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We
are learning the first NLP step to development: Knowing
what one wants!
Last week,
we saw, how, by thinking of our goal at the
beginning of a journey, we could access the enormous
power of our unconscious minds to take us home,
driving through highways, even as we kept talking to
a companion.
Of
course, how specifically we need to ‘think’ of
our goal in order to activate our unconscious powers
is yet to be discussed here. But suffice it to say,
for now, it is a joy to know that you do have powers
to take you to goals, and you can access that power.
Is
our mind all that powerful?
Today,
let us consider an apparently contradictory
situation: Reaching where one doesn’t want to go
– and not being able to do anything about it!
How
often someone who made a firm decision not to
consume liquor again started drinking – in spite
of the liver having suffered damage, and the
doctor’s warnings?
Or,
the smokers: how many times they could successfully
quit smoking!
How
many times you postponed completing an assignment,
in spite of your decision to make it on time, the
next time around?
Or,
consumed one more serving of some dessert when you
are expected to shed the extra pounds?
Where
is the power of the mind? What happens to all the
resolutions we make? Can we trust our minds to
achieve what we want?
NLP
Insights
NLP
believes that even reaching unwanted destinations
are the effects of running programs, though
unconsciously, to reach those specific destinations!
NLP
believes that one does what one has programmed
his/her mind to do. If your mind has been programmed
(by you or others) to smoke or drink, it will most
successfully do it, in spite of your conscious
desire to quit!
Not because you are wrong; or you are bad;
just because your powerful mind is set on some track
(programmed) that it lead you there, against your
will.
[Hence,
you need to relax and admire your mind, and not get
angry, particularly when you discover you have a
habit that you want to quit!]
That
is, mind can be set on track: And, once set, it will
reach the destination.
Even a useless or undesirable destination!
Mind works perfectly, according to instructions
given to it.
We
all work perfectly. (Even the so called mentally
derailed persons work in a specific way:
Systematically! For instance, a depressed person
does not get up to be hilarious the next day!)
And
everyone of your habit that makes you do what you
don’t want to is proof that your brain is very powerful.
How
wonderful it will be if we can access that power and
make the mind do what we want: change track to
desired destinations? How wonderful if we become capable of giving instructions, in
ways that
brain understands.
Brain
Language
Try
to obey an instruction I give to your brain now:
Do
not think of a monkey for the next one minute.
Particularly, of a monkey that is climbing on the
top of a coconut tree and plucking a coconut.
What
has happened? Your brain did specifically what it
was told not to do!
It
could be a great way to get the brain to do things
by telling it not to do something!! Brain cannot
understand negative commands or instructions. Its,
as if, it deletes all the ‘nots’ from sentences
in the instructions you give it!
You
tell a child don’t touch that glass on the table
and leave it and go; and it will certainly go and
touch it, as if it heard you say, ‘touch the
glass.’
What
do you want and ‘not’ want?
We
have heard so often the message that we should think
positive. Yes. Having negatives in the statements
don’t help. That would be like saying, ‘I
don’t want to be in the office after 5 p.m.’
That does not tell the brain where it should take
you after 5 p.m. Rather, wanting to go the theatre,
or to home, or the railway station are
understandable and executable commands.
How
often you told the brain “I don’t want to
smoke!” “I don’t want to be obese.” “I
don’t want to be late?” “I don’t want to be
in debt.”
But
what do you really want? If not to smoke, if not to
be obese, if not to be late, if not to be in debt:
That will be your real goal, that the mind can act
upon.
There
are four aspects to a valid goal; four steps to make
it easy for your mind to take you to your goal.
And
this is the first one: to inform the mind
‘positively’ where you want to reach; and not
tell the mind where you don’t want to find
yourself! Telling the mind where you don’t want to
find yourself is one sure way to find yourself where
you don’t want to be.
In the rural development context, I like to show these two pictures to distinguish a positive and negative goal and its impact on the power of the mind: a negative goal dissipates energy. A positive goal focuses energy. Compare these two pictures, and you will understand how being positive gives a ‘direction’ to the mind:
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