richard Bandler & Garner Thomson
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Most of us would rather feel good than bad. Bad
feelings are normal and it’s OK to feel bad sometimes. Constantly bathing in bad feelings, however, is
practically never good for us. Bad feelings are in connection with bad thoughts
and bad thoughts and feelings produce bad actions and behaviors. So therefore,
it is usually a lot more beneficial for us to feel good more often.
Bad feelings – whether they come in the form of
worries, fears or even panic attacks – are based on one, and only one, thing:
Our attention at those moments is focused on things we want to avoid. Every
time we think of something we do not want in our life, we feel bad. Sometimes
the feeling can be mild, but sometimes the feeling can be even overpowering.
The process of feeling bad and feeling good is
basically the same. Our thinking is mainly based on internal pictures and
internal sounds (= internal representations). If we, in our mind, look at pictures of unpleasant things –
things we don’t want in our life – or we talk to ourselves in a negative tone
of voice about negative things, these thoughts cause us to feel bad, even
physically.
If, however, we look at pictures about things we like
and enjoy and want to have more in our life, or talk to ourselves in a pleasant
tone of voice about pleasant things, the effect is the opposite: we feel happy and successful.
When you add to this our body posture – closed and
hunched posture vs. vigorous and open posture – we pretty much have the whole
package put together.
An interesting question then arises: who is in charge
of our thoughts and body postures?
The answer is, of course: we are.
But is it really that simple?
During our life, we have learned a huge amount of
different kinds of habits, conditionings, anchors, beliefs, strategies and who
knows what, that have all, at the moment they were created in our mind, served
or protected us. Some of the habits and beliefs, that once were useful for us,
might not necessarily be that way anymore in other situations in our life.
Still, we might have formed, in our unconscious mind, a resemblance or
equivalence between things, even based on one single experience. These habits
and beliefs might then have become limitations to us, limiting our freedom of
choice on what and how to think. And all this is usually happening
automatically, guided by our unconscious mind.
When we want to get rid of the worries, fears or even
panic attacks, we need to teach our brain to think in a new way. There are
numerous techniques to do this, but in the end, it is really all about that one
thing: Instead of thinking about what we don’t want to happen, we should think
about what we want to happen.
I had a client who got a panic attack every time he
thought about crossing a bridge by car. In fact, he had had it for about five
years. He created his panic by creating in his mind pictures of how he loses
the control of his car and crashes down off the bridge. I first taught him to
neutralize the sense of panic by changing these images he saw in his mind from
what he did not want to happen to images about what he wanted to happen (ie.
him driving safely across bridges). Even by doing only this, he reported a week
later that he had been able to drive across several bridges without a hint of a
panic attack! In the next phase we then concentrated to direct his thoughts
even more toward the things he wants in his life. As a result, he learned to
have a lot less bad feelings and instead, a lot more good feelings in his life.
Even though the difference between whether we feel
good or bad is very simple, making the necessary changes by ourselves might be
a bit challenging. Luckily, NLP offers amazingly effective methods and
techniques for making the appropriate changes. In my profession, mastering
these techniques has produced me the most rewarding experiences one after
another, bringing me an ever growing enthusiasm to keep on doing what I’m
doing. And those thoughts bring me very good feelings.
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Peak
performance is not a sole right of peak performers. Also other people than the
top athletes and world famous performers need experiences of their own peak
performances.
We
all need our own, even small, peak performances to bring enjoyment, excitement
and push to our life. Without these small or big moments of peak performance,
we can easily feel that there is “something missing” from our life. Without our
own moments of peak performance, our life can easily become boring, benumbing
and dull, won’t it?
Success at almost anything requires at least some sort of peak performances. There are
moments in our life when we all would like pull out our best performance. To
some, it could be at any kind of competition at any level of sport, to someone
else it could be at any kind of performance in front of an audience, yet toanother, it could be simply managing to get promptly, efficiently and
successfully through the daily tasks.
Peak
performance is not an accident, either. It requires skills and practice, but in
addition to that, you also need a right kind of challenge and an optimum mental
state, in which you can seize all your know-how in the best possible way.
Whatever
your needs, goals or circumstances are, all peak performances require two
extremely essential elements:
The
right kind of goal, and
The
right kind of emotional state
The Right Kind of Goal
When
aiming for a peak performance, a state of flow can almost without an exception
guarantee at least an excellent execution – and by the state of flow, I mean
the ideal state of performance, where performing feels extremely effortless and
smooth.
Mihály
Csíkszentmihályi, who is the former head of the department of psychology at
the University of Chicago, is probably the most famous researcher of flow.
Csíkszentmihályi has defined the factors that contribute to the flow, and as
the most important of them he finds to be the right balance between the goals
and available resources.
As I have already noted in several of my other articles, goals in general are a key factor in any kind
of success, since they control our actions – either consciously or
unconsciously. When our goal is challenging enough, but yet not overwhelming,
it gives us just the right kind of value in reference to our performance and
success.
The Right Kind of Emotional State
Our
emotional state determines at large extent the kind of actions and behaviors we
generate. Our emotional state, then, is affected mainly by two factors: our
physiology and our thinking (thinking = internal representations).
The
optimal state for a peak performance requires the right kind of physiology (for
example the postures of the spine and head, eyes upwards, chest out etc.),
since the right kind of physiology sends the right kind of message to our brain
and nervous system – say, the message of self-confidence.
Our
thoughts, on the other hand, are formed mainly from our internal pictures and
internal sounds. What kind of internal dialogue and in what tone of voice we
say them, greatly affects our feelings. And so do the internal pictures we look
at: are we looking at pictures of success or perhaps pictures of failure?
So,
only by having the right kind of goals and the right kind of state of mind, we
can improve our performance tremendously. Of course there are also other
factors that are present in any peak performance. However, all the factors
mentioned above, as well as many other factors involved with peak performance
and success, can be enhanced and practiced surprisingly fast with NLP
techniques and exercises.
The
above mentioned elements and exercises are also a substantial part of the NLP
based Peak Performance Coaching, which is developed to help people to achieve
the success they want at practically any area of their life.
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In order to really answer that, we need to define what we mean by personal development. In my opinion, personal development is:
Growth as a conscious human being
Activities that improve self-knowledge and identity
Development of talents and potential
Development in different areas of life
Building of human capital and employability
Enhancing the quality of life
Contributing to the realization of dreams and aspirations
Is not limited to self-development but includes formal and informal activities for developing others
In the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems that support human development at the individual level in organizations
(hard) work that requires discipline, determination, consistency, patience, time, courage, forgiveness
Let’s then take a closer look at some of these bullet points in correlation to success.
Improving your self-knowledge and identity means, among other things, that you become more aware of who you are and what you want. Knowing what you want and where you need to improve yourself in order to achieve what you want are essential parts of success.
If you have already achieved success you cannot stay put if you want to remain successful. The world and other people around you are constantly evolving; therefore you need to keep on developing your talents and potential further. Otherwise, your success will remain short term.
Depending on your goals, you need constant development in different areas of your life, not just in one. Some of these areas might include health, finances, relationships, emotions, habits and beliefs, to mention a few. A good health will ensure that you are able to do what you want to do. It is obvious that you can do a lot more as a healthy person than you would lying sick on a bed. It is obvious, in most cases, that you can achieve more and free yourself from some of the worries when your financial situation is stable. It is obvious that you can achieve more when you have sound relationships with supporting and loving people to back you up. And so on.
Having activities for developing others, in addition to developing yourself, is really what gives you the final boost for success. The old saying “what goes around, comes around” applies here quite well. Helping other people succeed will ensure that they willingly help you in return. It is much, much more difficult – and in most cases even impossible – to achieve success just by yourself. You can’t be the master of everything. And you shouldn’t even try to be. Concentrate on doing well what you love doing and let other people help you in the areas that they love doing. Help others develop themselves and they will help you develop yourself. That is for everybody’s benefit.
Finally, understand that long lasting success does require work. At times, it can even seem to require hard work. But once you have found what it is that you truly love doing, the work doesn’t seem that hard anymore. But it will require discipline, so that you keep your focus on your goals. It will require determination because there will be a lot of people who’ll try to talk you out of your dream. It will require consistency because you will encounter many obstacles along the way and you’ll have to be consistent to work your way through and around them. It will require patience because the bigger your dream, the more it will take time. It will require courage because you will move toward something that is unknown to you. And, maybe most of all, it will require forgiveness because you will have to forgive yourself for all the mistakes you have made, and will make, and you must also forgive others who have hurt you, so you can move into the future with a clean slate.
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