The Seven Secrets
of
Setting Goals with NLP
By Damian Hamill
Director of Training
Watt Works Consulting Ltd
This eBook is published by Watt Works Consulting Ltd,
Booths Hall, Chelford Road,
Knutsford,
Cheshire, WA16 8GS,
United Kingdom
© Watt Works Consulting Ltd, 2012
Copyright 2012 Watt Works Consulting Ltd,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by Watt Works Consulting Ltd
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ISBN-13:978-1-4566-0932-0
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Introduction
Hello and welcome to this eBook, The Seven Secrets of Setting Goals with NLP. In this eBook I will be taking you through the stages of one of the most useful processes in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) – a process that can be really effective when it comes to setting goals.
NLP is a highly flexible approach to effective communication, creating productive relationships and generating change that has developed through ‘modelling’ the achievements of particularly skilful people. NLP, from its earliest origins, has appreciated the importance of setting effective goals in order to get what you want in life and has studied and distilled the most useful patterns of effective goal-setters and achievers. By applying the principles described in this eBook in your life you will be borrowing from the brains of some of the most successful people in history.
At one time or another everyone engages in some sort of goal setting activity – either personally or as part of a group - and some people tend to do it in ways that increase the chances that their goal will actually be achieved. In NLP we tend to talk about ‘Outcomes’ rather than goals and we use the term ‘Well-formed Outcomes’ to describe goals that have been designed in a way that maximises the likelihood that they will be realised.
We can fairly confidently say that there are certain criteria that are required for really well-formed outcomes. In this eBook we will be exploring what those criteria are and giving you an opportunity to design a well-formed outcome as we progress, so you can put your new learning into action immediately through a personal example.
During this process I will suggest that you pause from time to time to carry out a particular task or activity. This will help you to apply what you learn in the context of an example that is meaningful to you. If you prefer to read right the way through first time that is okay as well, but we recommend that you go through this process again at a later date to complete the activities as described. When we do suggest a pause it will be useful for you to have some writing materials to hand to jot down some thoughts and information as you progress.
So, let’s begin.
Secret Number 1 – State your Goal in the Positive
What I would like you to do to start off is to think about a goal you have in mind – something you want to achieve. This will give us the raw ingredients that we can shape into a Well-formed Outcome together. The goal that you bring to mind may be a major one or it might be something comparatively trivial. It doesn’t really matter. Whatever your goal is just write it down on a piece of paper in the way that you currently express it.
Now, looking at your goal as it is currently expressed I want to ask you this – is it written down in positive terms or stated as a positive? What I mean by this is, is your goal a description of what you do want to achieve, rather than a statement of something that you want to avoid or don’t want to have happen?
Sometimes a person’s goal is that they no longer want to experience something that is currently happening in their life. They have identified their goal as being an absence of something that is currently present. For example, someone might say –
“I don’t want to be overweight any more” or
“I want to stop arguing with my girlfriend” or
“I want to stop being late for work.”
This, of course, leads to difficulty. It is like the scenario in any number of action movies when one of the characters jumps into a taxi in order to escape from some peril and tells the driver to “Just drive!” Such imprecise instructions may actually leave the driver in a state of mental limbo. “Just drive!” may seem like a very simple instruction but without some sort of idea of the destination the driver is likely to go round in circles or end up somewhere else that is even less desirable than the starting point.
In establishing outcomes the same sort of limbo can occur. A goal expressed solely in terms of an absence of something may well create a vacuum and we know that nature abhors a vacuum. Unless a clear alternative is provided there is a real risk that the unwanted behaviour or circumstances will be drawn back into the person’s life in order to fill the vacuum. Brian Cade and Bill O’Hanlon comment on this tendency in their excellent book, A Brief Guide to Brief Therapy, when they observe:
“When people describe the differences in terms of an absence, it is useful to ask them what it is that they will be doing or feeling instead. Ultimately, it is easier to engage in a clearly defined alternative action than it is just to resist doing something without having some other behaviour to take its place... “
There is another reason why it is important to state outcomes positively – in terms of what we do want, rather than in terms of what we don’t. Whenever we create any sort of goal, indeed anytime we make any sort of statement – we create what NLP calls Internal Representations.
Internal Representations are the inner sensory building blocks we use to construct any type of experience. In simple terms they are the mental pictures, sounds, voices and feelings we make in order to be able to think about things. When people use colloquial terms such as seeing things in their ‘mind’s eye’ – they are referring to the same thing. In NLP we call them Internal Representations or ‘IR’s for short. The thing is, our unconscious mind tends to use our IRs as a blueprint for action - instructions for what to seek out and create. If you like, creating an IR is like inputting a destination into our mental ‘Sat Nav’ system. When we state our goal as an absence of something we necessarily have to form Internal Representations of whatever that is. Let me give you an example -
Don’t think of a purple kangaroo!!
What just happened? If you are like many people you may have found that you had to initially
