Dealing With Dream Thieves

September 8, 2009 By

What to do when the people you care about express their care for you by giving you advice that is clearly a projection of their fears and doubts…

I don’t know if this happens to you at all or if I’m the only one.

I take risks. I believe that in order to truly live my dream I have to put new ideas and tools into action. Sometimes it works out right away. Other times things take a lot longer than it looked like it was going to take. This is NOT failure. It is feedback.

For example: When I finished my NLP trainers training in the Summer of 2003 I thought that I would be teaching my first NLP practitioner course the following month.

It took me something like 5 years to achieve that goal.

Not because I was sitting around watching TV and wasting my time, but because there seemed to be some higher, wiser plan in effect. In order for me to be a congruent trainer, I had to first get some real life experience working with clients of all kinds. Perfect (in retrospect).

But to the people in my life at the time, my lack of earning power IMMEDIATELY after the big training was proof that I was a fool. NLP was supposed to suddenly enable me to start making big bucks right away. And I have seen people’s incomes skyrocket right after an NLP session or a training.

But for me, for my particular life’s purpose of integrating my music and my personal development work, it wasn’t an instant catapault to fame and riches.

Somehow I managed to make it through those first lean months and began to build a practice.

There was so much I didn’t know about marketing, and business. So much I had to learn “on the job”. Because I was so focused on building my practice, I didn’t do as much to get Music/Storytelling gigs that year… so my income actually went down even though I was feeling like I was on track with implementing my goals.

Working towards living my dreams.

Well, as the old saying goes, “Success is Messy”

In the last year or so as I’ve been putting new ways of doing business into practice, getting the word out on the Web. It’s been a huge learning curve, one that has often required 100% of my attention and energy.

If anyone looked in at certain points along this path it might seem to an outside that I was chasing after some “pie in the sky” dream. I am chasing a dream. But it’s not “pie in the sky”.

My dream is to create steady and increasing income from the many areas I’m interested in and passionate about in a way that contributes positively to the lives of others.

NLP, Sales training, storytelling, music, hypnosis, art, personal development, healing, creativity, education, leadership, motivation, Time Line therapy techniques ™ relationships, transformation and on and on. It’s a multi-dimensional approach that sometimes defies “branding”.

I once had a conversation with a business man who had been very successful as a mortgage broker. At some point he had decided to build a company with other mortgage reps working for him. At first, his income went down because he was no longer writing deals. Eventually as he brought more and more mortgage reps on board and he earned a percentage of each rep’s volume, his income soared.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that in any endeavor that is true and congruent for you, there will be times when your family members or friends will try to give you advice. Unfortunately their advice will come from their model of the world which may be an old framwork for you that you are letting go of.

You must acknowledge their loving intention and appreciate it. However, you must also ignore their advice and continue to move beyond it. Even if it causes a temporary rift in the relationship.

Dreams are fragile at certain stages of their fulfillment. Stay with it. Keep doing what you know is right and true. Turn down the noise and the distractions around you and burn the boats. There is no returning to the way you used to be. Sometimes it takes longer to get to where you want to be. So what?

Every outcome that does not look like success is an opportunity to put another piece of the puzzle into place. Eventually it will come together.

Am I saying ignore solid, advice from people who truly know what they’re talking about in fields that are similar or related to what you are trying to accomplish? No. Other entrepreneurs or other people in your field who have done what you are attempting to do, have earned the right to give you guidance. I am only talking about people who have been employees all their life giving an entrepreneur advice about how to run his business.

Just like I know very little about ice skating and would never dream to give an ice skater advice about how to do a leap or a spin, people who trade hours for dollars or who are not able to tolerate the uncertainty of being in business (or sales) haven’t earned the right to give advice in this area. Are they bad people. No! Their intention is one of love and care and concern. It can still wreak havoc with your self confidence if you are going through some tough challenges.

What you do freaks them out and scares the hell out of them. That’s why they are chained to a steady paycheck. Sometimes in the entrepreneurial or artistic journey there are times when the cash flow just isn’t there. Those are moments of your greatest opportunity.

Worrying about someone based upon the false belief that imagining the worst and trying to protect your loved ones from their mistakes is the worst kind of projection.

For 40 years I’ve been pursuing a dream of using my music to positively impact the world. That journey has led me in a lot of different directions, first working on my self and my internal blocks and next learning how to reach out to other people in ways that may be non-traditional. The learning curve has been steep and at times breathtakingly difficult. Every step of the way, no matter how challenging, has been perfect and exactly what I was ready to tackle next.

  • The songs I wrote for Letters To Daddy have been enjoyed by several hundred audience members as the play was performed this past Spring by two different theater companies.
  • Over 6,000 people have seen my Motivation Song on YouTube (see it at the end of this post).

Step by step. Goal by goal. Putting my plan into action.

Have those accomplishments resulted in a steady stream of income? Not yet. Have they touched lives in a postive way? Yes.

Am I on track? Yes. Am I as much a household name as Tony Robbins? Net yet. Do I always know how I’m going to pay this month’s bills? Nope.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Our backs are to the sea, the boats have been burned. There is nowhere to go but forward into the unknown.

So dare to dream folks. Dare to take action to fulfill your dream. Dare to find mentors to model yourself after. Dare to lovingly ignore the advice of parents, relatives, friends or anyone else who doesn’t “get” what you are all about.

Dare to believe in yourself even when outside events seem to conspire to get you to doubt.

Feed the Faith. Starve the Doubt. You gotta have some trust that it all works out…(better than you can possibly imagine)

Just in case you need a little motivation…

Please leave a comment below or share this with someone who many need your support today!

- Mark

Filed Under: nlp Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hideous Favoritism Disease – NLP Reframing

February 2, 2009 By

One of the major techniques of NLP is something called reframing. Essentially it is a way to take any limiting belief or behavioral pattern and turn it around in such a way that the persone either has an “aha” moment or it causes the problem to disappear entirely.

The reason reframing can be so powerful is that few people are aware of how strongly language affects our experience of what we call “reality”. By changing the “frame” around a problem it doesn’t just give you a new perspective (although that’s certainly part of it), it can actually make a profound and observable neurological shift.

I had done a series on NLP reframing in my newsletter sometime last year and it was picked up on by a couple of guys in Ohio, Aaron Torres and Paul Binkley who have been learning NLP on their own and practicing it’s applications at the auto factory they work in.

I hadn’t heard from these guys for a while and was delighted to get an e-mail from Paul Binkley with another great story. So here it is in it’s entirely with Paul’s permission. Thank you Paul! I definitely look forward to doing an NLP Certification in Ohio soon!

Please note: I’ve added a few comments in red to give you a little insight into what Paul is doing outside of conscious awareness.

Mark,
Long time no see. Thanks for the ongoing email and updates about your work.

I had an opportunity this week to help a coworker reframe a major life circumstance. and I thought you would like to hear about it, partly because it is a success story of mind over matter and because I had the presence of mind to offer it, in part, because of your invaluable contribution to my own perspectives on life, the universe, and everything.

A female coworker, 33yrs old apx., confided in me how angry she was that her mother, whom she asked to watch her dogs while she was away for the day, upset her greatly for about the millionth time over the same issue of playing favorites among her three daughters.

It seems that my coworker had left $30 for her mother to order her favorite pizza with everything on it while she watched the dogs at her (my coworkers) house.

Her mother, not wanting to spend the day alone, invited her favorite daughter over to her not so favorite daughters (my coworker) house, to keep her company.

This is where the problem begins.

The mother, desiring to bless her favorite daughter, gave the $30 to her favorite daughter instead of buying her favorite pizza for herself.

My coworker on hearing this, was outraged.

She went on to present to me all manor of evidences supporting her claim that her sister is her mothers favorite child ( they were many and convincing proofs). We often have major amounts of “evidence” for why a certain belief or perception is true. And then started telling how her sister (the favored) was totally dependent on their mother for everything and made no effort to have a life outside of her dependency on their mother, and how her mother was also equally her mothers ( my coworkers grandmother) favorite and just as insanely dependent on her to do everything for her.

She went on to explain how her mother does nothing for her own benefit to a point of serious health risk from obesity, attributing this to her dependency on her mother.

She nearly cried while confiding that her mother, during a day long visit on Christmas day, had not used the restroom all day and stank of urine.

When her mother got up to get something to eat, my coworker noticed a folded towel on her mothers chair, which she first mistook as an added padding then, on inspection, realized her mother had urinated on the folded towel.

The thought that her mother would employ such a method to circumvent needing to visit the restroom, grieved my coworker profoundly. I would like to mention that her mother is not reported to have any health condition relating to bladder control.

Harder to believe than the above:

Here’s the underlying Limiting Decision:
My coworker admits that her own sense of self worth, her practiced state of mind, is dominated by her interpretation that she is less of a person because she is not her mothers favorite.

Here’s what she’s not seeing about herself. This is currently outside of her conscious awareness:
My coworker is about the hardest working, self-sufficient, commonsense, take care of business person I work with (outside of Aaron Torres of course). She is nothing like her mother or her sister or her grandmother.

Here Paul is associating her into the problem in order to “light up the neurological net”:
I asked her to imagine what her life would be like she were her mother’s favorite. She couldn’t do it.

I suggested she(if she were the favorite) would be as pitifully helpless as her sister. How would she like that?

She convulsed with disgust at the thought. The fact that she convulsed with disgust at the thought is proof that she is indeed associated into that experience. When we say “associated” we mean that the person is looking through their own eyes in their internal representation of the situation. they are “in” it.

I told her that the next time her mother favors her sister over her she should thank God that she is not under the generational curse of being mothers favorite.

“I never thought of it that way” she said. Exactly!

I went on to thank God out loud ) quite loudly) right there on the spot that she was not her mothers favorite(note the embedded message). Paul is also using this person’s model of the world. If he was talking to an atheist or a new ager he might not thank God he might say it in a different way. For the Atheist he might say “Thank Goodness!” for the spiritual but not religious peron he might say “Thank the Universe.” It’s all about speaking the language of the person you’re working with

The grimace she had been wearing all day turned to a beaming smile. The great thing about NLP is using our sensory acuity skills we can actually look at another person and see the shift. In other words we can get immediate feedback as to whether something worked or not. Sometimes it’s a subtle color shift other times it’s pretty noticeable. If we get the shift great! if we don’t get the shift, “there’s no failure, there’s only feedback” and we simply try a different approach.

I reiterated the suggestion to say out loud to herself how thankful she is to not be the favorite, next time she recognizes the hideous manifestation of favoritism disease. Speaking the phrase out loud creates an auditory and physiological anchor so that the shift can be “locked in” to her neurology and made available for re-triggering the new insight whenever it’s reinforcement is needed. Also, labeling the old problem as “Favoritism disease” links the old thought pattern in a powerful way to a disease which locks in an “away from” strategy unconsciously.

She said she would.

God bless,
Paul

special thanks to Paul Binkley for sharing this story! Any other examples out there of powerful reframes? ether leave a comment here or e-mail me directly with your own stories and experiences at mark [at] markshepard.com

Please “Digg” or “Stumble” or “Facebook” or “Twitter” this! Thanks!

Mark

p.s. to learn more about NLP and how you can use it to “reframe” your own “problems” into “opportunities” visit Modern Jedi NLP Training

Filed Under: nlp, NLP reframing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dangerous Questions

December 29, 2008 By

Just have a moment to share one key thought with you today:

What questions do you habitually ask?

The reason for asking is this – Your unconscious mind responds to questions more powerfully than any other kind of self talk. So if you want your affirmations to really create change internally, turning them into a question can make a difference. Noah St. John calls these affirmations in question form: “Afformations”.

What happens is your Unconscious Mind hears a question and begins to activate a process that is hardwired into our neurology. For example if you ask yourself “How can I find a way?” You Mind begins to filter your reality and it begins to find ways to answer you. It begins to draw your attention to answers.

So listen today to what you ask yourself. Are you asking disempowering questions like “Why am I such a __________ (negative label)? or are you asking powerful questions like “why am I in the right place at the right time doing the right thing for the highest good?”

Now, if you’ve been following my posts lately you might recall that a few weeks ago I started asking myself a series of very, “dangerous” questions. I only mean “dangerous” in the sense that the answer might disrupt my comfort zone. Sometimes “danger” is a good thing. Ask any bungee jumper!

The questions were: “If I had only 6 months to live what would I be doing? What would I stop doing? How would I spend my time?

I got several answers.

  1. Record each and every one of the almost 400 songs I’ve written over the past 30 years.
  2. Spend as much time with my friends and family as possible
  3. Share my music with as many people as possible.
  4. I would stop trying to “be everything to everybody” (Listening to my own song “Motivation” reminded me of that. Listen to “Motivation” here

If those were the answers, the “dangerous” challenge was to do that. Now.Not next year. Not next month. Now.

If you really and truly acted on what you say is most important to you, how would your life change? No matter we “say” is most important, it’s what we “do” that really demonstrates it.

Sometimes that’s that last thing I want to hear!

For me it became clear that renting a large beautiful, expensive apartment was less important than my 3 priorities. But daring to let it go even if I didn’t know where I would be going (even if it made me sad) opened up the possibilities. One idea was to put all my extra stuff in storage and travel from friend to friend, family member to family member, connecting and performing along the way. Performing could mean a guest spot at a local church, performing at a Starbucks, or even on the street.

All of a sudden other places to perform began to show up on my internal radar screen. At one point I performed at hundreds of elementary schools each year all over New England. Lately that has been down to just a few each month. But did it fit my criteria? Yes. So I began to ask questions about how I could re-connect with all the schools I’ve previously performed at…

Performing at colleges is another area of immense opportunity. I had just started to break into that market 5 years ago or so when I discovered NLP and shifted my focus to that…But certainly college students would not only be open to music but they could benefit hugely from “The Way of the Modern Jedi”…

Performing at festivals and local acoustic music venues had been something I’d been “gonna do” for a while…there’s a lot less money in that market and having a high rent made me look elsewhere. With less overhead, less pressure. Time to make contact…

Now here’s the interesting piece, does this decision to truly “surrender” to my music and “honor” my creative work stop me from practicing NLP?

No! It actually makes it more possible because every where I go as a performer I can share my story of how I was able to overcome my performing anxiety with NLP! AND since I have written so many songs influenced by NLP sharing that fact wherever I go and inviting those interested in learning more about NLP could easily and effortlessly spread that work in a congruent way.

Wherever I share my story from the stage of crushing anxiety and the stories of the many people I’ve helped to overcome their own anxiety without drugs or endless therapy through NLP, people can see for themselves the result. So it just may be a more effective way to get the word out…

So that’s just a bit of the process going on over here with me. It all started with asking some powerful questions.

What’s more important is, what are your thoughts? What questions are you asking yourself at the close of this year?

Please feel free to share some of your questions below.

In case you need some help with questions try these on for size:

  • If I had only 6 months to live how would I spend my time?
  • What’s one simple thing can I do today to live fully and abundantly?
  • Why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?
  • What resources do I need to attract to myself so that I can truly make a positive difference in the world?
  • What would be the most rewarding thing to do?
  • How can I have fun today?
  • How can I live fully today?
  • How can I ask for help?
  • Who can I ask for help?
  • What am I grateful for today?

Please let me know your thoughts and comments below.

thanks!

- Mark

p.s. BTW as a result of my last post and being willing to ask for help and willing to admit that “I don’t always have all the answers” a good friend of mine offered me a place to stay for 3-6 months. another friend offered me a place to store my stuff. Another friend appeared who has all the administrative and logistical skills/aptitudes that would enable me to truly focus on what I’m good at…Is work involved? yes. Does it scare me to move out of my comfort zone? yes. But it also feels positive and exciting!

The question that I ask the most is: “Why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?”

Try it! Write it out long hand!

Filed Under: nlp Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Christmas 2008: Crisis? Or Opportunity?

December 18, 2008 By

Today, I don’t know where to begin. I have a lot to say.

So I’ll just jump in and hope you’ll join me for a few moments because this is one of the most important announcements I’ve ever made.

By now it’s pretty hard to avoid the panic and the fear all around us. It seems in so many ways to be the worst of times…We may know intellectually that within each failure there lies the seeds for greater success but sometimes it’s really hard to feel it. It’s a full blown “Crisis”.

A wise man once pointed out to me that the Chinese character for “crisis” is a combination of the symbols for “Danger” & “Opportunity”.

As the blanket of Christmas slowly gets pulled up around us and the stories of hardship and uncertainty gather like storm clouds, some of it is hitting pretty hard and close to home. For me personally, the holiday season has always been bittersweet. This year even more so.

In fact the very nature of the traditional Christmas is solemn and beautiful and sad.

A family of meager means, finds lodging in a stable. A child is born without proper medical attention who would soon be the target of assassins, and who would grow up to meet a painful and harsh end.

Even if you are not remotely religious, you can not help but relate to the story.

And so in the face of what can only be called a “major financial challenge” I found myself at the end of my savings. All the marketing and advertising I’d done had basically fizzled. Staring at my bank balance and the pile of unpaid bills on my desk felt really bad.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d learned NLP in order to increase my income as well as to clear the junk that was holding me back from getting my music out. Unfortunately it seems like in order to properly honor NLP it would mean putting my music back on hold.

So here I was not feeling very resourceful. It felt like the end of a road that didn’t take me where I thought it was going to take me. Still there was the glimmer that perhaps it had taken me where I needed to go.

As I sat pondering how to pay my past due rent, how to stay positive and hopeful…

As I contemplated how I was going to feed my 3 kids who were coming to visit next week…

As I contemplated how I was going to feed myself…

I got an e-mail.

It was from my friend and mentor, Kathy McAfee, who had commissioned me to do a video of “Motivation” (the song I wrote inspired by her work). She had just sent it out to her list and one of her contacts, Fran Capo, had seen it and wanted a theme song too.

So I got in touch with Fran and began to learn more about her and what her mission and message is.

Get this: she’s the Guinness book of world records “Fastest Talking Female” she also holds the records for deepest book signing (at the Titanic) and highest book signing (on Mt. Kilimanjaro).

So I got inspired. I wrote her a song in a very short time. Because everything about Fran is about speed, and just getting stuff done. And living every day as if it is your last. I sang it to her over the phone and she loved it. By chance, my recording engineer, Joe Mennonna was available that afternoon so I drove over and recorded it. By 6:00 pm the song was mixed and ready to play.

You can hear it here. Listen To Adventure Girl – Fran Capo Theme Song

But that’s not the point of this post!

For me the message was clear. As I was sitting that morning asking for guidance, I was going back and forth between what I thought I “should” do and what my heart was “calling me to do”.

I have worked my brains out the last 5 years to build an NLP practice and an NLP training program. I’ve helped quite a few people and the work is rewarding. But the business model doesn’t work very well. I help people transform their lives and then they don’t need to come back any more! Many of the people I want to help can’t afford me. And I couldn’t help them for free and still pay my bills…In NLP we call that a “double bind”.

The talk therapy business model where the client comes back every week for eternity is much better (at least for the therapist).

But the fact is that when I asked myself a very specific question the answer got my attention.

Here’s the question: “If I had only 6 months to live what would I spend every one of those last precious moments doing?”

The answer had 3 parts:

  1. I would record every single one of the almost 400 songs I’ve written that have yet to be recorded. I don’t write the music down so in order to preserve them I need to record them. Even if only my kids were able to listen to them it would be worth it.
  2. I would get my butt out and perform every chance I got even if it meant going from Starbucks to Starbucks or finding a street corner.
  3. I would spend as much time with my friends and family as possible.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

And I actually am doing that on a small scale. I’ve gone into the studio a lot recently and I just did my first concert in 2 years. But I wasn’t truly giving it 100% because I was so busy with all the other things…

But the main reason I hadn’t given 100% of myself to it was a limiting belief. It was a belief that I couldn’t make enough money to pay my rent and all the other bills I had by merely singing my songs.

But at this point, all the marketing and promotion and advertising I’ve been doing to attract people to my NLP trainings and Anxiety clearing work wasn’t paying the bills either.

In NLP we have a concept that basically says: “You get what you focus on. So focus on what you want.”

So I asked the universe for a sign. What do you really want me to do with my life? How can I serve the most people in the highest way while taking really good care of myself and my family? How can I honor this gift I have of writing songs? (I mean it’s really kind of a “healthy compulsion”. I write songs like a horse gallops or like a bird flies. It’s just totally and complete natural for me. Duh! :o )

Moments later I got the e-mail that Fran Capo wanted a theme song.

If that isn’t an answer I don’t know what is.

So in the next few weeks I will be packing my stuff away and putting everything I own in storage.

I will be letting go of my beautiful apartment overlooking Wooster square and I will be staying with a series of generous friends and family members (see number 3 above).

And I will be using all of my NLP skills to book myself at coffeehouses, and colleges and churches and libraries and yes…Starbucks.

I’m going to be asking you for your help.

  • It may be as simple as asking you to pass a song along to a friend who might need to hear it.
  • It might be as affordable as downloading a single song for $2. bucks.
  • I’m definitely going to ask you to invest in one or more of my CD’s. And when you do I’ll send you a 2nd one for FREE that you can share with a friend. 
    Mark Shepard’s CD’s Available Here
  • I’m going to invite you to come see me perform and I’m going to ask you to bring a friend. Please join my mailing list at the top right hand corner of this site so you’ll get advance invitations.
  • If you have a big enough house, I’m going to ask you to consider having a house concert and inviting all your friends. Together we can change the world. Call me today to get started. 203-804-1208

If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while you know my message is about hope and empowerment and healing and transformation and joy.

Yes, I’m a little scared. Not of performing any more (thanks to NLP that’s totally gone) but of moving out of my comfort zone. And that’s a good thing. We all tend to get comfortable and it soon becomes a rut. Eventually a rut can feel like a prison.

So let’ use these challenging times to challenge ourselves. What would you do if you had only 6 months to live? Leave a comment below and let me know.

And ask yourself honestly “How can I start doing that now? How can I start even in a small way living my life on purpose today?”

Thank you for your support and encouragement!

Mark

p.s. Please leave me a comment below and “stumble” or “dig” this or e-mail it to a friend.
Thanks!

Filed Under: nlp, NLP in Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NLP Motivation Strategies – Part 2

December 3, 2008 By

Motivation

An old story: there was a frog that was put in a big cauldron. Because the cauldren was large, the frog felt perfectly comfortable. So even though it could have jumped out at any time, it stayed put. As the pot gradually heated up over the fire…the frog did nothing. The water was warming gradually. By the time the water was so hot that the frog was boiled…he was well, boiled. If the water had been heated suddenly the frog would have had the good sense to jump out.

Ever feel like that frog?

Yesterday we explored the idea of what a “motivation strategy” is. It’s an unconscious process or “program” that enables us to move from a state of “not motivated” to “motivated.”  For some people and in some situations it may be a challenge to get out of a “procrastination strategy” and get moving towards taking action.

Whether your strategy is working or not may determine how stuck you get in procrastination as well as how long it may take you to break out of it and get started on cleaning the garage or doing that term paper.

By the way, we don’t need to be motivated to do stuff we enjoy. We usually need an effective strategy to get to the stuff we do not enjoy doing.

So how do you usually break out of a stuck state? Do you move away from the bad things that will happen if you don’t finally buckle down and get to work or do you move towards how good it will feel when you accomplish your task? Or do you do some combination of both?

If you “move away from” how bad does it have to be before you get moving?

If you “move towards” how do you do that?

In other words, do you need the carrot or the stick? And how much of either one do you need to get stuff done?

In working with other people either in leadership roles as managers and team members or as parents and teachers, it helps to know how someone is wired if we want to influence or inspire them to action. Do you need to communicate the cost or the pain of not taking action? Do you need to threaten them with being fired or other dire consequences? Or do they respond much better to the promise of a bonus or a big commission check?

If you use a stick on someone who is motivated by the carrot you risk totally losing them. If you use a carrot on someone who requires a bit of stick to get going it just won’t do the job.

In dealing with ourselves, particularly in our careers, becoming aware of this leverage point can make the difference between success and failure.

please help me spread the word about NLP! “Digg” or “Stumble” this or share it with a friend.

Filed Under: nlp Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NLP Motivation Strategies – Part 1

December 2, 2008 By

motivationSo what is is for you? The stick? Or the carrot? Or some combination of both? What gets you motivated?

Have you ever stopped to think about the process of motivation? How do you know it’s time to get motivated to do something? Have you ever felt a lack of motivation and then suddenly something shifted and you got a jolt of energy?

In NLP we do quite a bit of work with helping people to overcome procrastination and engage their motivation strategies. In fact the discovery that we actually have unconscious strategies (or programs) that we “run” in different situations to create behavior is one of the key distinctions that makes NLP so much fun. It’s also part of why we NLP’ers are considered “rogues” by traditional psychology.

Think about it this way. How do you know it’s time to be motivated? Or even better, when you are motivated how do you even know you are? Is it something you feel? See? Hear?

Can you remember a time when you were motivated? A specific time? As you recall that time, do you have a picture? What about a feeling somewhere in your body? Do you have any sounds or music that kick in? Are you saying something to yourself or can you remember someone else saying something to you?

Assuming you have a picture, what happens if you take that picture and shrink it down and push it far away and make it really dark and tiny out on the edge of the horizon?

Chances are you don’t feel so motivated any more do you?

Now bring that picture back in at 100 miles an hour and make it big and bright right in front of you. More motivated or less? Typically people feel more motivated by doing that.

The point of this short exercise is to demonstrate the power of your MIND and the ability each and every one of us has to affect our inner world.

So today think about that.

Tomorrow we’ll explore what the big deal is about “moving away from” vs. “moving towards”…

To see my new music video “Motivation” click this link

Please help me start a Modern Jedi NLP Mind Mastery Revolution! Leave a comment or question. “Stumble” or “Digg” or “Twitter” this.

Filed Under: nlp Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,