For many people there is a certain satisfaction in giving others good advice on how to solve their problems or live their lives. And these people find it quite frustrating when, after carefully designing and delivering the advice,  the recipient doesn’t follow it: they either ignore it completely or follow for a while and then fall back into the old ways.

The today’s issue (27 July 2010) of the Pegasus NLP Newsletter explores the issue of advice giving and why it can be so difficult to get people to change their behaviours – even when such behaviours are plainly causing them problems.

Why people don’t follow advice

The reasons why people do not follow advice can be many and varied. The advice may not be suitable for them. They may not like being talked at. Read the rest of this entry »

NLP and traditional health enhancement

Before I began to specialise in NLP training I ran stress management workshops for a number of years beginning back in 1983. Often I would be running two to five 2-hour workshops in any week in the Bournemouth-Poole area in Dorset (UK). And I also had a private psychotherapy and counselling practise in which I saw people individually.

During this time I had the privilege of encountering some great people who were making inspiring changes in their lives.

This process continued, albeit in a slightly different way, when I began concentrating on ‘pure’ NLP training programmes from the early 2000′s . I still encountered (and still encounter) many, many people who are making wonderful changes in their lives. Read the rest of this entry »

The cost of Get it Right

In Part 1 we looked at the way the Get it Right attitude works and I suggested having a think about how it works in your own life and what it’s cost you to date.

If you’ve done this you’ll be aware of the lost opportunities resulting from it; those ‘if only’ moments when the need to Get It Right held you back or sabotaged you.

‘Get it Right’ is stressful, too

Another less-obvious effect is how stressful and tiring this attitude can be: all that thinking, the evaluating of risks, the seeking to avoid mistakes Read the rest of this entry »

The Get it Right Attitude

You probably know the ‘get it right attitude’. It’s the one that is backed up by clichés such as ‘if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing properly’! It’s the attitude that prevents so many of us doing so many things.

It goes along the lines: there’s no point in starting because I won’t be able to do it properly and people will find fault with it!

It’s also the attitude that gets in the way of actually finishing things – because if you finish something it won’t be perfect and people wil find fault with it and therefore you’ll have failed!

But… if you don’t finish it it’s still work in progress, so you can’t be criticised. Read the rest of this entry »

NLP techniques don’t work for me!

Not long ago I got an email: ‘I have been reading … (naming a well-known NLP-based self improvement book) and listening to the accompanying CD which a friend of mine has used quite successfully and recommended to me.

I am struggling with it because much of it seems to rely being able to clearly visualise some scenario and feel all the feelings associated with it. I find it very hard to visualise (hard to visualise the good stuff at least) and even harder to feel it so I am becoming rather disillusioned with the whole process – especially when the book tells me how great I will be feeling after doing some visualization, and I actually feel nothing.’ Read the rest of this entry »

We’d like you to train our team

The regional manager for the multinational had taken part, as a private individual, in our NLP Core Skills course a few months earlier and (of course ) was very impressed with it. So much so that he was now approaching us to quote for a training programme.

He wanted a 3-day Team Development training for his 40-strong team so they could learn NLP skills and experience the benefits of the High & Low Ropes Challenge course which he had experienced on NLP Core Skills.

Now a three-day training for such group, who would be flying in to the UK from mainland Europe, was an impressive request. The profit from it and the opportunity to run the programme for other regions of the multinational certainly got my attention. Read the rest of this entry »

An Ouch Moment!

It could have been one of those squirmingly embarrassing evenings. It was a few years ago and, along with the two other trainers, I was at the after-training dinner with delegates on the management development training we were presenting for a large multi-national.

The dinner was an opportunity for the delegates to have some ‘informal time’ with one of the senior directors, who was also the after-dinner speaker. And the  senior director was one of the ‘old school’ (he has since retired!) and by the time he stood up to begin his speech it was obvious that he had more than enough to drink. Read the rest of this entry »

People who are ‘going to’ have a great future

The next Pegasus NLP Newsletter will be out shortly. It will be about people who have their ‘future on wheels’. The ones (unlike you or I!) who talk a great talk about the wonderful future they are going to have. But who never seem to get any nearer to it.

The ‘future on wheels’ pattern is a sort of never-never approach to life! Read the rest of this entry »

Managing and Leading in tougher times

Managing and team leading in 2010 and beyond is more demanding than ever before with the challenge of raising and maintain morale and motivation in a smaller workforce in which people:

• have less job security than ever before
• are often dealing with an increased workload as a result of staff cuts
• are experiencing the stress of having to adjust to almost continuous change. Read the rest of this entry »

‘I’ll try…’

It’s only a tiny word. Just 3 letters. But how a person uses the word ‘Try’ provides important clues to their beliefs and attitude.

This widely used and quite sneaky little word is generally used without much thought – almost as a figure of speech, in fact. But what lies beneath it is the attitude I don’t believe…as in ‘I don’t believe you can’ or ‘I don’t believe I can’. And like a lot of words and terms we use it so often that few of us listen to our use of it even though this is emotionally impacting ourselves and our listeners. Read the rest of this entry »