In a previous past on NLP Modelling (the process of observing and mapping the successful behaviours of other people in order to apply them to ourselves and others) we looked at one of the key elements involved, physiology. The second area to consider is the person'sbeliefs.
As we go through life we make rules for ourselves. These rules are designed to protect us and allow us to speed up our thinking, take short cuts, create safety nets. They are essentially judgements, evaluations and generalisations about ourselves, our behaviour, our capabilities, our identity and about the world around us. These rules are called beliefs.
Beliefs also determine how events are given meaning, and are at the core of motivation and culture. Beliefs provide the reinforcement that support or inhibit our individual capabilities and behaviours and as such act as self-fulfilling prophecies that influence how we think, how we communicate, what we do, and the results we get.
Some of our beliefs are powerful and help us to stay resourceful, others are less so and can limit us greatly. Here is a short video of Michael Flatley from Lord of the Dance talking about what it means for him to prepare for and deliver excellent performance.
Major James Nesmeth had a dream of improving his golf game - and he developed a unique method of achieving his goal. Until he devised this method, he was just your average weekend golfer, shooting in mid- to low-nineties. Then, for seven years, he completely quit the game. Never touched a club. Never set foot on a fairway.
Ironically, it was during this seven-year break from the game that Major Nesmeth came up with his amazingly effective technique for improving his game - a technique we can all learn from. In fact, the first time he set foot on a golf course after his hiatus from the game, he shot an astonishing 74! He had cut 20 strokes off his average without having swung a golf club in seven years! Unbelievable. Not only that, but his physical condition had actually deteriorated during those seven years.
What was Major Nesmeth's secret? Visualization. You see, Major Nesmeth had spent those seven years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. During those seven years, he was imprisoned in a cage that was approximately four and one-half feet high and five feet long.
During almost the entire time he was imprisoned, he saw no one, talked to no one and experienced no physical activity. During the first few months he did virtually nothing but hope and pray for his release. Then he realized he had to find some way to occupy his mind or he would lose his sanity and probably his life. That's when he learned to visualize.
In his mind, he selected his favourite golf course and started playing golf. Every day, he played a full 18 holes at the imaginary country club of his dreams. He experienced everything to the last detail. He saw himself dressed in his golfing clothes. He smelled the fragrance of the trees and the freshly trimmed grass. He experienced different weather conditions - windy spring days, overcast winter days, and sunny summer mornings. In his imagination, every detail of the tee, the individual blades of grass, the trees, the singing birds, the scampering squirrels and the lay of the course became totally real.
He felt the grip of the club in his hands. He instructed himself as he practised smoothing out his down-swing and the follow-through on his shot. Then he watched the ball arc down the exact centre of the fairway, bounce a couple of times and roll to the exact spot he had selected, all in his mind.
In the real world, he was in no hurry. He had no place to go. So in his mind he took every step on his way to the ball, just as if he were physically on the course. It took him just as long in imaginary time to play 18 holes as it would have taken in reality. Not a detail was omitted. Not once did he ever miss a shot, never a hook or a slice, never a missed putt.
Seven days a week. Four hours a day. Eighteen holes. Seven years. Twenty strokes off. He shot a 74.
This has been a popular story for motivational speakers over the years and you will find it in books published by Zig Ziglar and Jack Canfield.
The Golden Bear
Jack Nicklaus, the great professional golfer, explained his imaging technique. He said "First I 'see' the ball where I want it to finish - nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I 'see' the ball going there; its path, trajectory and shape, even its behaviour on the landing. Then," says Nicklaus, "there's sort of a fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality."
See Michael Flately, the star of Riverdance, talk about visualisation and how to fulfil your dreams from January's blogpostVisualization - Dreaming It All Up!
The popular musical from the 1960's 'My Fair Lady' is based on the 1912 play “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw. It tells the story of a Professor of Phonetics Henry Higgins and the bet he made that he could train Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, so that she might pass as a well born lady, presentable in high society.
Pygmalion is a figure of legend from Cyprus who appears in Greek mythology as a man who falls in love with a statue that he created to such a degree that it came alive and loved him back.
'The Pygmalion Effect' is based on the research work of Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson 'Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils' intellectual development'. (1968) In the experiment, all the students in a class were given a standard IQ test. After the results were scored, the researchers informed the teachers that a number of the students in the class had unusually high IQ scores and would probably fare much better than their classmates during the remainder of the year. In reality, the children were picked at random. By the end of the year, all the children had gained in IQ, but the learners who had been identified as stronger had done much better than other students. Evidently the teachers treated them differently after being told to expect sudden improvement.
As a result, teachers expectations play a major part in the success or failure of their learners. When teachers expect good performance from their learners, the learners do in fact show better results. Conversely, when teachers have a negative bias this has a clear knock-on-effect and shows up as poor performance.
Over the years Rosenthal and Jacobson added to their studies and found that teachers acted more warmly toward students they expected to do well. Furthermore, they gave the learners they perceived as stronger more difficult material to study. These learners were also given more opportunities to respond in class, more time to answer questions and there were distinct differences in the quality of the feedback they received.
One resourceful presupposition from the field of NLP that is very useful in this context is the idea that "Every person already has all the necessary resources they need to affect any desired change." Basically this means that whatever a person sets out to achieve something they can actually do so. The resources they have at their disposal are their five senses as well as their internal images, reference experiences, memories our own internal dialogue and self-talk etc.
Remember that we make a distinction between resources and skills. All of this doesn't mean that from one day to the next you can suddenly fly a 747 airplane, but it does mean that that you already have all the resources you need to learn those skills. You might need some help and support with finding those resources and the 'How' of applying them,but undoubtedly you do have the capability. Teachers therefore, need to hold the assumption that with the right support their learners can become excellent learners. Anything less is a grave injustice to them.
'The Pygmalion Effect'has been documented in other contexts such as in business management, in courtrooms and in nursing homes. In all cases, the expectations tend to come true, whether they are based on any objective evidence or not.
'A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.' 'A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.' George Bernard Shaw
If someone has 'the gift of the gab', they can speak easily and freely with a natural offhand ease and can use language in a persuasive and interesting way.
The story goes that Irish people are born with 'the gift of the gab'. Nonetheless, according to legend, kissing the Blarney Stone in county Cork endows the kisser with the same great eloquence and skill.
We are surrounded by language and it permeates virtually all human affairs. It influences our bodies, shapes thinking, and deeply affects the world. Language as ‘a mirror of the mind’ is not only a way of organising our world, experience, thoughts and behaviour, but also how we direct ourselves and others to think and act.
As successful learners of language from a very early age, it is easy to for us to take it for granted and not be aware of the true power of what we are saying and how others are communicating with us.
Be the difference that makes the difference!
For teachers, trainers and educators oftentimes the key difference to getting great results and successful learning and change is down to how they use language to introduce ideas and concepts and encourage effective behaviour and self-development.
How useful would it be to have access to a set of skills that would allow you to…?
bring your language to life in all senses
unblock your learners' unresourceful thinking patterns
use artful language to influence more skilfully
NLP is the study of how we think, communicate and behave. It gives teachers, trainers and educators a wide variety of tools and techniques and offers them a unique opportunity to learn new ways of inspiring and engaging learners.
What are just some of the ways you can put of this to practical use?
Create a more positive learning environment
Increase classroom motivation
Influence learners at a much deeper level
Accelerate learning and maximise potential
Make a real difference and enjoy your teaching more
If you are curious to learn how to your use your words purposefully and dynamically, this is an opportunity for you.
If getting better results with your learners is on your agenda, you will see how that can be easier too.
If you like the idea of learning through interactive activities with other like-minded educational professionals and with a sense of curiosity and fun, then you’ll certainly enjoy sharing this experience.
Book Now - Take Action Early!
Learn 'The Gift of the Gab' Enhance Your Classroom Communication Skills with NLP
The Primary Learner's Toolkit - Implementing a creative curriculum through cross-curricular projects, developing social and emotional intelligence and creating independent, lifelong learners by Jackie Beere and published by Crown House Publishing is an extremely useful book for primary school teachers who want to incorporate the SEAL (Social & Emotional Aspects of Learning) framework into their teaching and, by helping to develop a series of essential learning habits, develop truly motivated, autonomous, confident and resilient learners.
The book is divided into four sections:
22 MAGIC lessons - A wide variety of fun and accessible lesson activities to support the teacher in developing learning and thinking skills based around five essential habits
Motivation - Tasks to develop motivation, consider beliefs and values and manage feelings
Attitude - Supporting learners to take responsibility for their own learning
Gumption - Helping learners to be resourceful, resilient and determined
I-learn - Understanding different learning styles
Communication - Tasks to focus on teamwork, leadership & effective use of body language
Six Cross Curricular Projects - a series of collaborative projects which provide motivating learning experiences which reinforce the habits and personal skills looked at in section one and connect with many subjects from the national curriculum.
Three Stories - equally useful as introduction to or as consolidation of the habits of emotional intelligence.
Tools for Assessing & Tracking Skills - provides a way of recording performanceand allows learners to self and peer assess
The book includes detailed easy to read and user-friendly teacher's notes and lesson plans. There is also a free CD Rom included which includes all 22 lessons on pdf for you to print off and use directly as well as the projects, stories and assessment tools. Overall, a highly recommended, invaluable and inspiring resource book which makes the task of incorporating the social and emotional aspects of learning into everyday teaching a lot more manageable.
Oftentimes when we are in a challenging situation or faced with a problem, our own perspective on the issue can get in the way of coming up with a helpful solution. Here is a series of questions that you can ask yourself to help you analyse the problem and as a result, get a different point of view. You can also use these questions with another person as a problem shared like this can often be a problem halved.
What is the problem?
How exactly is it a problem?
Thinking about your problem – what are you seeing in you mind?
What are you hearing?
What are you feeling?
How do you know that this really is a problem?
How do you know when you have this problem?
How do you know who to have this problem with?
Do you have this problem with some people and not others?
Can you think of a time when this situation might not be a problem?
Is it possible that this would not be a problem in different circumstances?
If you knew what to do what would that be?
What stops you from changing this situation?
How have you solved problems like this in the past?
How do other people deal with these sorts of things?
Some quotes on the area of problems
"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Eistein
"Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem." - Henry Kissinger
Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. - Roger Lewin
"If you do not ask the right questions, you do not get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer. Asking questions is the A-B-C of diagnosis. Only the inquiring mind solves problems." - Edward Hodnett
Messaging is a very important skill to be used in the coaching process and it gives the coach the opportunity to share his/her thoughts in a way that opens the possibility for a shift to occur in the coachee. It is a powerful tool to keep the coachee on track and encourage forward motion. Messages inform, notify and sometimes request. They can be an idea, concept, suggestion or truth that has a motivating spin on it. The message must be delivered carefully and intentionally with the coachee's interest at heart. As a result, it is imperative that for the coach to create a a strong basis of trust before using this skill.
Messaging may sometimes mean advising the coachee, providing information that the coach sees but that they don't. Furthermore, the coach oftentimes identifies an incongruence between the coachee's intention and their behaviour. As a result, the coach may challenge the coachee to explore, question or re-evaluate. The coach can also make a request of the coachee to support them to go beyond some perceived limitation.
Not only is trust important in this process, but the words and the language the coach uses also. Therefore, to message effectively and to have maximum impact, the coach will need to make sure that the language that they use is succinct, neutral and timely.
Thank you for visiting our blog. You can sign up for our Use Your EdgeNewsletter in the section below and you can visit our main site by clicking on the links in the menu above and from the toolbar at the bottom of the page.
fe we make rules for ourselves. These rules are designed to protect us and allow us to speed up our thinking, take short cuts, create safety nets. They are essentially judgements, evaluations and generalisations about ourselves, our behaviour, our capabilities, our identity and about the world around us. These rules are called beliefs.
