]]> http://www.successwithcommunication.com/archives/477/feed 1 http://www.successwithcommunication.com/archives/349 http://www.successwithcommunication.com/archives/349#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:27:08 +0000 Joelseah http://blog.successwithcommunication.com/?p=349 Have you ever had situations where you felt that you couldn’t achieve something? Or perhaps a friend of yours was lacking in motivation and felt that they wouldn’t be able to complete a task?

How do you normally handle such situations?
How do you empower yourself or your friends, and bring them from a “limitation state” into an empowered state?

One of the quickest way is to use “How Questions”. How questions allow you to turn people around easily. When faced with challenges, we usually think of limitations and things that we can’t do. This is normal, and very human.

So for example, a friend of yours tells you there is no way he or she would be able to complete the marathon you’ve both signed up for. Instead of just encouraging by saying things like “Of course you can!” or “I’m sure you can do it”, empower that person by asking “How can you start training up for the marathon?”

This puts the person in a state of mind where he or she must now think of actions to take, in order to be ready for the marathon.

Likewise, if someone were to say “I’m not confident enough to speak in front of people”, you can empower that person by asking “How can you start to be relaxed about public speaking?”

So the next time you encounter a situation where you face limitations, remind yourself that you can choose to continue concentrating on the limitations, or empower yourself and others by choosing to think about possibilities. Start using statements that shift your mind towards possibilities instead of limitations, and increase your influence today!

A few days back, I was waiting at the train station and I saw a mum trying to get her kids to stop shouting and running about. She went, “Don’t make so much noise!” As expected, the kids kinda ignored her and went on enjoying themselves.

You see, when you tell someone not to make so much noise, the message that gets registered in their heads will be making noise, rather than keeping quiet. To get someone to keep quiet, a more effective message would be simply, “Keep quiet!”.

Of course, you might argue that since they are kids, whatever you say probably won’t make a difference. Even if this is true, the mum will still stand a better chance by asking them to keep quiet instead of asking them not to make noise. This applies to many things in life.  If you want someone to be punctual, you tell them to “be early” instead of “don’t be late”.

So the next time you’re about to tell somebody not to do something, stop for a moment and think about what you want instead. Then rephrase and communicate what you want, and you’ll probably end up having more successes.

That is an interesting statement actually. First of all, it shows that the friend of mine knows her immediately reaction is due to conditioning. External factors have probably shaped her to react in a certain manner towards a certain stimulus. The reaction could be positive or negative, but the fact that she is aware of it means she can choose the way she wants to react.

A simple method to use is to introduce a lag time. I’m a person who generally prefer to process information before reacting (and thats why my friends say I can be lagging at times), unless it is in a situation such as sports, where heightened awareness is required and reactions need to be fast.

When we communicate in our everyday lives however, lag times can be extremely useful. Our mind is powerful enough to process quite a fair bit of information during those few seconds, and it can make a huge difference between reacting immediately and regretting your actions, or considering your choices and making the most appropriate one.

In anger management courses, we are told to take a few deep breaths when our fuse is about to blow. That’s all about giving yourself the luxury of a lag time to process your thoughts and weigh your options!

So the next time you find yourself in a situation where a stimulus is prompting or triggering a response from you, give yourself the luxury of a lag time. Take a few deep breaths and consider your choices. With practice, you’ll probably be fast enough to even understand the situation from different points of view, empowering yourself more.

Remember, when you are aware of your choices before choosing to react, you empower yourself!

In fact, there are many things we can learn from babies. If you observe a baby who is learning to walk, that baby will likely fall countless times in the process. The thing is, the baby is also unlikely to sit down and think “walking is difficult, i think I’ll forget it”. Despite being taken out of their comfort zone of being carried around, babies still strive on and eventually make the breakthrough by walking without support.

How does this translate to adulthood? In situations where we are taken out of our comfort zone and we learn to survive, there’s usually an amount of personal growth within us. Yet people still whine and complain about unexpected changes.

Some of us might say, “But we have no choice”. Which brings me to my next point. We always have a choice on choosing the reactions we communicate. You see, the beautiful thing about being a human is that we are aware of our reactions towards external stimuli.

Many of you would have read or heard about Pavlov’s dog, the experiment where the dog was conditioned to salivate whenever he hears a bell because it triggers the thought of food. The dog can’t choose it’s response, it is more of an instinctive response. The dog isn‘t even aware of the programming and conditioning that has taken place.

Humans on the other hand, are aware of such things. When something causes us to have a reaction, we are aware of it. And if we are aware of it, we can choose how we want to react! While animals are generally reactive towards stimulus, humans can choose whether to react, and how to react.

So the next time something unpleasant happens and you’re triggered to react immediately, tell yourself, you have a choice on how to react. You can choose to take the action that would make you happier. When you are aware of the choices you have, you empower yourself immediately. Conversely, if you choose to react without thinking, then you’ve just given away your self empowerment.

One of the key advantages that our team had over the rest of the competition was the common focus. Even before the game started, we knew what we had to do and stuck to it. That mutual understanding gave us the luxury of more time, which translated to more throws of the dice, and that could make a huge difference between getting a good deal and just missing out.

In other words, our team had been properly “Framed Up”. Everyone was in the right frame of mind going into the competition. This framing of mindset is a technique from NLP, and using it prior to any activity or event is extremely effective, especially if you are in teaching or training, or chairing a meeting. Set your audience in the correct frame of mind by telling them the areas of focus they should adopt, or boundaries they should stay within.

A simple example would be the setting of rules before a training session. Informing the audience of the rules frames them up in terms of what their expected behaviours would be, and this sets the stage for a more rewarding session because everyone would be in the right frame of mind.

One common scenario is when a person’s behaviour is being confused with his or her identity as a result of some limiting beliefs. An example of this could be, “I’m a slow learner”.

In this example, the individual views himself or herself as a slow learner because of experiences where more time was required to learn new things. Some ways to help loosen that self identity include asking questions such as:

• What did you learn that required more time than usual?
• What do you consider a fast learner?

Alternatively, you could reframe the content of the statement (Reframing is a very powerful NLP technique to help suggest new meanings to an experience or belief, and I’ll be posting stuffs about it in the future so stay tuned).

By agreeing with the person and changing the meaning of the statement, you can help redefine what was initially an identity label, into a skill, behaviour or feeling. Using the same example of “I’m a slow learner”, you could agree and reframe the content in this manner:

• I understand, there are definitely times when you feel that the rate of learning isn’t as fast as you would like. This will improve over time as you pick up new skills along the way.

Responding in this manner loosens the identity label, and imply that it is actually a feeling. It also allows the person to look at the issue from another angle, that he or she will pick up new skills with time and improve on their learning ability.

Here’s another example of confusing behaviour with identity, “I’m a shy person”

• Yes, I understand that there will be situations where you would feel shy, and it’s perfectly alright to take your time to feel comfortable in such situations.

This response also implies that it is a feeling, rather than an identity. In addition, it assumes that the person just wants to take a longer time to feel comfortable and confident.

When you are more aware of this common error due to limiting beliefs, you can help empower others when you notice that they are confusing behaviours with identity. More importantly, you can stop yourself from making the same errors.

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