Defining Goals: The Benefit of Well Formed Outcomes

In NLP we talk about "well formed outcomes" in the context of goals.

A goal is something you want to achieve. A well formed outcome is something more than this, it is a goal that satisfies certain tests including:

• Being stated in the positive, what do you want, rather than what do you not want, "I want to weigh 130 pounds"  rather than "I don't want to be fat"
• Being under your control, so "I want to treat others with respect" rather than "I want other people to treat me with respect" (which is not directly under our control)
• To be specific, measurable and sensory based (i.e. what you will see, hear and feel)
• To be ecological (i.e. good overall) and worthwhile

One problem with many goals is that they are not actually what the client wants. Very often the client could get the same result in a much simpler way. This can often be uncovered using the well formed goal questions "How will you know when you have achieved this goal?" and "What will this do for you?"

Therefore one benefit of ensuring the client has a well formed outcome is that the client may find they can satisfy their want in a manner which is much simpler than that in which they had planned. By asking "How will you know when you have achieved this goal?" and "What will this do for you?" it may be possible to find a better, simpler and more efficient goal to pursue.

To take an example suppose someone's goal is:

• To be famous
• How will you know when you have achieved this goal?
• I will have lots of fans
• What will this do for you?
• I will feel loved
• How will you know you are loved?
• People will look at me with love in their eyes
• How many people are required for you to feel loved?
• One would be enough [note that this is not well formed as it is not under their direct control]
• Knowing that you cannot make another person love you, how could you satisfy this goal?
• I guess I could love myself
• What would you need to see, hear or feel to know that you love yourself?
• I guess I would need to feel that I was fulfilling my potential
• If you were to pursue your acting career and know that you have given your all to your performance, how would you feel about yourself?
• I would feel I was fulfilling my potential
• So you could love yourself then, and feel loved?
• Yes  

By ensuring your client has a well formed outcome you may find a much simpler goal for the client to pursue and still meet their wants and needs.

Shawn Carson

NLP Training New York

NLP Practitioner New York 

Building intuition

Here's a great Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP technique to help build intuition.

Intuition often shows itself as a feeling, or as we would say in NLP, as a kinesthetic feeling. We know something is right because our body tells us so:

• "It just felt right"
• "I got a bad feeling about it"

One of the students in our In-Depth NLP Practitioner Training in New York is a massage therapist. He is able to sense his clients slipping into an altered state as he works on their back. He was not sure he could do the same thing when leading a hypnosis client into trance when looking at their face, without the benefit of feeling their muscle tension change!

I suggested he recall the last time he was massaging a client and knew they were going into trance. When he was fully experiencing this, I asked where he felt that knowledge. After checking in with himself he indicated a triangle from his left shoulder to his throat to his solar plexus. I suggested that he could check in with this area when working in hypnosis and this would tell him when his client was going into trance.

Of course, it is not the case that everyone will know their clients are going into trance by paying attention to the same feelings in the same area. Indeed, he may find that his intuition for noticing when his clients are going into trance may show itself in an entirely different area of his body.

However, the fact is that by allowing his body, and his unconscious mind, to identify how he intuits he has begun the process of sharpening his intuition. From here he will go through a process of further refining and sharpening this intuition.

Summary of the Technique

Here is the technique:

1. Select something about which you want to build your intuition
2. Pick something else where you already have good intuition, perhaps something you do for a living, or as a hobby, or something you just feel naturally.
3. Remember a recent time when you had good intuition about something. Recall where you were, what you were seeing and hearing. As you get in touch with the memory, begin to notice your feelings, what are you feeling? When in your body do you feel it most? What are the qualities of the feeling? Is it warm or cool? Heavy or light? etc.
4. Think of some other similar times when you had good intuition. Notice again this area and these sensations that tell you you are making the right decision. Notice how the feelings are different depending upon whether your intuition says "yes" or "no", "accept" or "decline".
5. Now consider the something you want better intuition about. As you think about that issue, pay attention and notice your feelings. 

By allowing your unconscious to communicate with you in this way, by really paying attention to the somatic feelings your unconscious presents you with, your intuition will increase exponentially.

What happens if it doesn't work?

If you are unsure about the messages your unconscious is giving you, simply ask: "I am seeking guidance on this issue, should I say yes or no [or accept/decline, go/stay]". Now breathe and wait for your unconscious to answer. Notice any changes in how you feel. 

If you are still unsure, say "I am feeling a warmth in my chest, if this is the signal for me to accept this offer, please increase that feeling, if not decrease that feeling". Now once more breathe and wait.

How does this work?

Your unconscious now sends messages to you conscious mind in various ways, it can be in pictures, or sound, or feelings.

By identifying a past time when you had intuition and noting the feelings associated with that, we are communicating with your unconscious, letting your unconscious know that you are listening and understand this signal to have a certain meaning. This is the start of the process of building intuition.

Shawn Carson

NLP Training in New York

The ING Game

Manipulating our brain's sense of time is an important skill we can all be developing and integrating into our toolkits for change.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Hypnosis offer us fantastic tools to do just this, for ourselves and our clients, and we will be discussing one of these tools here.

We can of course be using NLP's many time based patterns, such as time line. Alternatively we can simply be using linguistic tools such as verb tense, creating change.

Verb tense tells us what part of time we are dealing with, and how the action of the verb moves through time. This sounds confusing, but for a moment:

• Consider a time in the past where you had spoken to a client
• Compare this with those times when you are speaking to clients.

You may notice that the first of these instructions put the the action of speaking to clients very firmly in the past. This is because it used the past perfect tense "had spoken". This is called the past perfect tense because the action is "perfected" or completed, in the past. It is over and done with.

In contrast the second instruction uses the present progressive tense ("are speaking").Not only is the time the present (using the present tense "are") in addition there is a sense of movement, the verb focuses on the progression of the action through time. It does this by using the ING form of the verb ("speaking").

The technique we will discuss here uses the present progressive tense to give the client a little more room to change.

Summary of Pattern

1. The client selects an issue they want to work through. Let us say they have fear about an upcoming test.
2. Change the problem into an active progressive verb. In this case encourage the client to say: "I am fearing". How does the client feel when they say this?
3. Lead the client through statements indicating change and choice. Calibrate to the client's response. Examples might include:
4. "I am fearing, I am changing, I am choosing, I am choosing confidence, I am confidenting, I am choosing, I am choosing calm, I am calming, I am relaxing,..."
   

Other Words

This exercise also works well with other process based words, learning, growing, developing, evolving, etc and other awareness words knowing, seeing, feeling etc.

How it works

There are several powerful linguistic techniques and presuppositions being used here in this seemingly simple technique:

Removing Nominalization

"Fear" is a nominalization. It is a verb masquerading as a noun. Turning problems into nominalizations makes it more difficult to shift them (in general).

Turning the problem back into a verb, particularly in the progressive tense, shows the client that they are "doing" the problem. This may make them uncomfortable but it gives them back control.

Allowing Change

Using words such as changing and choosing allows the client a little more room to change, and to choose new responses. Again by using the present progressive tense we allow the client to experience choosing and changing as a process.

Moving into the future

Another benefit of the progressive tense is that it allows change to move from the present and continue into the future.

Widdershins Spell

Hi Everyone

I'm back posting after spending time doing other stuff.

Here's a fun technique we were playing with last night at Practice Night at Melissa Tier's Center for Integrative Hypnosis. We hold biweekly Practice Nights for our past and current students from Melissa's Hypnosis Training in New York, and our NLP Training, and In-Depth NLP Training. 

As part of our In-Depth NLP we love to explore new techniques, deconstrct them to notice how they work, take out unnecessary pieces to make them more efficient, and add in other pieces to make them more effective.

I'm not sure what the technique is called, so I'll call it the Widdershins Spell because of a comment made by Charlie.

Widdershins of course simply means anti-clockwise. However, it has an implication of magik and spells. In particular a widdershins spell may be used to undo some other spell, a sense of unwinding. This widdershins spell is designed to unwind the power that a particular image may have on us.

In doing the technique we used Melissa's office chair which has rollers. This made it easy for the client to turn. If the client is standing you may want to stand near them to support them and keep them safe, although note that the turning is not intended to make the client dizzy and should be done at whatever rate is comfortable.

We will be writing a fuller post including details of the language patterns used, but here is a summary:

Summary of the technique

1. Client picks an issue or problem they want to change
   
2. Coach leads client to identify a picture associated with the problem
   
3. Coach helps client to locate the picture in space (i.e. where is the picture located in the space around the client)
   
4. Coach suggests that the picture will be changed when the client turns around and looks at it
5. Coach guides client to all the way around (while the picture stays fixed in place)
6. Coach asks client how picture is different
7. Repeat 7 times (or until done)

Practice Group Demo

Desi volunteered to be the client (the exercise was done entirely content free). I asked her to sit in Melissa's chair. I then asked her to think of something, some issue, that she would like to change. 

When she had selected one, and was associating into it, I suggested that there was a picture associated with the problem, and asked her where this picture was. She pointed up to the right; the picture was perhaps 12 feet away from her, 3 feet square. We explored other submodalities, the one that seemed most significant was that the image was very bright, so bright it was difficult for Desi to look at.

I used some metaphors to suggest to Desi that when she turned around the picture would be different. I then asked Desi to turn in a full circle and when she was facing forward again, invited her to look at the picture and notice what was different about it. The major difference Desi reported was that the brightness had gone down and the picture was much more comfortable to look at.

We repeated the turning. By the time we had reached the fourth turn, the picture was entirely gone.

The plan had been to rotate up to seven times, so I suggested that Desi turn around once more and she would see a picture of an alternate outcome, some other state of being that she chose instead. She did so and accessed a positive state. We repeated this a few more times to build up the resource state.

How the Technique Works

Well, this is anyone's guess. But let's identify a few elements that are included in the technique:

Dissociation

Of course, using the visual modality tends to be dissociative, this after all is the whole basis of the V-K Dissociation ("phobia cure"). 

This technique takes the dissociation one step further: by fixing the picture in a certain location while the client rotates, it is made even more obvious to the client that the picture is "separate" from them.

Submodalities

By noticing the submodalities of the picture, and suggesting that they will be changed, the client is free to notice changes that do occur (and after all, all we are is change).

As with Desi, it is very likely that the changes the client notices will be in driving submodalities.

Change in Physiology

It is a truism that all trance begins with a change in physiology (after all what does "relax" mean?!?!). 

By using client rotation we are allowing the client to change their physiology and hence access altered states of mind.

Discomfort and Disorientation

Putting the client in a position of mild discomfort can also assist them in entering altered states. This is why, for example, Dr Richard Bandler,  will stare at his clients, he wants to make them sufficiently uncomfortable that going into trance is preferable to being stared at.

Hypnotic Language

Goes without saying.

In Depth NLP Training

Hey Everyone,

We are running a new round of In-Depth NLP weekends and I thought I would put the info out there in case any of you are interested. We had so much fun doing this course and I am excited and grateful to be doing it again. I know a few on these lists asked me to keep you posted on the next one, so, consider yourself posted :-)

I know of a few inexpensive hotels up the block, so if anyone is interested, give me a call. 212-714-3569

The classes are held in New York City at The Center for Integrative Hypnosis, 292 Fifth Avenue, suite 416 (a few blocks down from the Empire State Building).

10:00 to 6:00

I'm pasting the page from my web site with the details, below....

be well,
Melissa Tiers

In-Depth NLP Training and Certification
In-Depth NLP is a synthesis of Integrative Hypnosis and Humanistic Neuro-Linguistic Psychology. It takes traditional NLP and combines it with all the newer techniques and processes in rapid change to create a comprehensive system for transformation.

Shawn Carson and I have put together the NLP training I wish I had had years ago. It is far more unconsciously oriented and draws from the best advances in fields and modalities ranging from energy psychology to neuro-hypnotic repatterning and all the fun stuff in between. In the true spirit of "do what works" we pull from the best and are all ways changing, learning and updating as experience and research dictates.

We are doing this as separate weekend modules so those of you who want to jump in on a particular segment can do so and it will be cohesive. We will do one weekend a month so you can really integrate each skill set into your practice. If you would like to do the full certification combined with my NGH hypnosis certification course you will get a $600. discount due to the
overlap.

Below are brief blurbs on the weekends involved. If anyone has questions about any of it, please give me a ring 212-714-3569

The next full certification course begins in November and will include the following workshops as well as optional biweekly Wednesday evening classes from 6:00pm - 9:00pm


Workshops

In-Depth NLP: Fun-de-mentals- Nov. 8/9
In this workshop you will learn the basic ideas and techniques behind In-Depth NLP. You will experience why this more unconsciously dynamic model of NLP allows for more flexibility and integration in your changework. You will learn the basics of calibration, pacing and leading, anchoring (stacking, sliding and collapsing) and the core foundational patterns, as well as some rapid hypnotic inductions to take it to a deeper level. This weekend is intensive and inner-active and packed with vital tools that you can immediately incorporate into every aspect of your work and play.

Conversational Change-Dec. 13/14
This workshop will cover some of the most powerful ways of producing change by using language that directionalizes the mind. You will learn the meta-pattern underneath all
successful transformation and a model for setting up on going generative change. You will learn the many ways of linguistically shifting awareness using spatial and temporal predicates, presuppositions, metaphor and clean language. You will learn how to use the client’s inherent anchors and representations to produce unconscious and in-depth changes for lasting results.

In-Depth Time Lines Jan.10/11
This workshop will take traditional time line work to a much deeper level to create both conscious and unconscious change. You will learn different ways of re-imprinting the past
and unconsciously programming the future to change the present state. You will experience the most powerful time based techniques, including, the decision destroyer, change personal history, future sourcing, end-state energy and linguistic timeline. You will also learn a recently developed In-Depth "time heals" process for physical and emotional healing.

In-Depth Emotional Change- Feb.7/8
This workshop covers many of the most powerful techniques for emotional release and transformation. You will learn how to work with the biochemical as well as the energetic aspects of emotions while providing your clients with self-applied techniques for personal growth. You will experience and learn the backward spin, EFT, changing perceptual positions,
emotive journeying, expanded awareness, heart coherence, emotional reimprinting, visual squash and the grief resolution process. This weekend will change how you feel on many levels.

The Deep Structure of Issues- Oct. 18/19 and March 14/15
The deep structure of issues- This workshop will teach you how to get inside your client's head and discover the strategies they use to create or perpetuate the problem and how to change them. We will cover the typical problem strategies and the different ways of altering them to create new and more productive ones. You will learn ways to help clients to change habits, overcome compulsions, end procrastination and install motivation. You will learn to help
your clients achieve individual goals, turn limitations into resources and understand the delicate art of recovery strategies.

In-Depth Certification weekend- April 4/5
Certification weekend- This is the weekend where you bring all the pieces together to develop and implement client change. You are encouraged to use your flexibility, your own personal style and the client’s model of the world to create a break through session. Students who attend all modules and can demonstrate flexibility and skill, will qualify for full certification.


individual workshops cost $300.
full certification tuition: $1,950
tuition includes all weekends, biweekly focus nights and $150. certification fee

John Overdurf Training

Hey everyone,

I'm really excited to bring my favorite teacher, John Overdurf, to New York
City. He is the most skillful teacher and change worker I have ever studied
with and the author of one of my favorite hypnosis books, "Training Trances".

If any one is interested just let me know. I would be happy to chat with you
about any questions you might have. 212-714-3569

If you want to learn more about him, his site is _www.johnoverdurf.com_
(http://www.johnoverdurf.com)

I'll post some of the details below.

happy holidaze! I hope you all get stuffed full of things to be thankful for.

-Melissa Tiers


Coaching Beyond Goals Mini-Master Class

3 Full days - 10:30AM - 6PM, Fri, Sat & Sun, Dec. 5th, 6th & 7th.

In this intimate three day Master Class you’ll discover why goals don't work
and experience what does! Learn the nuances in the HNLP coaching model for
resolving the most common, challenging coaching issues such as
procrastination, values conflicts and life transition issues…
conversationally!

Through the refined use of the HNLP Coaching Beyond Goals Model, you will
discover that it is possible to address deep issues involving parts conflicts
such as sequential incongruities conversationally, enabling you to work deeply
with clients in business contexts where obvious therapy patterns would not
be appropriate. John will share his experience and insights when working with
the most common and challenging issues that you will encounter in your
coaching practice. Since this is a Master Class, you’ll have the opportunity
to
experience unique, real time commentary,feedback, supervision from John during
live coaching sessions, which makes for an extremely effective way of
integrating new coaching skills.

You will also learn an entirely new way of working with the issue of goal
setting. Most of us have had the experience of setting goals and not achieving
them. The usual culprits are various forms of incongruence, but there's more
to it than that. How can you develop the ability to deal with the uncertainty
that we use most goals to help us avoid? How can you literally use the
momentum of outside energies and influences to create sometimes magical
manifestations that some have called Grace? …And by the way….We're not
talking about
"woo- woo out there" stuff. We're talking about strategies that can be learned
and integrated. These breakthrough, flexible processes will help you
flourish in the sometime bewildering nominalization called 'Life'!

Addtionally, John will be presenting some of his newest work on attention
shifting coaching.
It is a dynamic, new way to work, conversationally, at the level of
structure, process and attention.
Curious?

Topics Include:

• How to do precise, multi-level work
  
• How to create motivation and response potential
  
• Conversational elicitation of strategies
  
• Determining unconscious congruence and motivation
  
• Utilization of naturally occurring states to create powerful change.
  
• Integrate transformative, non-linear and hypnotic language patterns into your coaching work
• Incorporating the Meta Pattern of all NLP patterns into your work
  
• Practical approaches for working with the most common coaching problems
  
• Where and when to use the Beyond Goals Model
  
• Application of Chaos Theory to goal setting and successful manifestation
  
• Conversational elicitation of deeply rooted unconscious states that prevent forward movement.
• Elicitation and utilization of end state energy
  
• Determine appropriate chunk size of tasks and goals
  
• Techniques for producing spiritual states of non-attachment to facilitate ecological change and manifestation

Location- SLC- 352 7th Ave. 16th floor (at 30th street)
cost of the three workshop is $650.

contact Melissa Tiers-212-714-3569

mmtiers@aol.com

www.melissatiers.com

Stop smoking

'Time to Give-Up Smoking' you say. You want to become a healthy non-smoker for life. Tools such as NLP and Hypnosis for smoking can help. For a free consultation call Shawn Carson on 917 972 5776 or email iphnewyork@aol.com

Sometimes you're bored or feel stressed. Your friendly tobacco buddy is there for you, as always. Ready to relax you with a cocktail, keep you company. He melts away that stress and makes you feel great!

Well, here's some news: that cocktail he mixed for you is poisoned. And he's stealing from you, slipping 8, 9 10 dollars at a time from your wallet, hoping you won't notice.

Maybe it's time for you to kick this so-called friend out of your home. Who wants a 'friend' who is stealing from you? Who needs a 'friend' who is trying to poison you?

Below you will find 10 simple steps to help you to become free of this habit and become a healthy non-smoker for life.

• Tip 1: Write down why exactly you want to become a healthy non-smoker for life.
  

Just considering the health risks would make anyone want to become a healthy non-smoker for life. Lung, throat or stomach cancer, emphysema. Cigarettes can kill you in many colorful ways, and when you stop smoking right now your body begins to recover and your health riks begin to go down.

Of course it is not just your health that is at risk. If you have loved ones, especially children, or friends, where you smoke you are also putting their lives at risk. Second hand smoke kills.

Maybe you realize that your breath smells of stale cigarette smoke. Maybe you realize the effect the tobacco is having on your complexion or skin.

Cigarette smoke makes your clothes smell. Maybe you can't smell it but everyone else can.

Maybe you simply can't breathe the way you used to, or the way you would like.

You have your own reason for wanting to quit. What are they? Write them down.

• Tip 2: What is different NOW that makes this the time to quit?
  

What has changed that makes you want to quit now? Has it just become too much? Has there been some other event in your life? The more reasons you have to quit the better.

• Tip 3: Now that you are on the brink of quitting, make a decision and stick to it.
  

So now you have decided to become a healthy non-smoker for life. Now is the time.

The decision is made. You are a healthy non-smoker for life!

• Tip 4: Tell everyone!
  

Tell your family and friends about your decision to quit. Tell everyone. Let them help you stick to your decision.

And the more people you tell, the greater the support will be for your decision.

• Tip 5: Learn about the effects of cigarettes
  

The more you know about your enemy the better. Ever fact you learn will make you more convinced of your decision. Do some on-line research.

Cigarettes don't only cause cancer. Of course they do, and there is a long list of a carcinogens (cancer causing chemicals) in cigarettes. But cigarettes also contain more every-day poisons such as arsenic and cyanide. In fact, as you learn more about cigarettes you will be amazed and appalled by the long list of poisons that cigarettes contain. Did you know, for example that cigarettes contain formaldehyde? That's the stuff they keep dead bodies in, or the frogs that you may have dissected in biology class.

Just thinking about cigarettes may make you wonder how you ever brought yourself to ever put one of those things in your mouth, in fact you may become a little nauseous just thinking about them.

• Tip 6: Admit that smoking did bring you some benefits and as you recognize this find other ways of maintaining these benefits.
  

Smoking may have provided you with relaxation, or the companionship of other smokers. Maybe it made you feel "cool" like you may have felt as a kid sneaking a cigarette at school. But these things are not worth risking your life for.

There is no need to lose the benefits that cigarettes provided just because you are now a healthy non-smoker. Take a moment to identify what those benefits are. Now allow your creative mind to find some ways for you to keep those benefits. For example if smoking used to relax you, thenmaybe you can learn self-hypnosis instead.

NLP's six step reframe is a perfect tool for this step!

• Tip 7: Seek help if necessary
  

Go and get help if you need it. There are hypnotists, doctors and others who can help.

• Tip 8: Imagine your life now that you are a healthy non-smoker for life
  

Every day that passes, you are healthier. Your body is repairing itself. Your risk factors are diminishing. Your lungs are stronger. Your breathing better. Enjoy your blossoming health!

Other things are different. You can go to the grocery store and not think about cigarettes. The cravings are fading. You are beginning to forget that you were ever a smoker.

Now just imagine a friend of yours is in the process of stopping smoking. They have come to you for advice and help. what advice are you giving to them? Hear yourself speaking to them and telling them about the benefits of quitting and how good you feel now that you are a healthy non-smoker for life.

• Tip 9: Teach yourself to handle cravings
  

Even the tobacco companies admit that cigarettes are addictive. In fact they are designed that way, it makes it easier for the cigarette companies to keep you under their control. But you can control the cravings if you know how.

You can use nicotine replacement products such as the patch or gum to wean your system off cigarettes. As a hypnotist I would also suggest using techniques such as NLP, self-hypnosis or EFT to control any cravings.

In a short time the nicotine will disappear from your system and you begin to return to normal functioning, the cravings begin to reduce and eventually disappear. Staying off coffee and other acidic drinks in this time may help, as may avoiding or reducing alcohol intake. Give your body the chance to heal in these first 72 hours.

• Tip 10: So now you've quit. Thank yourself. You're saving money. What are you going to do with that money you've saved?
  

Acknowledge what you have done for yourself in quitting. You owe yourself a big thank you.

And you are saving money, so treat yourself to a nice thank you. Work out how much you are saving, and what you would like to treat yourself to. Perhaps you want to save up for a year and get something really nice. The choice is yours now.

• Final Bonus Tip: How do you deal with Mr Tobacco when he comes crawling back whispering inside your head?
  

Now your a healthy non-smoker. You understand your enemy. You now he was poisoning you and stealing your money. Your free of the chemical cravings.

Your so-called friend may well come back telling you how much you need him.

The voice may sound superior, talking down to you:

"Quit? You can't quit! You're not strong enough. You're weak! You'll be back!"

Of course, he could plead:

"Go on, smoke one. What harm is there?"

Sure, it's a pack of lies, but maybe just one...

You didn't invite this voice into your head so it is time to throw the unwelcome guest out. Notice where the voice is coming from, in front or behind, right or left. And notice the sound of the voice. Now begin to move the source of the voice downward until it is coming from the ground somewhere near your eft foot. As it moves down, notice the voice becoming higher, like the buzz of an insect.

As you listen to that whiney voice, you may begin to laugh thinking that you were ever fooled. Of course, with that whiney insect voice down by your left foot, it would be so easy to lift your left foot up and simply squash the bug...

Finally, imagine someone you respect talking to you about your decision. Imagine them praising you. Hear their voice. Hear the pride as they tell you how pleased they are that you are now a healthy non-smoker for life.

Shawn Carson is a Hypnotist and Neuro Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner and Trainer offering NLP training in New York. He is also a certified coach and offers NLP Practitioner Training for Coaches in New York. www.nlptrainingnewyork.com Tel:212-714-3574 email:iphnewyork@aol.com