Posts filed under ‘NLP Notes’
Selling Yourself Short (Part 2)
Yesterday, you discovered the difference between your level of expectations and level of acceptance. Today, let’s explore why people sell themselves short.
There are a thousand and ones colourful reasons why people sell themselves short. You and I have our own unique set of reasons. Here’s what they usually say:
- “But I’m not qualified”
- “I was never taught to do this!”
- “This thing is trivial.”
- “I’ll get to this later.”
- “Maybe next time”
- “Something’s better than nothing”
- “It’s okay, there are other days.”
- “The night is still young.”
- “It’s beyond my control”
But whatever it is, the outcome is the same: when you achieve your level of acceptance, you compromise. You just sold yourself short.
Here are some reasons why people sell themselves short:
The Number One, numero uno, reason is: fear. So deep is our fear that it paralyses us from taking any meaningful action. So deep is our fear that when the something triggers our fear, we freeze in terror.
What sort of fear?
Fear of rejection. Fear of failure. Fear of being wrong. Fear of not being accepted. Fear of the future. Fear of fear. Fear of uncontrollable circumstances. Fear of defeat. Fear of new technology.
From fear, we move on to the next reason: ignorance. Meriam-Webster defines ignorance as the state or fact of being ignorant : lack of knowledge, education, or awareness. When we’re clueless about something, our natural instinct is to reject something. Sometimes we’re even willing to reject it even if there are scientific evidence and research to support a contention! We play the role of the cynic to preserve and protect our internal values and beliefs! In the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Nothing is more frightful than ignorance in action”.
And as Elbert Hubbard puts it:
“The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.”
A third factor that leads us to selling ourselves short is our habit to justify or rationalise things. What do I mean by this? We turn what is socially unacceptable and present it in a way that it becomes logically acceptable.
Selling Yourself Short (Part 1)
Level of Expectation is the level of what you would like to have. This is usually your goals – no matter how wild or conservative it may be. It’s basically what we want in an ideal situation. We all have our “nice to have” expectations in all we do. This would be our well-intentioned goals and New Year’s resolutions – wanting to be rich, wanting to earn a certain amount of income, wanting to reduce weight.
Level of Acceptance is what we can accept. It’s the quality or quantity we’re willing to settle for. This is what determines how short we sell ourselves. This is usually the minimum.
The following table illustrates some common levels of expectations and acceptance:
|
Level of Expectation I want… |
Level of Acceptance But I’ll be content with… |
|
| Income level | RM10,000 per month | RM1,200 per month |
| Ideal body weight | 60kg | 70kg |
| Savings | RM20,000 | RM200 |
| Family | 1 loving partner + 4 kids | a partner + some kids, we’ll see |
| Studies | CGPA 4.00 | CGPA 2.10 |
The bigger the gap you have between your level of expectation and your level of acceptance, the more you’re selling yourself short!
Hypnotic Law 101: Law of Dominant Effect
We have finally reached the third and last Law of Suggestion: the Law of Dominant Effect.
What is the Law of Dominant Effect? As the name implies, the strongest emotion triumphs over other emotions and reason.
Law in Action: The best example for you to consider is the way your subconscious reacts to something you are phobic of. It can be cockroaches, ladybirds, snake, frogs, the sea, heights and so on. Even though you may be protected by a bullet proof glass enclosure, the moment your sight lands on that object you are phobic of, your phobia reaction kicks in. In cases of phobia, your physiology will change. You may begin to quiver. Your glands produce liquid profusely. Some may even wail or scream – inside that clearly safe protection.
In this example, your reason and your knowledge that you’re safe all succumb to the most dominant emotion: fear. In real life, this isn’t confined to just fear. You can include euphoria, anger, sadness, content satisfied and so on.
Mind-Body Relationship: Going back to our primal origins. This mechanism within our minds are predetermined. What varies are the way it decides to protect you – whether you want it or not.
Hypnotic Law 101: Law of Reversed Effect
Continuing our exploration, we get to know the second Law of Suggestion: the Law of Reversed Effect.
What is the Law of Reversed Effect? More and more you try to do something governed by your subconscious, the more you find it difficult to achieve. Put it as this: your conscious and subconscious minds govern different aspects of your life. Where one is capable of doing, the other may not.
Law in Action. Physiologically speaking, your subconscious is your autonomic nervous system – the system that governs bodily functions independent of your conscious control. You can control your movements, whether to swallow or not as well as running or walking. But you cannot directly control your blood pressure, heart beat, glucose level or event sweating mechanism!
More and more you try it, the harder it gets.
Mind-Body Relationship: It is not impossible to gain control over these bodily functions. But it’s not as direct as you can imagine. Your brain is equipped with sophisticated organs which would facilitate your survival. Based on the information surrounding you as relayed by your senses, it reacts. Whether the threat or reward is real, it’s immaterial. Your brain directs your body to react to its reality.
But when you attempt to consciously assert control, it – I speculate – raises your brain’s alarm. Through that, you will begin to feel agitated, depressed or annoyed. It’s when your mood isn’t too good for whatever reason. Your subconscious isjust protecting you.
Hypnotic Law 101: Law of Concentrated Attention
Let’s begin our three part series on the Thee Laws of Hypnosis with the most popular one: the Law of Concentrated Attention.
What is the Law of Concentrated Attention? Through the writings of Rhonda Byrne (The Secret) and Michael Frosier (Law of Attraction), this law is commonly known as the ‘Law of Attraction’.
The basis of the law is you will always find – or achieve – whatever you set your mind onto. Whatever you set your mind onto, I repeat again.
In the study of [clinical] hypnosis, your subconscious reacts to whatever you are thinking, your beliefs and values towards a particular issue. You should, by now, notice that I never mention a selection process.
To put it bluntly, the Law of Concentrated Attention stipulates that your subconscious mind reacts to everything you think of, positive and negative, to achieve or avoid a goal or aim.
Law in Action: Have you noticed, how many red MyVIs are on the road after you’ve signed the contract to buy a red MyVI? Or perhaps you begin to notice the number of people wearing a purple headscarf after you left the house and are wearing it? In my case, while working on a telecommunication company’s project pitch with a client, somehow we noticed how the Klang Valley is highly bombarded by telco adverts!
Mind-Body Relationship: While normal ‘right thinking members of society’ may feel that this is a rip off, slowly the medical and health care community are beginning to accept the validity of such relationship. Studies have been and are on going in Europe and the United States on the relationship of conscious and subconscious mind.
If you’re studying clinical hypnosis, you will be taught that this is something primal to the human mind. Back in the days of living in caves, our ancestors needed to be alert to dangers all around them. They become alert of any predators when they leave the cave to hunt or move. Every sound of breaking branches draws their attention.
When you make something so relevant and important to your mind, your body’s autonomic nervous system kicks in and does its job.
Guide to Copywriter 2.0: 3 Ways to Cost-Effective Communication
Since 2004, Web 2.0 Conferences have been held annually. It’s the buzzword among social media/Internet marketing enthusiasts. Basically what Web 2.0 symbolises is “change”. Internet alone isn’t a static creation. Even more so for the users.
Copywriters 2.0 (sing. Copywriter 2.0) are copywriters who have adapted to the 2.0 ecology. Usually they are Generation Xs and Generation Ys copywriters who are impatient yet determined to achieve. They harness the power of technology to get the work done cost effectively.
What is meant by “cost effectively”? Your communication:
- Saves time;
- Saves money;
- Saves energy.
As a copywriter 2.0, here are the 5 techniques I used with my clients:
- E-mail communication;
- Text messaging/short messaging system;
- Phone calls
- Instant messaging; and
- Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
If you need to send a bundle of document, send it via e-mail! A Copywriter 2.0 will access it, print it and refer to it.
Through e-mail, your copywriter 2.0 already have a reference he can access easily.
For a course of over 7 months, I managed to work with a Client half way across the country! So, as a person looking for a copywriter, find a Copywriter 2.0!
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ALDRIC TINKER, founder of Aldric Tinker & CreateChange, is a Certified Neurolinguistic Programmer, trained by William Horton, Psy. D., of the National Federation of Neurolinguistic Psychology. Aldric conducts Life and Executive Coaching sessions in addition to speaking engagements.
NLP-Hypnosis: We Are Family!
Born in a Seminar Room…
During the introduction of me as a Certified NLP Practitioner and Professional Freelance Copywriter by my good friend Vincent Cheng, Founder of JeVince and Malaysian Business Network, during his Sales 2.0 Marketing 2.0 Workshop prompted a participant to speak on the relationship of NLP and Hypnosis how the two are not related. He expressed how his trainer, also mine, is bad at it and too academic.
For the purpose of this entry, I’ll focus on the relationship between neurolinguistic programming and hypnosis. What’s the nexus?
Beginnings of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)
Richard Bandler, then Psychology Student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joined followers of John Grinder, then associate professor of linguistics at the same varsity, reputedly the youngest in the States at the time.
The two became friends and began fusing their interests and skills and began studying the works of Virginia Satir (mother of Family Therapy) and Fritz Perls (founder of Gestalt Therapy). With the materials at hand, they studied the two for the reasons of their successes. Through a friend, the co-founders of neurolinguistic programming stumbled upon the work of Milton Erickson, MD, Grandfather of Hypnosis.
They were so engrossed with this general practitioner’s works on hypnosis. They incorporated Ericksonian work into NLP.
NLP From the Eyes of Clinical Hypnosis
In Clinical Hypnosis, there are fundamentally three approaches to hypnosis:
- Autocratic: The autocratic approach is telling the Patients (LCCH/BSCH term for ‘Client’) on what to do. Close your eyes. Think of a time when you were…
- Permissive: Patients are ‘invited’ to close their eyes. Whenever you are ready, close your eyes…
- Non-Traditional: Non-traditional methods depart from the two. Non-traditional uses natural occurring hypnotic states to create the change. Briefly, you and I enter hypnotic trances everyday: when we’re day dreaming, concentrated in work, engrossed in reading books, etc.
Where does Clinical Hypnosis put NLP? You can almost guess it – non-traditional.
Ericksonian Influence is “Apostolic Succession” in NLP: Past, Present and Future
Erickson’s work incorporated by the Co-Founders of NLP into this new field of personal change lays the hands on NLP. There are NLP trainers and practitioners who write out that Bandler and Grinder went to meet Erickson, who endorsed their work.
Since its conception in the 1970s, NLP expands and grow because of those who carry on the torch.
Depending on the pre- or post-NLP training of your practitioner, you will see traces of NLP amidst what they bring onto the table.
Just as my trainer, William Horton, Psy. D., is trained in Hypnosis (Dr. Horton is a Certified Hypnotherapist, National Guild of Hypnosis/NGH & International Association of Counsellors and Trainers/IACT), I am doing the same. As a student of the International Certificate in Clinical Hypnosis conducted by the London College of Clinical Hypnosis Malaysia, I’m bringing back hypnosis into NLP as I practice it.
In addition to conducting NLP therapies and coaching, I use my NLP-hypnosis in my copywriting and speechwriting.
At the end of the day, NLP in inseparable from Hypnosis. No matter how far down the line you may be from John Grinder and Richard Brandler, or you got your line through NLP Gurus Tony Robbins, Tad James, Steve Andreas and more, NLP will trace its roots back to hypnosis.
Discover How You Can Lift Your Mood After the Ladder Falls on You
Growing up and going through life is like a journey. A journey you begin from the day you were conceived. A journey which will only end for you the moment you release that last breath. Like any other journey you make, your life’s journey is not spared from the usual weathers: rain, shine, hail, snow, windy and more. Yet as much as you enjoy the journey, you are bound to enter periods of down time; thunderstorms that just suck the mood out, leaving you disappointed and maybe miserable.
The feeling mixed or on its own, is natural. At a funeral, it’s normal to grieve. Even if you’re not crying your eyes out, it’s still alright. It’s natural for you. It’s how your mind has programmed you to cope with the loss. Similarly when your parents are divorcing or when you failed that paper you put your effort in during your undergraduate years.
In some cases, you may even feel like giving up. What can you do?
Before you decide to give up, even though you feel that the world’s against you, think of the time when you were learning to walk. You can also see yourself through the eyes of a baby, trying to stand and take his or her first step. Sure, you cried when you first fell. But see yourself, determined and optimistic, trying to stand up and walk. Can you feel the determination you, the baby, felt? Your focused tunnel vision, concentrated and optimistic on the thing that you wanted to take. Listen to your shrill of excitement as you take that baby step. Although you clumsily fall down, you are still determined and excited.
After several attempts and falls, see yourself, the baby, successfully taking that first step! All his/her optimism and determination paid off! See how excited you are, the glimmer in your eyes. Listen to the accomplishment resonating in your happy cry! Feel that rush of joy crawling and seeping into your body – from your feet, to your ankles, into your calves and then your thighs. See that sensation spreading from your legs all the way up into your body. How, with every breath, the joy, hope and optimism fill your stomach muscles, your chest and your arms. As the euphoria reaches your neck and head, you can’t help but to notice the vibe coming from the baby’s body – your body.
You, the baby, flash that smile and clap your hand. You’re all revved up and excited to push forward and live another day. You are alive!
You keep the beautiful memories of the journey radiant and harmonically loud!
Here you are, today, standing on the road – your journey. Before you maybe crossroads, to roads diverged in an amber wood, straight or winding, you conclude that what’s important is that you push forth and forward. Sharing the strong and comforting glow, vibe and harmony coming from inside you with those you may meet.
Even if there’s a thunderstorm when you’re on the road, after a short while, look up. See the silver lining behind the cloud. Feel the cool earth under your feel as you smell the freshness of the air – under the bright rainbow arcing over you.
Every time you find yourself on the road from a fall, remember how it was when you took that first baby step. You’d feel better and optimistic before you know it.
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