Personal Development NLP Singapore

It’s quite intriguing to pick up on this topic after an absence of a couple of weeks.  Someone dropped me a message and said that the content that I had mentioned in a previous  procrastination post had too much common sense and the reader demanded that I put up information that doesn’t contain such motherhood statements.

photo credit: Firesam!

I thought about it for some time, and I began to reflect on certain situations that people tend to leave themselves in.  For example, it was fascinating to see how someone would be interested in an article on stomping procrastination and found that might advice was common sense.  It just didn’t compute.  If it was common sense, you wouldn’t have to read it.  If one did need to read it, then most obviously one would continue to be procrastinating up to a point where you accept and utilized the advice.

So I had an internal arguments with myself to figure out what was going on.  Upon reviewing “How To Stop Procrastinating #1″, I discovered that it was true that most of the information there appears to be quite straightforward and a whole bunch of common sense.  It therefore dawned on me that there are individuals who will read it, but can’t use it.

The concept of vicious cycles tells us that there is far more than meets the eye from the behavior standpoint.  You want something, but the more you want it, the further away from it you get. For example, it is highly likely that someone who needs a set of behavioral interventions will read the first article and find it useful.  they will go out and execute the behaviors.  However, several people who have a deeper rooted issues beyond the ‘behavior’ level may find that a behavioral intervention will be insufficient, hence, “common sense “.

As much as I’d like to avoid diving into two large detail, which Watzlawick mentioned in his book “The Language of Change”, and is the cause of many interventions going wild, and being seemingly without end, I believe that for the raw knowledge of people reading this could be beneficial.

Suppose someone is procrastinating.  It could be that he wants to invite a girl  out on a date, and he stops short. There are a number of things that we logically knows he should do.  For example, he’s got to simply ask.  And if he gets rejected, he should ask again, preferably in a different way.  However, we know that there must be something else that’s preventing him from accomplishing his goal.  One such invisible force could be his hidden understanding of rejection.  For example, he might believe that rejection is the end of the world.  This, indicates the need for a deeper rooted intervention dealing with the reframing of his belief patterns.  Alternatively, it might have to do with his inability to come to terms with his parents’ divorce when he was five years old.  This might indicate an issue with his self concept, or identity.  In this instance, it would be possible to institute a Change Personal History session to help him reconfigure his identity.

However, before we get ahead of ourselves, it is essential that such strategies are implemented by someone who is well versed in interventions.  A lot of the time deeper rooted issues may have a backlash – if we attempt to push against it in usually pushes back , causing even more procrastination.

most of the time therefore, we need to find the right kinds of emotional triggers.  For example, the reader who sent me this irate message probably did not realize that he was able to procrastinate getting certain things done, but didn’t hesitate sending me and irate message.  It is the ability to control and manage our emotional states that enables us to shift from state to state.

One of the ways to do this is by understanding anchoring.  Anchoring, which is a behavioral process of association, and literally eliminate your feelings of procrastination.  In the context where you are procrastinating, you can use that environmental stimulus to trigger off facilitative negative emotions such as frustration, anxiety, and fear. Or these could be facilitative positive emotions like enthusiasm, motivation and drive.

It takes a little bit of practice to know where these emotions reside. Reliving these emotions can set one on the pathway to realizing that emotions are our achievement joystick. Test it – whenever you don’t get something done, use an appropriate emotional state and link with it by intensifying the image, sounds and feelings of negative faciliation. You might see yourself failing or hear people mocking you. When you get closer toward your goal, associate it with positive emotions by viewing the images and intensifying those. You could possibly  view yourself as happier, and hear sounds of cheering or acknolwedgement.

Do note that these are only possibilities, and the best way for you to really take charge of these emotional states is to learn the skills that are taught in NLP. Some readings to learn NLP are here. My detailed Practitioner training program can also be taken up online by staying tune to that website.

I took a look at this video, and understood how someone who strives for excellence needs an achievement mindset. Oscar Pistorius fought an uphill battle to make his way to the Beijing Olympics and even without legs, he shattered paralympic records. Achieving in spite of apparent barriers – are we able to do this?

After all, some of our barriers are mere excuses: no time, no energy, no support, no confidence…

If you have already overcome these barriers, that’s awesome. If you haven’t, when will it end? When will you stop listening to such voices and keep moving forward?

To do well in any business, or endeavor (even a relationship) one must first begin from changing the “you” inside. Do this in simple steps.

First, make a choice you want to do it.

Second, surround yourself with people who are doing it and learn from their experiences.

Third, build small results to further grease your achievement engine. Keep these in mind and never let up.

I received a question which I felt deserved a decent post.

Guy Brown asked:

“Why do certain people have the ability to engage and entice people when they talk, regardless of the topic of conversation?”

In my 16 years of training and speaking, I’ve found that there are an extremely large number of people who are constantly fascinated by the charisma of leaders, people who have that “X” factor, and most of these people are under the spotlight very frequently.

photo credit: bisgovuk

When you watch a leader or a charismatic speaker on stage, you are wowed and you are all ears. So why is it that these people have the ability to draw you in?

After analyzing speakers in competitive settings, I’ve realized the following.

#1 – Dynamic and enticing speakers know how to move on stage.

Yes, I’m talking about physical motions and movements. In 2001, I spent a large portion of my time in the Toastmasters movement learning what makes good body language on stage. By 2002, I had developed a model now known as “SomaSemantics” which I premiered at NLP University in 2004 with Robert Dilts and Judith DeLozier in my audience.

This model basically identifies the stance, posture and body language that people take on in order to convey certain kinds of meaning, and emotion congruently. If I have the time, I’d share some of this in a video or something later.

#2 – Enticing speakers know how to initiate and sustain a conversation.

I used to have a problem with this and that’s why I started to study it. There’s always an entry point to a conversation, and it begins with getting someone to answer a question about themselves. Call it cheesy, but it’s the idea that to be interesting to others, you have to be interested in others.

#3 – Attractive speakers know how to vary emotional states.

You’ll realize how powerful some speakers are when they can shift you from emotion to emotion, making you feel certain things that you are aligned to. It is the essence of persuasion and you’ll see evidence of this in Presidential Debates (hint hint), church leaders and pastors and motivational speakers. The charisma did not just come out of the blue. It was deliberate, structured and planned. Even if someone were to be a “natural” at it, you can literally model the capabilities and then test it yourself, if you are able to understand the principles of modeling in NLP.

It’s a pretty fascinating area of study, and I’ve dedicated lots of my time to investigating and testing models out by modeling and applying them as practically as I can.

Charisma is a powerful trait that can be developed, and probably the best secret weapon you can have if you want to build a business as a starlet.

So I surfed the net and I found some people who are dishing out weird and odd ideas for beating procrastination. For example, someone suggested that if you hypnotize yourself, you will cause irreparable damage and prevent you from really taking control of yourself and your habits.

Hm.

Procrastination is habit, and I know that there are times we need to build a habit to save time. However, it’s also important for you to recognize the fact that if you were to ‘hypnotize’ yourself, you might as well do it right.

photo credit: ~ Maryam ~

Here’s what I might suggest:

• hypnotize yourself to make a to-do list everyday when you are at the breakfast table and spend 5-10 minutes reflecting on the top 3 things you need to get done for the day.
• Check your to-do checklist regularly and if possible, get it to remind you. Maybe you have an alarm in your PDA or phone. Set it and check it so you know you’re on track.
• Get the easiest things done first. This builds a greater level of confidence for the day, and you can recognize your ability to get things done. After all, looking at one thing you can get done today fuels the habit.

A lot of this seems like common sense, but I would recommend that if you really want to learn how to stop procrastinating, you really need to pick up the skills taught in NLP.

NLP is the skill set I use to take charge of my own patterns of behavior. I figure out what I need to change or a new skill I need to adopt, then program myself to get it done.

It took me about a year to write this post (just kidding).

photo credit: AdamKR

It’s a common disease. But it’s not in any medical journal ever. I believe, however, that chronic procrastination is a disease, and it is something that everyone experiences at some time or another.

So why do we procrastinate?

There are so many reasons behind procrastination. Who knows, it might be due to some traumatic experience you had as a child. A fear or a sense of self-doubt. Maybe the desire for a sense of freedom? A desire to just laze around? Maybe, ironically, a supreme level of (over)confidence?

The fact is, human inertia is probably one of the strongest forces of all, and if we succumb to it, we stop, and we might just stagnate.

I took a look at my on and off exercise routine recently and I discovered how easy it is to get distracted away from exercise simply because some other work was more pressing. So I decided to stop thinking so much and start doing it. Unfortunately, that was not going to work either. The best way would have been to focus on getting the exercise into some schedule or routine, where it becomes a part of life. When you plan it in, you start to make it happen and you have to battle inertia for some time before you realize that you’re doing it regularly.

Have there been simple things you had to do or decisions you had to make which made you get ’stuck’, or you ended sleeping on it for countless numbers of nights to shove it under the carpet?

I think the first step to stop procrastinating is actually acknowledging that we are wasting time and adding to our problems when taking things at the last minute. I’m not saying that we must always do things in advance and keep ourselves busy for the sake of finishing all of our work because I know work never ends. But I do know the difference between leading by example versus leading from the ivory tower, and a lot of the time, procrastination may not affect us as much as it affects the people around us.

Once we know that there could be consequences for this, then we have to build in our mind the benefits of really working toward the goals that we desire and make sure they carry a strong enough meaning beyond just the achievement of the result.

Then, get a good scheduler or planner and work that into your routine.

Once you complete the sequence, do it again. Finish something else. Get things done, and you’ll find that this cycle is even easier to complete.

Stay tuned for more… cos I gotta go for my run before I head off for dinner… xD

I just had a flash of insight a couple of hours ago because I was in the middle of doing an unprecedented in-house training for a group of my trainers. While we all had a fun time with “mind blowing” details (I was teaching them the dynamics of marketing online), it somehow struck me that there are things that people are “interested” in doing, but won’t do. There are also things that people are “obsessed” with doing, that no matter what happens, they MUST do.

I got a little surprised myself because I thought about what makes me want to do something versus what I don’t like to do, and what struck me was that I really enjoyed working with people and seeing them learn, but seriously dislike it when people aren’t able to learn. And I don’t mean this intellectually – I mean it viscerally in my gut. It’s a reaction to their reaction of the inability to grasp information.

So as I thought about the implications of this, it could mean two things. First, it could mean that it might force me to be a better trainer. Second, it could mean that it might make me ignore certain things in an audience simply because I might want to have the illusion that I’m doing a great training. Ultimately, I don’t just want to do good training or pretend that it was, I want to make sure that the people around me “get it” regardless of how I feel, the participant must be more competent to take action.

This is the kind of awareness I tell people to partake in regularly because I find that it is so illuminating. Without this kind of insight, we can never learn to improve. It is self-awareness of things that propel you and the forces that repel you that make you discover more about who you are and what you do.

For example, do you know what you believe? And, do you know that your beliefs could damage you? One idea behind the Law of Attraction (that many people have mistakenly thought originates from the documentary ‘The Secret) is that whatever your beliefs are shape you and attract like things.

photo credit: myuibe

Now, I don’t want to me mystical and tell you that it’s about universal reverberations. Let’s just focus on your thoughts. What happens when you have a negative or disempowering belief? If you have always feared going up on stage, the prospect of doing it actually creates a physiological chain reaction. Not only does it prevent you from being your confident best, it also prevents you from opening yourself to a different interpretation to on-stage success. The stress leads to a release of a neuro-chemical known as cortisol, which, if in your system for the long term, causes bodily aches and pains. What now happens is that the thing you fear, is literally causing you more pain, and becomes cyclical. The more pain you feel, the more you associate it with other negative beliefs about your life, your age, etc. The result: a nervous breakdown.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that this is bad for your future, and it has really nothing to do with universal vibrations. All it is, is your reduction of strength from a very real, physical limitation placed on yourself through your beliefs.

photo credit: Lazurite

Until someone points out to you “hey – in the past you were just nervous but nowadays you seem to have gotten really frustrated and angry when told you have to do a presentation” do you realize that something has to change.

I believe that self-awareness comes with practice. Not everyone is able to gain self-awareness because we keep getting caught up in the day-to-day, getting distracted, and missing time for ourselves. Maybe it’s time to re-prioritize. Maybe it’s time to make time to listen to our inner thoughts, reflecting on why we do the things we do, and re-calibrating ourselves toward our success.

This year I’ve been on a number of different trips out of the country, most of them for work purposes. While I seldom go to different places for the purpose of looking at things or ‘vacationing’, I do enjoy the getaway in a foreign place once in a while just to chill.

For some people, though, this vacationing is like an obsession. It’s planned several times a year and given deadlines as though there were a profit margin to be earned from it. It must mean that they will end up “musting” their desires into reality.

I thought about it a while and wondered at the concept of obsession. Yes, it’s an emotional state, but how often can we control it and get into this obsessive state so that no matter what happens, we will turn up at our destination?

I remember times when I was literally obsessed with things, getting things done. It was because of a greater purpose. For example, there was a time when I had difficulty understanding the new area of study that I was involved with in the past – internet marketing – and I literally grew to be so obsessed with it, I could clock 14 hour days just watching the screen, testing things out and making things happen.

For some others, this obsession comes from the absolute need to stay trim and fit. I have a friend who spends 6 hours a day in the gym, and you can tell that this kind of effort really can sculpt a body.

The secret ingredient for this is a catalyst. You need a big push forward, which is like a propulsion mechanism. It’s placing all your forward thrusters and boosters toward the direction you want, and often requiring you to just stop thinking so much.

A lot of time, we are obsessed with inner thoughts – what if this… what if that… and by the time we are done with these inner thoughts, the desire is ‘talked away’. You end up not doing anything. Reverse that sequence. Talk yourself ‘up’. Get yourself excited and intensify the reality of the goal and outcome that you are striving toward.

By seeing it everyday, you get a chance to live in the moment of your emotions, which then drive the specific behaviors required to reach your goal, and turn that goal into your only solution with no other way out. Sometimes, choices do spoil the ability for someone to take action!

Here’s an example. You’ve been telling yourself you need a vacation, but in your head, that goal is blurred by you saying that you don’t have time, you’re too tired and so on. Now instead of doing that, take the goal, and give yourself all the reasons why you need to reach that goal, and the consequences of not going there. Everything that detracts from that direction is now considered a distraction – use the excuses you are good at giving and put off those distractions! You don’t have time to rest. You can’t afford to waste time.

As you build up the intensity of this, dive in and get your things done, because the emotional state has been geared up to get you going, so, use that to move along with the flow of energy you’ve built up.

Oh, and once you achieve your goal, list it. It’s always good to give yourself a pat on the back for having achieved the things you’ve accomplished… then use this as your springboard to even more goals you wish to accomplish.

I just read this while waiting at the airport for my flight to Jakarta:

“Participants are 52 per cent more likely to be lonely if a person to whom they are directly connected (at one degree of separation) is lonely,” the authors write.

At two degrees of separation, they were 25 per cent more likely to feel lonely. At three degrees it was 15 per cent and at four degrees the effect disappeared. This pattern – what the authors term the “three degrees of influence rule of social contagion” – also appeared in the obesity, smoking and happiness studies.

I think I’ve always known this to be true of many things other than just obesity, smoking and happiness. I believe that the social modeling instinct we are born with causes us to model the people and environment around us. Would you be surprised that millionaires hang around millionaires? Or that promiscuous people hang around other promiscuous people? Or depressed people mix more with depressed people than others?

After all, once you ‘learn’ this skill, you tend to have the capability to pass it on in your behavior and attitude, isn’t it?

We all have thought viruses. This points to one final conclusion – what are you interested in ‘catching’? Watch out for the people whom you hang around with!

Ah, the wonders of the internet. After getting some mails, I find that many are concerned with the issue of social interaction, so I decided to discuss confidence in a social setting.

According to Carl Jung, we have two sides of our character – the introvert and the extravert. If you take this knowledge into account, you will begin to understand how social confidence is built.

Introversion-oriented people tend to stay in smaller groups, often speaking one-on-one with others and focusing a lot on their work related topics because that is what preoccupies them the most. Extraversion-oriented people will tend to speak randomly about a good number of things and often end up covering a broad number of topic areas in a social interaction.

If you are generally introversion oriented, it will mean you carry off a deeper conversation over a longer period of time in greater depth. However, it does not mean that you will be able to do this across all social situations, only people whom you are able to have some kind of connection with. Most introverts don’t feel comfortable in situations that dictate a broad number of discussion topics.

Generally, extraverts have a better capacity for socializing across different contexts. However, what’s the difference that makes the difference for them?

1. Talking to think. Most of the time, extraverts say what is on their mind, and if they have a well-developed set of social skills, they will know what not to say so that they don’t just blather off everything they feel. This gives an illusion of spontaneity, but in reality, introverts are often not sure of the consequences when they share their inner thoughts.
   
2. Connection with the outside world. Have you ever noticed that people who are introverts seldom, if ever, talk about their environment or the things that happen around them? To mimic what extraverts can do, you need to connect with the outside world and read broadly about things. When initiating contact with people, it’s easier to then pick a recent topic you’ve seen or read about that can create a shift in interest around you.
3. Social awareness. This is a skill I picked up in my training as an NLP Trainer. If you are aware of what people need, who has been speaking or what has been of interest to others, you can start connecting other people and be the nexus of the party where people know you for knowing others. It’s not difficult to maintain awareness of others, as long as you are attentive to them, and truly interested in what they want to share (or at least, don’t ask about things you are not interested in listening to in the first place). If you need, you can even learn some memory skills to master the ability to remember people’s names  over the long term (which, I have mastered only to a certain level, I must admit).
4. Emotional state flexibility. Ah, what would confidence be if it weren’t an emotional state you can control? Change the way you speak and carry yourself and you might find yourself being much better able to speak and interact with appropriate emotion. After all, you want to blend in with the emotion at hand. If people are all serious and you’re clowning away, you’ll be as out of place as a person in a situation that is humorous and you’re just serious.

Ok! There I have it – my top 4, from a very much psychological perspective. If there are further questions, let me know and I’ll furnish you with more answers where possible.

Just recently, a fairly senior manager of a local company approached me and asked me a very surprising question. He asked how he could become more confident in front of his customers.

Now, mind you, this is a manager who has had over 12 years’ experience in the same industry. You would have thought he had the capability to achieve this by now! However, confidence is not just about a skill – it’s a state or a feeling that you need to experience.

So, what really goes on when you are not feeling confident? There’s a certain sense of uncertainty. You’re fearful that something might go wrong. Or, you start thinking of expectations that you can’t fulfill. Ultimately, it leads to a louder and louder nagging self-doubt which often messes up performance.

The simplest way to get rid of a confidence problem is to look beyond the problem. If you’re fearful of something, you’re likely to be afraid of the consequences and the embarrassment it might cause. What if it no longer caused you embarrassment but instead a way to learn from your experience in a fun and memorable manner?

Being in the public speaking industry, I’ve found quite a lot of opportunities to completely embarrass myself. You know, things that detract from the regular training style. You’re all well dressed, then you open up a marker that stains your clothes. Falling on stage! (luckily I haven’t actually done that yet) Or, you drop the marker cap, which jumps like a grasshopper across the room under your participants’ seats while you stoop down to grab it. Or perhaps you want to play a particular piece of music but the MP3 player was damaged… and the list goes on.

So, you’re afraid of approaching new people and speaking to them. Then, the best way to eradicate that fear is to do it, and find out the worst that could happen. Usually, nothing much does happen. The only thing then is to figure out what skill you’re missing. Can’t do the small talk? Can’t seem to fit the group? Well, it’s all about strategy, and you’ll have to open up yourself to more research.

What else might you know where people feel a lack of confidence? Post them here, maybe I could address them.