By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 43
Formal Strategy Discovery Script
Demonstration of a Formal Strategy Discovery – Motivation
Demonstration of an Informal Strategy Discovery
Re-Designing an Ineffective Strategy
KOLKATA: Some of the strategies we develop over the years may not be very useful to us. For example, running depression, procrastination, impulsive buying, anger or overeating strategies may limit us and prevent us from producing exceptional results. When a strategy is not useful to us, we can re-design it. However, do remember that whether a strategy is useful or not depends on the situation we are in. For example, when we need to do something important, running a procrastination strategy in our minds is not very useful. However, whenever we see something that we would like to buy, running a procrastination strategy may be useful to prevent you from overspending. I used to get depressed very easily, especially when I hear bad news from my family members or my staff. The moment I get depressed, I would not be very productive for the rest of the day until I got over it. I decided that running the depression strategy whenever I hear bad news was not useful for me, so I decided to change it! First, I discovered how I got depressed by re-playing in my mind the sequence of thoughts that got me to feel lousy. (Yes. You can discover your own strategies). Here is what my depression strategy looked like:
Ae (Bad News) ➨ Ki ➨ (Vi + Ai + Ad) Negative
(Vi+Ai+Ad) means that it is all happening simultaneously.
What normally triggers off my depression strategy is bad news that I hear or news that does not match my expectation (Ae). The moment I hear this bad news (Ae), I will feel depressed (Ki). In this state, I would start to imagine the worst case scenario by making pictures and hearing sounds (Vi + Ai). At the same time, I will start talking to myself negatively, ‘Oh No! Oh sh**!’ (Ad) This will make me feel even more depressed (loop back to Ki). The more I feel depressed (Ki), the more I see and hear the worst case scenario (Vi + Ai), and the cycle continues.
I knew that I had to re-design my strategy in such a way that when I hear bad news, it will not fire off the feeling of depression, but a more resourceful emotion of motivation instead. I decided to re-design my strategy in the following way:
Ae ➨ Ad ➨ (Vi + Ai + Ad) ➨ Ki
Bad News Reframe Positive Motivation
After installing this new strategy, whenever I heard bad news, I would immediately do a reframe (we learnt this earlier in this article series), I would then imagine how this negative news would be a blessing instead. I would see and hear the future possibilities (Vi + Ai) and this would make me feel motivated to take action and deal with the challenge.
How to Curb that Spending
Do you remember me speaking about a client I had who had a buying strategy that caused her to keep buying on impulse? To recap, her strategy was:
Ve ➨ Ki ➨ Ke
See the item Feel good about buying Buy it
In order to keep her from overspending, I knew that I had to help her develop a buying strategy that got her to procrastinate making a purchase. Since I did it naturally myself (yes, I take months to decide on buying something), I decided to get her to model my strategy and use it.
No
Ve ➨ Ad ➨ (Vi+Ad) ➨ Ki ➨ Ki
See item Do I really need it? Negative Regret Procrastinate
Is it value for money?
Yes
➨ Ki
Feel good about buying
Whenever I see an item that I like (Ae), I would always ask myself, ‘Do I really need it? Is it value for money?’ (Ad). If the answer is ‘Yes’, then I would feel good about buying it (Ki) and purchase the product. However, if the answer was ‘no’ (which was most of the time), I would imagine myself not using it and saying, ‘I wasted my money.’ (Vi + Ad), this would incite the feeling of regret (Ki) and I would procrastinate buying it (Ki). Are you getting the hang of how you could re-design your mental strategies now? Great. Again, test it out by doing the following exercise.
Exercise 2
Think of a strategy that is currently limiting you now. Do you overeat? Wake up late? Get depressed, procrastinate or get over worried? Use the strategy discovery steps and sketch out your strategy. Once you have your strategy, think of how you could redesign it in such a way that it leads you to a more powerful outcome.
Existing Strategy
New Re-Designed Strategy
Installing Our Strategies of Excellence
One you have modeled a person’s strategy and/or re-designed an ineffective strategy, you must install the new strategy into your brain. The best way to achieve this is to mentally rehearse the strategy through visualization. By visually rehearsing the new strategy a few times, new neuro-connections that generate a new set of thoughts and behavioral patterns will be formed. For example, let’ say that you had an ineffective strategy that got you to overeat.
Ve ➨ (Vi+Ki) ➨ Ad ➨ Ki ➨ Ke
See food Imagine yourself Say to yourself, Feel hungry Overeat
eating and imagining Yummy.
how it feels like I’m hungry
to eat it
And you have designed a new strategy so that looking at the food will fire off a new chain of internal experiences that create a new behavioral outcome (i.e. going to exercise).
➨ Old Strategy (as above)
Ve ➨ (Vi+Ai) ➨ Ad ➨ Ki ➨
See food See yourself fat Say to yourself, Feel bad
& hear others ‘I look disgusting’
commenting
➨ (Vi+At) ➨ Ki ➨ Ke
See yourself Feel motivated Exercise
exercising & hearing to look & feel good
positive comments
The way to install this would be to close your eyes and imagine yourself running through the new strategy. So imagine yourself seeing the food where you usually do (on a television commercial or restaurant sign), then see yourself conjuring up an image of yourself being fat and hearing people commenting on how lousy you look. You then say to yourself how disgusting you are. Run through the state of ‘feeling bad’ and intensify this feeling! Then imagine yourself in the future looking fit and good, feel the motivation to exercise and see yourself working out!
Alternatively, you could also use the Swish Pattern (explained earlier) to swish in the new strategy. If you recall, the swish pattern requires you to swish away the Trigger Image and Swish in the Desired Image. Similarly, in this case, swish away the Trigger Image (seeing the food), and swish towards you the new strategy. Repeat this process with all the visual, auditory and kinesthetic elements until you have created the new pattern in your neurology!
So there you have it, all the tools and strategies you will need to model, utilize, design and install any mental strategy to help you reach your desired outcomes. So start being aware of your own strategies, both the effective and ineffective ones that result in the outcomes you experience daily. At the same time, keep a lookout for powerful individuals whom you can begin to model and learn their patterns of excellence.
I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, you will learn about The Limitless Potential Of Your Mind. And after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilize concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+ and Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP+ Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, C-Suite Advisor; First Certified Social Panorama Consultant in Eastern India directly trained under Dr. Lucas Derks, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist. To explore about NLP+ Lifestyle Coaching you may visit http://shantanudassharma.com/nlp-lifestyle-coaching/
