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Unleashing Performance: NLP and Neuro-Semantics for Accelerated Achievement

Guest post by: David Kynan

Article Overview: What stops us from performing at the leve we want to? What keeps us repeating the same mistakes again and again, unable to move forward? The answer isn't out there.... It's in here.

Unleashing Performance: NLP and Neuro-Semantics for Accelerated Achievement

There is an obsession with performance in our culture. Those who “perform” the greatest in business, sports, who achieve the most and earn the most money become out heroes and the focus of inspiration admiration or envy.

But in a society that places so much value on being the best and having the most, why do so many people struggle with performance?

Indeed, high performers are the exception, not the norm, and while some make millions or billions, the rest pump billions into the self-help industry to find the magical solution to health, wealth and success… Often only to be disappointed no matter what they do.

Why is performance such a mystery?

Most people have little understanding of human psychology and even less of human performance. When it come to achievement, many people are shooting in the dark, hoping what they do will work, hoping for a big break… yet wondering why they constantly face the same challenges.

What if this is no accident?

Performance tends to be consistent. People tend to get the same results in a certain area of their life day after day. In business, they keep getting the same number of clients, making the same amount of sales and earning the same amount of money. In sports, they keep making the same mistakes, achieving the same times and scoring the same scores. People keep having the same types of relationships, facing the same challenges and feeling like there’s something eerie going on.

What this reveals is that performance is systematic, even if it is poor. Poor performance is actually an achievement itself. How is it that one can keep performing at the same level day after day, getting the same results even despite the additional learning, practice and experience? Even despite changes in life, the world, the economy?

Performance is no accident… It is a perfect mirror of one’s psychology.

Performance Insights from NLP and Neuro-Semantics.

“I made $30,000 last night… and since we began this coaching I have made over $100,000″

This was the news that one of my clients shared with me one morning when he arrived for his appointment. We had been working together to improve his performance as a trader, and the results were pretty impressive.

I left this session and remembered another client who had come to me to boost her sales. Once we had completed our work, her sales had doubled. I began to think about how performance worked. What had happened that enabled these individuals to unleash their performance? What had been holding them back? How did we get it out of the way? As I considered these questions, I began to develop a clear framework of just what I was doing with these clients and how NLP and Neuro-Semantic thinking had helped to solve their performance challenges.

The following is a cognitive framework that can be used to understand performance challenges and boost results in any area of life.

How Performance Works: The Axis of Performance

Performance occurs on a continuum between two “opposing forces,” what I call the axis of performance.

If you’d like to enhance performance in an area of your life, in a team or in a business, there are two factors already present: where you are now (the present state of affairs or the “problem”) and where you’d like to be (the desired state or objective.)

The first step to improving performance is to get a clear picture of the present and desired states. If you want to find effective ways to achieve your objective, you need a clear understanding of your current state. Otherwise, your efforts to change may be in vain. Without a clear outcome, you’ll merely be stuck trying to get rid of a problem, which is rarely an effective way to boost performance.

Present State———————————Desired State



With a clear present state and outcome, we are faced with an important question:

What’s between the present and desired states?

Most people try to win the game of success by playing out in the world. They may set goals, read books, take courses, and they may even take action, but what many don’t realize is that while they play the outer game, they’re losing the inner game.

What’s in between the two ends of the axis of performance are the various building blocks of human psychology.

As we go through life, we acquire “programming” as the various levels of our psychology are shaped. This programming becomes habituated in a cognitive system and forms our personality. While we try to perform in the world, our programming gets in the way. But while trying and trying to succeed, few even become aware of what they’re carrying around in their own minds.

The Structure of Personality

Beliefs

Values

Memories

Time-Encoding

Meta-Programs

Needs

Strategies

Internal Representations and Submodalities

States

Physiology

Parts

So what’s between where you are and where you want to be? All that!, meaning the various elements of and building blocks of your psychology. In a way we could say that what is between you and what you want is your “personality,” the psychological system that has become seemingly “fixed” in place and makes you who you are.

Most people struggle with performance because their internal programming is perfectly aligned with their present state. This is why they get the same mediocre results again and again, effortlessly! This is also why efforts to boost performance fail. In battle between good intention or will-power and unconscious programming, unconscious programming will always win.

The Axis of Performance looks like this:

What Stops You?

Present State————————————-Desired State
INTERFERENCES

Beliefs – Needs – Values – Memories
Parts – Physiology – Time-Encoding
Meta-Programs – Internal Representations

When it comes to the achievement of a desired objective, we can look at these aspects of psychology as interferences. These elements, and the way they interact, interfere with achieving what you want, and most often, they are limitations due to “unfinished business,” mental habits that are were acquired essentially by chance and strategies that were once but are no longer effective.

One of the most common performance errors people make is that they are so committed to their objective that they find themselves unable to slow down and take the time to find out what is really in their way. Their motivation becomes a limitation because each time they get pumped up, they “go for it” and get the same old disappointing results. This can lead to a state of helplessness as they become convinced that nothing will work since they’ve “tried everything.”

Imagine someone who wants to drive to Arizona and their car has broken down. They really really want to get their, they don’t want to be dealing with a breakdown and so they stand by the side of the road angry, frustrated, kicking the tires and thinking more and more about how much they “just” want to get to Arizona. What they need to do is take the time, all the time is takes, to look inside the car and find out what isn’t working so they can correct it. Only then can they get on their way. What they don’t see is that there’ssomething elsethey have to do to get where they want to go. Motivation to “get there” doesn’t cut it.

Winning the Inner Game

Using this model, we can:

- Determine all the elements of a problem

- Understand how they fit together, interact and influence each other

- Discover what holds the system or problem in place and is preventing change

- Decide precisely where to intervene and how

This model can help anyone understand the factors hindering their results and determine next steps to optimize the mechanics of their mind. With this model in the back of my mind, in working with clients I look for which of the above-mentioned elements is in the way, what might be keeping things the way they are, and then determine appropriate methods to intervene.

Many people learn NLP techniques and use them haphazardly, wondering why “it didn’t work.” In order to know what to do what, a challenge must be considered in light of the desired state and along with all the other influencing factors. If there are 5 different interferences in the way that all vary in structure (eg. a memory, parts conflict and a limiting belief) then doing one NLP technique to “fix” things isn’t going to work. You have to cover all your bases.

When the elements of one’s psychology are aligned with a desired result, achievement becomes natural and automatic. It becomes a sort of “well of course I achieve that.” When you win the inner game, it becomes much easier to win the outer game.

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Article Tags: coach, coaching, Montreal, neuro linguistic programming, nlp, performance



Related Forum Posts
ARTICLE: Performance coaching in the workplace - To create lasting performance change it is necessary to first understand the positive and negative influence that a person’s personal behaviors has on their execution and what impact these have on their ability to achieve success. Only when we fully understand a person’s behavioral patterns and create positive self-managing coaching strategies can we assist a person to create lasting performance change. The vast majority of employers believe coaching can deliver significant benefits to both individuals and organizations. The majority of employers plan to increase the use of coaching over the next few years, according to a new survey by the Institute of Personnel and Development. Nearly nine out of ten interviewed companies expect their managers and supervisors to deliver performance coaching as part of their day-to-day work. In another large industry-wide study it was found that most managers reported that they were confident in their ability to coach. However, the study also showed that the managers’ actual skills levels as coaches were typically poor. As a consequence they were not nearly as effective in their coaching as they believe themselves to be. Often times, they believed that coaching consisted of just providing 1-to-1 instructional feedback to their staff members on what to do in a given situation to perform better. Many recent studies have shown that technical skills only represent at best 20% of the contribution into our performance. The remaining 80% comes from our ability to choose or make a decision, assertiveness, commitment to grow, ability to concentrate, honesty, optimism, persistence, ability to perform well under stress and so on. These traits are commonly called our soft skills or attitude. Few managers understand just how deeply rooted their own behavior patterns are, let alone how to positively change them in other people. Performance coaching is frequently confused with other types of coaching, such as Executive coaching and Life coaching. Performance coaching is a form of Directive coaching. Executive coaching and Life coaching are both forms of Non-directive coaching. Directive coaching is usually more suitable for a manager who sometimes acts as a coach. Performance coaching in the workplace has developed immensely from what it was only 4 years ago. To choose the right coach will make a huge difference. You also better make sure to know what you want. If your coach knows what (s)he is doing – you will get on your way to get it! [i:38tu5pgr]- Peter J Karlsson[/i:38tu5pgr]
Re: Books for Business Owners - Hi DougSchadle, Thanks for sharing your favorite business book with us! A good book I'm reading now is "Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed" by Brian Tracy as it was a birthday gift from a friend. Tracy's book is helpful in identifying what's important in your life and then setting an action plan to achieve it.
If you don't ask you don't receive - Great article Shri. I agree that we don't do enough in our schools to help train our younger generations about important business skills and lessons such as negotiations. I was a part of Junior Achievement growing up and got the opportunity to work with fellow high school students to start our own enterprise. We received mentors, business templates, and had all the responsibilities of running a company with little risk attached. It was a great experience that I believed helped shape my views on entrepreneurship and led me to become a business owner. I wish all students would have the opportunity to be a part of such programs and improve their business IQ from a young age.
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Landmark forum - I took the Landmark Forum and the whole curriculum. It had a tremendous impact on my life and my relationships. Specifically in the relation of business - I took the Forum 10 years ago. Within a year I was out of $25k of debt, bought first rental property and got to 4 within 3 years. I excelled in my Sales and management role with my employer during the same period becoming a sales leader in a $6 billion national company. Coached Junior Achievement, sharing my experiences. Continued to follow dreams and focused on creating opportunity- left company to continue to pursue real estate with a homebuilder and became an owner/partner. Continue to pursue opportunities that has brought me together with a network of entrepreneurs. Living the dream. Landmark assisted with making personal commitment and realizing the strength of your word. We all know what we are capable of - what stands in our way is action. Take it today!


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