Questions can really help
Now that my princess is way past the questioning stage I find it amusing when I see parents tackling a barrage of questions. It is usually the why sequence that have parents pulling their hair out. Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? It could go on forever and they just don’t stop. They don’t stop until they get to an answer that makes sense to them. They don’t stop till they get to the core.
As adults we can use the same skill to help us reach our goals in life. Check out my little book 37 Power Questions on Amazon. Get it here. Make it a great day.
Hocus Focus
No matter what outcome you are aiming for, without focus you cannot achieve it. In today’s world we are all somewhat suffering with so called ADD. The answer is really to develop a habit of focus. Stay tuned for my new program. Make it a great one. It is up to you.
Limitless Life? Is that Possible?
As an NLP coach I say without a doubt , YES. The only reason why many of us do not live our life to its fullest potential is because we are so hypnotized into thinking that we cannot. We are hypnotized by the limiting beliefs that we develop over time. Many of these beliefs are from a very young age. As I write this a situation comes to mind that happened several years ago.
My wife and had taken our daughter to the Children’s Museum for a day of fun activities. One of the activities was finger painting. There was this one little boy sitting off to the side by himself. I asked why he was not joining the other children. I encouraged him for a few minutes to no avail. Can you guess what he told me? He said that he was too stupid to finger paint. Imagine that. Too bad. I only hope that he got out of that hypnotized state. Just as limiting beliefs can hold us back the opposite is true for supportive beliefs.
Here is the challenge. Many times those limiting beliefs are so engrained that we do not even realize what they are. The first step is to find what they are then they can be addressed. Here is a simple way to do that. Just list the things that come to mind when you think of the situation you would like to change. For instance lets look at money since that is the focus of many people due to the economy. What comes to mind? Do you hear yourself saying things like:
- I will never get out of debt
- I never have enough
- Only crooks have a lot of money
- Money is hard to come by
I could go on and on. Whatever comes up that does not support you is a limiting belief. Really take some time to do this exercise and also pay attention to how you feel as these thought come to the surface. Next time we do a little more work on limiting beliefs. Stay updated on the Limitless Life Contest to benefit the children of the Euclid YMCA by filling out the form on the Limitless page.
The Progress Paradox
Here is a slightly funny true story that illustrates what I am discussing. A friend of mine was working at a hotel. One evening a guest had a little too much to drink. In his attempt to kill a fly that he thought he saw on his bedroom wall he attacked it with a full bottle of expensive wine. He called the front desk and my friend went upstairs and cleaned up the mess. By the time she was done the man had passed out. This happened in a culture where that would have been very embarrassing for the man. To help him save face my friend put a small nail in the wall exactly where the man thought he saw the fly. The next evening apparently having forgotten the prior incident, the guest noticed a “fly” on the wall. He sneaked up upon it and gave it a big whack. Yes, you guessed it they needed a goal and value alignment. That would have avoided the big gash he ended up with.
Many times organizations realize that it is in their best interests to make changes that will improve the overall state of the organization. These changes are to help the organization to progress. That is all well and good. The interesting thing is that while well meaning like my friend above and even well planned there is often an unforeseen backlash from this. Herein lies the paradox. This can serve to hurt customer service which in turn hurt moral which in turn negatively impact the bottom line. If it is not addressed in a timely fashion this can and in many cases do become very costly. Unfortunately the cost is not only financial but there is a human cost that might be overlooked.
Here is how the scenario typically plays out. Senior management in doing their job crafts a vision for the organization based on current market conditions and projected trends. Let’s say that the company wants to bring on board a new system to streamline expense reports that will reduce cost. Some sort of due diligence is done and a vendor is chosen. Next plans are made to implement the system. After some time tweaking and testing the system is rolled out throughout the organization. Then it happens. A myriad of issues start popping up. It seems like every time an issue is fixed another unexpected one pops up. It reminds me of that child’s game where you hit the little animal when it pops its head out of a hole and another one pops right back up.
To make matters worst the front line people, the ones who have to actually do their own expense reports are having challenges learning the new system. These are the same ones who put up resistance in the first place. I am sure you know the ones that I am talking about. The trainings provided do not seem to cover many of the nuances for this particular company nor are they sure that the system could actually handle them. Now the organization has to deal with productivity loss and the erosion of moral.
Luckily they had a good year and the sites outside of the United states are doing really well. These sites have beaten all projections in sales. This actually adds to the issue because somehow during the due diligence phase the US centric team forgot to check global capability for the new system. It turns out that many of the sites outside of the US were on different back office systems and it would take some major customization to fix the issues. Wow. Does this sound vaguely familiar? It might not be an expense system. It might be a new billing system, a new inventory system, or just a process improvement. While the intent was great there were clearly some flaws in execution.
I wish I could say that this was a hypothetical scenario but a client of mine actually went through this. It was not pleasant for anyone involved. All this could have been avoided if a little bit more common sense work was done on the front end. Additionally had they incorporated just one NLP technique all this could have been avoided.
This organization needed to be on the same page on all fronts. Actually they needed to be on the same page, paragraph, line and sentence. Using the NLP goals alignment would have put them on the same page. Marrying this with NLP values alignment would have taken care of the rest. The values assessment gives a very accurate indication of what is motivating the people
Here is what you do in a nutshell. An actual engagement would be much more detailed This can be used for a huge organization to a mom and pop outfit.
- A representative team defines goal based on organization’s vision
- Values assessment conducted with stakeholders (leadership to front-line)
- Input solicited from stakeholders
- Input incorporated
- Newly defined goal communicated and sponsored by leaders and key influencers
Step two is critical for success. So often organizations miss what actually is motivating their people. This front end work will positively impact the ROI.
I have given you some basics steps to avoid this. Be sure to stay on the same page with your team and much success for the new year.
Carpe Diem!
Oakland Lewis
Business and Personal Results Coach
Live life without limits, take your visions to success now!
www.v2snow.com
Interact with me
Twitter: @v2s
Radio show: www.blogtalkradio.com/v2snow
877-380-9139 or 216-759-7474
Preparing for change
Hi,
Today we discuss preparing for change. When we set off going to an unfamiliar destination we normally prepare by getting good directions. Well, nowadays we just punch it into a GPS or phone and be on our way. Interestingly though, when we set out to make changes in our life many time we do not prepare adequately. That can really set us up for failure. This then leads to a whole new spiral of defeat and destruction.
So how do we prepare for change? How do we prepare for our success?
Environment, Belief, Mental self talk, Celebrate small victories.
Let’s look at the environment. Here is what you want to do. Imagine how your environment will be when the change is completed. For instance if you were working on your ideal body image (notice I did not say loose weight because we tend to find what we loose) As an example ask yourself would I have so much candy around? Next get rid of at least some of it if not all. Continue to take inventory of your present environment like this until you mimic how your environment would be when you have achieved your outcome. If you are working on becoming a non smoker you can follow the same principle. Perhaps you get a bunch of clothes specially cleaned to mimic how nice your clothes will smell when you have achieved your outcome.
Next we look at belief. This is huge. Many people say that seeing is believing but I say that believing is seeing. So we need to align our beliefs with what we are aiming for. If you are changing your body image then you must believe that you can become the ideal body image. If you are working on becoming a non smoker then you must believe that you can become a non smoker. Many of us stumble here, with NLP techniques that can easily be changed. If one person has done it then you can too. If a person has changed a belief before you can too. As a simplified example answer these questions, was there a time when you were 5 years old? Did you believe you were 5 years old then? Do you still believe you are 5 years old?
Now lets look at mental self talk. Many times when we are making changes we start repeating affirmations. Using the examples above they may go like this. “I have an ideal body” or “I am a non smoker” While these may serve to encourage us on our quest they do trigger resistance from our unconscious which varies based on how engrained the issue is. You see the unconscious is brutally honest and when we say these things that are not true it may be difficult for the unconscious to accept what we are saying. It is actually screaming at us liar liar pants on fire. In that case the unconscious resists and we have a struggle making the change. Best to say something like “I am making the changes to create an ideal body” or “I am steadily adapting the habits of a non smoker.” a note of caution here do do what you say.
Finally celebrate small victories. For each step of the way outlined above you should commend yourself for taking that step and celebrate. This helps to start momentum towards your desired outcome and keeps you encouraged. Keep a notebook and note all those success in it. This will serve you well just in case something happens that discourages you along the way. When we make these types of changes many times we have to address some trash that may come up. This notebook will helps to keep us focused.
One final note on celebrating your success. Per the examples above please don’t celebrate by eating something unhealthy or smoking a cigarette 
If you are working on any personal change challenge feel free to contact me for help.