A lot of people will tell you that they would like to make changes in their lives, but they don’t know how to go about it. What most of them say is, “I would love to change … if only I knew how”. What a cop-out!

All they have to do is look at how someone else has achieved the result they want and copy them or read a book about how to get the desired result. There are literally hundreds of books on most subjects that will tell you how to get the result you want.

It is simply a matter of thinking of the means BY WHICH you will get to your goal or objective.

A strategy doesn’t have to be complicated to be useful. In fact it will probably work better if it is simple. In fact the simpler it is the easier it will be for you to follow and the more likely you will be to follow the strategy you have devised.

This is how it works:

1. Decide what you want i.e. your well-formed outcome.
2. Work out the means BY WHICH you will reach your outcome.

Yesterday we discussed the fact that people don’t like to make changes because of the risk involved. So, how do you take the risk out of making a change.

The answer is that before you make the change you develop a clear, well-formed outcome for yourself. In other words you create the way you want to be after you have made the change before you make the change. This is rather like trying on clothes before you buy them. Or test-driving a car before you buy it.

By creating a well-formed outcome before you make a change you are looking in to your crystal ball and making your life the way you want it to be before you are actually in that part of your life.

I wrote a series of articles about well-formed outcomes a week or so back you will find them listed in the right hand column of this blog.

Now, if you have something that you would like to change and you want to minimise the risk of making the change go read the articles about well-formed outcomes and then make the change while you have plenty of away motivation.

When you think about it logically it is amazing that people do not change when they reach the Moment of Dissatisfaction and feel the pain. I mean, if life is no good the way it is, why not live it some other way? Or, if you hate your job, why go on doing it? Or, if you can’t abide being fat, why go on eating so much?

The fact is that human beings hate making decisions. Nearly all decisions take us out of our comfort zones. Decisions always involve some degree of risk.

It is probably the element of risk that keeps us stuck in the same place. The thought that we do not know what it will be like if we change something is a common excuse for not changing.

Actually this reasoning doesn’t make sense because the only point on which we can be certain with change is that it will be different. It could be “different better” or it could be “different worse”, but until we make the change we don’t know which it will be.

Tomorrow we will discuss how to take the risk out of change.

(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

The reason why the Moment of Dissatisfaction is so important is that it is the moment when you have the maximum amount of AWAY motivation.

Motivation works in two ways – you either have towards motivation, which moves you towards something that you want or desire; or you have away motivation, which moves you away from that which you do not want.

Away motivation is associated with things that are painful or not wanted. Put your hand into a fire and the pain will cause you to move it sharply away from the heat.

Another key point about the Moment of Dissatisfaction is that Away motivation tends to be short-lived. As soon as the pain goes so does the motivation. This is why bullying is so ineffective as a management style. As soon as the victim is away from the source of their pain they lose motivation.

Also, people tend to become accustomed to pain and it then ceases to have any motivational effect.

So, once you feel the moment of dissatisfaction it is critical that you make the change quickly.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know it can be difficult to make any major change in your life. Changes like giving up smoking or losing weight require a lot of self discipline. But, is there a moment when it is better to take the decision to make these major changes?

Well of course you have already guessed, with NLP there is a better moment to take these big decisions!

When you’re trying to make up your mind to change something in your life you have to be a little patient and wait for the right moment. This is why New Year’s resolutions so rarely work, because New Year’s Eve may not be the right moment.

The right moment to decide to make a change is known in NLP as “The Moment of Dissatisfaction”. A moment when you feel thoroughly fed up with being the way you are, or feeling the way you feel or looking the way you look.

This week we will be discussing how you take advantage of the Moment of Dissatisfaction to make those changes in your life.

For today just decide what you would like to change and start to look out for the Moment of Dissatisfaction.

In the West of England where I spent some of my childhood there was a folklore saying: “the sound of the cukoo is the harbinger of spring.” In other words as soon as you hear a cukoo you can expect that spring has arrived.

Well, I have been hearing cukoo calls for the past week and it has been raining and unseasonably cold, more like winter.

I am not blaming the cukoos for the unseasonable weather, but I want to make the point that we can be deceived by what people say when they express an opinion. The opinion expressed that “the sound of the cukoo is the harbinger of spring” is just that, an opinion. It is what someone might say when asked, “what are the signs that spring has arrived?” It is what they think.

However, when we study behaviour, rather than what people think, as we do when modeling with NLP, we learn that the cukoos are singing to attract mates, their calls have no relationship to the weather. It is simply that the birds always sing in May because they know that they have a limited amount of time in which to attract a mate to ensure that they can lay fertile eggs.

The metaphor here is that when we are modeling we study what is actually happening not what someone thinks they are doing

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was reminded yet again this week of the power of acting as if. I first came across the idea in Susan Jeffers excellent book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. One of Susan’s recommendations is that you act as if you are not afraid and eventually you will find that you are in fact not afraid.

President Theodore Rooseveldt, the 26th President of the USA, gave very similar advice when he said: “I have been afraid, but I made myself as though I were not afraid and very soon the fear went away”.

His namesake President Franklin D. Rooseveldt, the 32nd President of the United States said, when he introduced his bill to move the USA out of the Great Depression: “we have nothing to fear except fear itself.”

The message from all these great men is that if you “act as if” you will eventually become. In fact the Greek philosopher Aristotle made the same point two thousand years ago when he said: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

In my case I had been having trouble with my golf putting. But in my last round I acted as if I am a good putter and low and behold the putts started to drop into the hole – wonderful!

What should you be acting as if you are?

(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

One of the most successful football managers in England right now is Roberto Di Matteo the interim manager of Chelsea Football Club. He took over a team in freefall just nine weeks ago.

Since the Di Matteo became manager the team have won 12 of 18 matches, drawn 4 and lost only 2. Yesterday they won the FA Cup and they are in the final of the European Championship. That is no bad record for a team that were down and almost out.

So it is worth studying some of the beliefs have made Di Matteo successful. I quote from an article in last Sunday’s Sunday Times newspaper: “For me the future is the present. This is the future of me, right here, right now. I’m trying very hard to win the next match and I’ve no time to think about anything else.”

“Nothing else is important. I’m not important. I’m just focussed on the players, trying to work with them and lead them to the end of the season.”

“I don’t really see it as a job. I see it as a passion that I’m fortunate enough to be able to express.”

This is a formula for success that is well worth studying.

Feedback loop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyone who supplies a service as part of their work is reliant on feedback to know how well they are performing. You may provide a service that you believe is good, but is it good for the people who are the recipients of your feedback? How do you know how well your service has been received?

If you care about the quality of the service that you provide you should be continually on the lookout for feedback. The more the better and the more specific the feedback you get the more useful it will be.

Imagine that you have performed a service for someone; you might ask “how did I do?” If they say something general like, “it was fine.” You know that they were satisfied but you don’t have any idea of how you might improve your service. But if you ask, “Can you tell me please, what was ‘fine” about the service?” or “In what way was the service ‘fine’?”

People who don’t give feedback create the impression that they don’t value feedback. This is a shame because you are missing opportunities to help other people improve their service.

Also, it could be that by not giving feedback you leave the service provider with the idea that you did not value their service. In NLP Training you are taught to value feedback.

Anthony Robbins coined the phrase: “feedback is the breakfast of champions”. Become a champion, ask for feedback. Raise the bar for everyone – give feedback.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For the last few days you have been describing, refining and honing your well-formed outcome, now you are at the stage where you need to start to make your outcome into a reality.

How are you to make your outcome become part of who you are, part of the way that you live your life?

What resources do you need to make your outcome a reality?

What do you need to study and become expert at doing or thinking to make your outcome a reality?

What behaviour do you need to adopt? Do you need to change the way that you use your time? Do you need to dress in a different way?

You will definitely find it beneficial at this stage to study my free guide “Be Your Best – Always” that you can download using the form to the right of this article. You will find a lot of ways to stimulate your thinking in the guide.