NLP Workbook: A practical guide to achieving the results you want. Joseph O’Connor

as well as blocks to what we can do. If you believe you are not very likeable, it will make you act towards others in a way that may put them off and so confirm your belief, even though you do not want it to be true. If you believe you are likeable, then you will approach people more openly and they are more likely to confirm your belief.

       NLP treats beliefs as presuppositions, not as truth or facts.

       Beliefs create our social world.

      Treating beliefs as presuppositions means NLP treats beliefs as principles of conduct. You act as if they are true and if you like the results, then you continue to act as if they are true. If your beliefs do not bring good results, you change them. You have choice about what you believe – though the belief that beliefs are changeable is in itself a challenging belief to many people!

       Beliefs have to be acted on if they are to mean anything, therefore beliefs are principles of action, not empty ideals.

      Beliefs and Outcomes

      You need to believe three things about your outcomes:

      It is possible to achieve them.

      You are able to achieve them.

      You deserve to achieve them.

       Possibility, Ability and Worthiness are the three keys to achievement. Remember them as the PAW Process.

      Possibility

      Very often we mistake possibility for competence. We think something is not possible when really we do not know how to do it. We all have physical limits, of course – we are human, not superheroes. But we do not usually know what these limits are. You cannot know what they are until you reach them.

      You cannot prove a negative, therefore you can never prove that you are incapable of anything, you can only say that you have not achieved it yet. Once it was considered impossible for any human being to run a mile in less than four minutes – until Roger Bannister did it at Oxford on 6 May 1954. Then a strange thing happened – more and more athletes started running a mile in under four minutes. Today Roger Bannister’s ‘impossible’ achievement is commonplace.

      Do not be too quick to decide what is impossible.

      Ability

      Have you put a mental ceiling on your achievements? We often sell ourselves short by not believing we can do something. But beliefs are not facts – they are just our best guess about how things are at the moment.

      Have one basic, true belief: You have not yet reached the limit of what you are capable.

      Keep an open mind. Do not ever announce to other people that you can’t do something, even if you think you can’t. Listen for a day or two and you will hear a string of admissions from people about what they cannot do. People will own up much more readily to what they are bad at than to what they are good at. Some people mistake this for modesty, but it is not. Modesty means not bragging about what you can do.

       Don’t boast about your supposed limitations.

      Negative talk just wraps you in a straitjacket of imposed limitations. If you find yourself thinking like this, add the little word ‘yet’ to the end. Then you are being realistic.

      Don’t make excuses in advance or plead extenuating circumstances out loud, either. If you make an excuse in advance then you are going to need it! Take responsibility for your goals. There may be any number of good reasons why you do not get them, but if you make excuses in advance, then you have set yourself up for failure.

      Worthiness

      Do you deserve to achieve your goals?

      Only you can answer this question, but why not?

      NLP does not judge whether goals are morally or ethically right, it simply gives you a process to help you achieve them. The ecology check will usually catch any moral or ethical dilemmas. Only you can decide how to resolve these dilemmas.

      After you have worked on your goals with the well-formed conditions, put them through the PAW questions. Say for each goal:

      ‘This goal is possible.’

      ‘I have the ability to achieve this goal.’

      ‘I deserve to achieve this goal.’

      Notice any uncomfortable feelings. They will point to obstacles and self-doubts.

      Now look for possible obstacles. What might stop you? Think to yourself, ‘I will not achieve my goal because . . .’ and then list all the possible reasons that come into your mind. These obstacles usually fall into five categories:

      1 You don’t have the resources – people, equipment, time and place.

      2 You have the resources, but you don’t know what to do.

      3 You know what to do, but you do not believe you have the skill.

      4 You have the skill, but it doesn’t seem worth it.

      5 It is worthwhile, but somehow it’s ‘just not you’.

      Once you have the list of objections, decide how many of them are real obstacles and how many of them are your beliefs.

      There are three possibilities:

      1 There are real obstacles that make it impossible for you to achieve your goals.

      If this is so, then just drop the outcome. It’s a waste of time to pursue it now, although circumstances may change.

      2 They are real obstacles that you could get around if you devoted the time and effort to doing so.

       The keys to achievement

      If this is so, then decide whether you want the goal enough to put in the time and effort. If you do, fine. If you do not, then drop the outcome.

      3 They are beliefs about yourself or other people and you do not really know whether they are true.

      If this is so, then think how you could test that belief. Does the obstacle only exist inside your head? How real is it? Once you have tested it, then it will fall into one of the first two categories.

      This approach makes you responsible for your outcomes. You decide.

      Affirmations

      Affirmations can help you achieve your goals. An affirmation is a pithy statement of your outcome that assumes that it is possible and achievable and keeps your mind focused on it.

      Affirmations are like belief statements – they can be powerful, but they have to be carefully phrased. When you make affirmations that are about self-development, phrase them as if they are occurring now. For example, if your outcome is to become a more relaxed person, a suitable affirmation might be: ‘I am becoming more and more relaxed. I am feeling better and better about myself.’

      Do not phrase self-development affirmations as if they have already happened, for example, ‘I am a more relaxed person. I feel better about myself.’ You are not – yet – and so your unconscious mind will whisper, ‘No, you’re not. You aren’t fooling anybody.’

      Do not give self-development affirmations an exact deadline, for example, ‘In three months’ time I shall be a more relaxed person.’ First of all, it may take more or less than three months. Secondly, your unconscious mind will whisper, ‘OK, so we don’t need to do anything right now then, do we?’

      Affirmations should only have specific