NLP

by Tom Hoobyar

  Clues to Beliefs:

  The Deep Structure of Language and the Meta Model

  In Chapter 1, we learned a bit about how our minds use a linguistic shorthand to allow us to make sense of our world. There are several other specific ways that we filter our experience in order to make our unique world possible; these are called “Meta Models.”

  Many Meta Model filters are useful. For instance, generalizations save you from having to learn how to tie your shoes every time you put them on. A little of this is a good thing. However, too much of this good thing can be quite limiting. Here’s why.

  Many of our generalizations are unconscious and this is especially so in the case of beliefs. Many of these “rules” that we’ve created for ourselves come from an earlier time in our lives. Some of these actually come from someone else and are not really our choices at all.

  A lot of the generalizations that take the form of beliefs were formed when we were very, very young and another large group were formed when we were adolescents. Beliefs formed in early childhood are generally the result of learning from our parents and our environment how to survive in the world. That’s a very useful thing. It’s just that now that we’re adults we can make better choices for ourselves because we have learned an awful lot since we were five years old.

  Likewise, in adolescence, in high school, we formed a lot of other beliefs. A lot of those were based on the extensive wisdom of our fourteen, fifteen, and even eighteen-year-old friends. I don’t know about you, but I remember that when I was seventeen, I was amazed at how little my dad knew. What really surprised me, though, was how much he had learned just five short years later!

  TIPS TO NOTICE AND IDENTIFY BELIEFS

  To notice your beliefs and discover how they got there, here are some important warning signs to watch for and listen for in yourself. An easy one to notice is when you find yourself thinking “I really should do (that).” “It’s something that really ought to be done.” “I really have to take care of that now.” Terms like should, ought to, must, can, and may are called words of necessity. And that is what they imply: that there is an absolute necessity to the statement that contains that word. It can be really useful to simply ask yourself, “Who says?” or “According to whom?” And then listen for an answer. You might be surprised to discover how much of your life is being run by the incredible wisdom of a fifteen-year-old, or your crazy aunt Sally.

  This phenomenon isn’t limited to words; it can also easily be linked to images that are triggered by an event or a time of day. I have a friend who used to wonder why it was that he found himself washing his car every Saturday morning, whether it needed it or not. After paying attention for a while, he realized that when he got up and walked out to pick up the newspaper, if the dateline said “Saturday” an image flashed through his mind, faster than he could see it. It was an image of his father getting up and washing the car every Saturday morning. It was something he remembered from when he was a very young child. That very young child wanted to be exactly like his father, and wasn’t able to know what was important about that and what wasn’t. That sequence of events, seeing that the date was Saturday and the image of his father flitting through his mind, and the feeling of affection and respect for his father triggered his motivation. Without his conscious awareness, this resulted in what was almost an obsession with washing his car every Saturday morning.

  Well, it was nice to have a clean car. His wife appreciated it. But it probably would have been even nicer if he had some choice about it, and to have been able to do something else on Saturday, like take his wife out for brunch.

  Other warning words to listen for are words that you’ll recognize are massive overgeneralizations. These are words like all, always, every, and never. Listen for them when you’re talking and even when you’re talking to yourself. You’ll also hear them when other people speak.

  When you find yourself thinking or saying one of those thoughts, like “Oh, I never get to X,” or “That always happens to me,” it’s useful to sort out where the generalization came from. Does this really happen all the time? Everywhere? In every situation with everyone? Poking gently at overgeneralizations like that will usually give you some counter-examples to those generalizations. The contrast and comparisons of counter-examples can help you to open up to considering more ways of dealing with those very situations. After all, if you accept that you will never get X, you’ll be right. It’s like Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.”

  The examples you just reviewed illustrate different Meta Model violations. You don’t have to concern yourself with the terminology, but if you’d like to explore additional examples and this fascinating deep structure of language, follow this link: http://eg.nlpco.com/4-1.

  You’ll have an opportunity to explore beliefs in greater detail in Section 2. For now, start noticing how your beliefs are influencing you—either limiting or empowering you. Set your inner antenna to notice what you’re thinking and, without judging those thoughts, decide if that’s what you want to be thinking. If not, find a preferred thought to focus on, one that feels better.

  Like That: How Our Language and

  Behavior Reveal Individual Preferences

  In addition to beliefs, each of us uses “Meta-Programs” to navigate our lives.

  A QUICK META-PROGRAM PRIMER

  Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour, trainers and authors of multiple NLP resources, describe meta-programs as:

  perceptual filters that we habitually act on . . . patterns we use to determine what information gets through. For example, think of a glass full of water. Now imagine drinking half of it. Is the glass half full or half empty? Both, of course; it’s a matter of viewpoint. Some people notice what is positive about a situation, what is actually there, others notice what is missing. Both ways are useful and each person will favor one view or the other.

  Meta-programs are systematic and habitual, and we do not usually question them if they serve us reasonably well . . . Meta-programs are important in key areas of motivation and decision making.

  Because meta-programs filter experience and we pass on our experience with language, certain patterns of language are typical of certain meta-programs. . . . For example, one meta-program is about action. The proactive person initiates, he jumps in and gets on with it. He does not wait for others to initiate action. A proactive person will tend to use complete sentences, e.g.: “I am going to meet with the managing director.” A reactive person waits for others to initiate an action or bides her time before acting. She may take a long time to decide or never actually take action at all. A reactive person will tend to use passive verbs, incomplete sentences, and qualifying phrases, e.g.: “Is there any chance that it might be possible to arrange a meeting with the managing director?”

  Notice the difference. Again, neither is wrong or right—just different. Which one is more like you? Let’s play with a few more examples.

  The meta-program called options/procedures is one that’s easy to notice in language and behavior. Think about this for a moment. Are you someone who likes to have an established, proven way of doing things—or someone who’s always doing things a little differently? If you like a “right way,” you’re probably procedures-oriented. If you feel hemmed in by having to do something the same way over and over, you’re options-oriented. Neither is better; it’s just indicative of your personal preference.

  Here’s another to try on. Imagine that you’re getting ready to do your taxes. Are you motivated to do them by April 14 because you’ll be glad to wrap up your accounting for the year and maybe even get a refund? Or are you more likely to do them on time because you’re concerned that you might incur a penalty or that your return may be flagged for an audit if it’s late? If your thought pattern is more like the first situation, your motivation strategy is “toward” because you’re moving toward a positive outcome. If your strategy is more like the second situation, you�
��re more “away-from” oriented because you’re moving away from a potentially negative consequence.

  Keep in mind that meta-programs are a framework of thought; each one operates more like a continuum rather than as “either/or.” Where you or someone else falls on the continuum often depends on the context, on what’s going on. After all, most of us are different in our personal lives from what we are in our professional lives—or when we’re relaxed rather than operating under pressure.

  Of the more than forty recognized meta-programs, it helps to be aware of these:

  Meta-Program

  Answers the Question

  Options/Procedures

  Is it more important for you to do something the “right way” than it is to have alternative ways of doing it?

  Toward/Away-From

  Are you more motivated by moving toward something that has a potentially positive outcome, or away from a potentially negative consequence?

  Proactive/Reactive

  Are you more likely to take the initiative to act, or wait for someone else to do it—or for something else to happen?

  Internal/External

  When you evaluate something, are you more likely to use an internal personal standard or to ask for someone else’s feedback?

  General/Specific

  Do you most often deal in the “big picture”—or the details?

  Match/Mismatch

  When making comparisons, do you notice how things are alike or where there are differences/discrepancies?

  It’s not critical that you identify which ones fit you. It does, however, help to be aware that the thought patterns you’re working with filter your experience. As you slow down your thoughts and begin to notice more about how you operate, you’ll become more in tune with how you motivate yourself and make decisions.

  To receive a brief profile of your meta-programs, visit the following link to take a fun, quick assessment. Go to: http://eg.nlpco.com/4-4 or use the QR code with your phone.

  PREFERRED REPRESENTATIONAL CHANNELS: PREDICATES

  Because we use language to communicate our thoughts, our choice of words will reveal our thought patterns and preferences. A “Predicate,” for example, reflects the representational system being used. In Chapter 1, you learned about representational modalities. As a refresher, we all operate in all three channels—visual, auditory, or kinesthetic—and each of us has an unconscious preferred way of processing. For example, I’m highly auditory, so when I’m learning something, I’d rather listen to a CD or have someone tell me what I need to know. Someone who’s visual might prefer to read a manual or look at how-to illustrations.

  Since I’m highly auditory, my language will reflect that, too. I’m likely to say, “That sounds good to me . . . I hear you loud and clear . . .” or “That rings true in my experience.” These sensory-based words are called “Predicates.” Again, it’s not important that you recall the terminology, only that you begin to listen to the language you use and notice what your preferences are.

  The purpose of this brief introduction to beliefs, the Meta Model, Meta-Programs, and representational preferences is to help you understand that how you’ve become the you who you are today is not random; it’s not a mystery. There’s a structure to how you take in information, how you make decisions, how you motivate yourself, and how you communicate. And, as you discover your unique structure, you can more easily make changes.

  In the rest of this chapter, you’ll have an opportunity to take a look at yourself through some NLP filters and then make choices to either strengthen the qualities that you like—or reduce the qualities that you don’t like as much. You can actually change your self-concept.

  Today’s You and the Desired You:

  The Impact of Self-Concept

  Here’s a story: After completing an NLP seminar with Steve Andreas, a brilliant teacher and innovator, I remember sitting on the plane and writing in my notebook all the characteristics I was going to instill in myself. Well, as you might imagine, I got sidetracked by the immediacies of life and never did that. It wasn’t until quite a while later, when I felt a crisis in my identity and self-concept, that I got around to making these changes.

  For me, this crisis came with retirement, but it can happen to anyone who experiences a significant life change. Such a change can be positive or negative—graduation, marriage, childbirth, a new career or the loss of one—all of these life transitions can provoke real self-examination. Although I loved the leisure and sudden relief of responsibility that came with retirement, I suddenly wasn’t certain what I ought to be doing . . . who I was . . . or what I could do.

  It was probably pretty tiresome for my wife until I realized that I needed to take a look at who I thought I was and find out who I wanted to become for the next phase of my life. So here’s how you can do that—without having a crisis!

  The first step is to find out how you build your self-concept. As we get into this, you’ll find that there’s a structure made up of sub-modalities and generalizations and all the things that we’ve been talking about. So here’s how to find out about that for each of you.

  Discovery Activity:

  Identifying Something You Like About Yourself

  Go inside yourself and pick something that you know to be true about yourself that you like. Something you like about yourself that you know to be true. Just take a moment. There’s no need to overthink it—just find something you know to be so, and write it down.

  Now, here’s an interesting thing about this process. First, when you think about something that you know to be true about yourself and you can say, “I love to garden,” “I’ve got a good sense of humor,” “I’m really generous,” “I’m very picky about keeping my car clean,” “I’m very truthful,” “I’m a great storyteller,” “I have a special way with animals,” or whatever it happens to be. When you say that, immediately you get some sort of representation about that quality or behavior, don’t you? So notice that. This is where you take a look and see.

  Details are important here—so notice, is it a symbol? Is it a picture of you doing something? Is it a picture of somebody else doing the thing that you do? Is it saying what you say or feeling how you feel?

  It’s very important that you learn the qualities of this, so let’s follow this down. This is something you’ve accepted about yourself for some time, and you like about yourself. How has your brain got this information filed? We know it’s using the language of the five senses—so is it an image? Maybe more than one, but there will be one sort of representation that’s kind of like the generality of this characteristic for you.

  Now, notice a couple of things. If it’s a visual picture, notice where it is—and notice, is it a movie or is it a still? Is it color or black-and-white? Is it brighter than daylight, not as bright as daylight, or darker? Is it life-size, larger than life-size, or smaller than life-size? These are very important, because whatever characteristics this image has, it’s your brain signaling to you that “this is something that’s true about me,” so note that.

  Here’s what I know is true. Whatever it is you believe about yourself that you like is probably a good thing. I’ve never met anybody who bragged about being cruel or flaky or sloppy or lazy or selfish or dishonest, so what you like about yourself is probably something good.

  The way that belief came about was the same way you learned about doorknobs and politics. Over the course of your life, you had enough experiences or enough people commented on this thing you like about yourself that you have evidence—so you generalized from that. That’s undeniable; that’s certainly happened.

  My question is, as you look back to see the evidence that supports the trait or way of being that you have—as you see that, I’m curious, how many examples do you have? How many bits of evidence or how many memories do you have that you are that way?

  I did this experiment with my wife as we were driving to visit friends and she said, “I have thousands of examples of how I’
m friendly and easy to talk to.” Then I asked her to go look for them—and initially it was really hard to find them. But then all kinds of examples just sort of popped up, because that characteristic is such a part of her everyday experience.

  The important thing to note is that you can list a few, several, hundreds, or thousands of examples—you can write down however many bits of evidence you have in your database that show you are this certain way . . . that you have this trait that you like about yourself . . . and you’ve noted if it’s an image, where it is.

  If it wasn’t an image, what was it? You say, “Well, I just have a feeling about this.” Okay, you have a feeling. Does that feeling include some sort of a visual representation? It almost always does, and it certainly does when you’re looking for evidence.

  Here’s another quality of the evidence I’d like you to note. The first thing we’re going to do is to make this thing you like about yourself even stronger.

  Whatever it is about yourself that you like, if you would like that to be stronger, then do this: Notice the representation of that characteristic or way of being that you have—and notice whether it’s a feeling or a voice in your head telling you that you’re that way. And notice if it’s somebody else’s voice telling you you’re that way—or notice if it’s an image. By combining this initial representation, whatever it is, AND the other two senses, you will have a remembered experience that’s visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Take a moment and do that now.