This last weekend was another NLP class and the content really kicked ass. Christina Hall, my instructor’s instructor, flew in to do the session. The focus was on language and how the brain perceives things. By understanding the tie between language and the mind you can better understand the many ways you can and do use language to influence yourself and other people.
An essential point to this is that we are constantly influencing and being influenced. We generally do not think much about this but pay close attention today and you’ll notice it all around you. Think about asking somebody out on a date or interviewing for a job. Do you think you can accomplish either without having some influence. Actually, not getting the date or job is also the result of influence, but it isn’t the influence you were after.
What I found really cool about this is that the way in which you ask questions can have a significant impact on the person being questioned. For instance the stereo typical psychologist who asks her patient “What is your problem?” Do you think that has a little influence? The way in which a question is stated has an enormous impact.
“Your problem”. What is it? This problem of yours. You own it, here and now. Thank you for bringing your problem with you to my office. Lets have some fun and make sure you keep coming back and paying me to cure you of YOUR PROBLEM.
In the original draft of this I explore the above and then explained that a better way to state the above question is to ask the question “What was it that you had perceived as a problem?”. This construction does several things. First it does not make the person being questions the owner of the problem. It goes a step further by making ‘it’ not necessarily be a problem but instead a “perceived problem”. Finally it puts it in the past.
The goal of that construction is to help the person use their mind to open up to other possibilities and choices. Goals brings me to wonder what mine is in writing this.
My goal is for you to begin to appreciate how powerful language is and how it influences the mind. Your mind and the minds of the people around you. If you want to change things change your language.
Most of the time the changes in your language are small things. My ‘problem” question and its rephrase appear some what complex, but usually just changing a single word can have a profound impact. Consider these two questions:
1) What would having one million dollars do to you?
2) What would having one million dollars do for you?
One word completely changes the direction of the question. The questions don’t feel the same but it is a subtle difference. Changes like this can be made in your language now.
Time is also an important aspect of language. Christina brought up a study of a tribe that lives in the Amazon. Their language does not contain past or future verbs. It only has present tense constructs. This has a huge impact on how they communicate. If we didn’t have the past tense we couldn’t tell people about what happened in last week’s episode of “The 4400”. Actually, without a past tense there wouldn’t be a last week. Or an episode of “The 4400”. Or the ability to tell stories. Or teach.
I realize that sounds really radical. Lacking a past tense in your language means you cant teach because you can’t tell stories and teaching depends upon stories. This does not mean that learning doesn’t occur. Learning can occur without teaching, but usually it is mirror behaviors. So dad takes the kid out and goes hunting, the kid does what dad does and learns to hunt by doing the same things. Better hope dad is a good hunter.
The reason I bring up time is because of the way our minds process time (it doesn’t really). What is important to keep in mind is that we often keep images of things in our mind. These images are stuck in time. Sometimes they are stuck in the past and sometimes they are the future. The trick though is that they are disconnected. Take for instance weight loss. We have images in our mind. We have an image of how we see ourselves now and we have an image of how we would like to see ourselves. Two separate disconnected images. One has nothing to do with the other.
To help make weight loss work we need to join the pictures together so we can see ourselves becoming that other person. If you make a movie of a fat person becoming a skinny person and are able to recall it at will then you’ll have a much easier time losing weight. You still have to change behavior, but the change is more likely to stick.
The next piece of time and language comes in to play with that movie and the images. Go in to the future, having accomplished your goal, look back and see what you did. Now returning to the present and looking in to the future, see what you are going to do. These two constructs tie the past/present image to the future.
For me the application of this is in starting a business.
Actually, the above statement is now amusing. “starting a business” isn’t really a problem for me. I’m great at starting. I start all the time. The key is accomplishing the goals of the business.
The way I’m applying last weekend’s material has me excited. The first thing I’ve done is sit down and write a description of the business I want to start. I covered most of the stuff I felt important. I described what I want my office to be like (no business casual dress code). I also described how I would be spending my time running this business. The time frame I used to describe the business is five years from now.
I’m now in the process of returning to the present and writing how I plan to go from here to there. This is something I’ve never done before. I don’t know if it is the missing piece, but sense I’ve not done it before it is at least movement toward my goal.
So again, the reason I’m writing this is to create more awareness about language and its affects on the mind. Subtle changes to the way we phrase things can have large impact. Time is a very important component to language. Be sure to create paths between your present and the goals you want to accomplish in the future.