Recalibration

Last week I wrote about the benefits of occasionally recalibrating our internal mechanism/filters so that as well as ‘noticing what you notice’; you also notice what you don’t notice.

The feedback I’ve had is that many of you recognise that recalibration would definitely benefit you but are unsure how or where to start. So, over the next few weeks or months (who knows? Not me, yet!) I’ll be offering some suggestions and, of course, if you think I could offer you some more in depth support, then that  may be possible too.

What’s important to recognise is that this series of articles isn’t a ‘prescription’ or a ‘formula’ (though that may follow!) but a series of ideas that I know work. Some will work better for you than others. So, have fun, experiment – and let me know how you get on.

So start by identifying your dominant sense. If you’re at all familiar with NLP you’ll already know this – or how to do it. If not, there’s plenty of help on line but for our purposes today, the following quick test will suffice….

Imagine you’ve just gone into an unfamiliar house. What’s the first thing you notice about it? You can only pick one.

Is it, for example, how

1. ·         Quiet  (or noisy) it is/ how the floorboard creaks when yours don't? Or how the pipes don’t judder when you run the tap, but yours do? If this is you, for our purposes today, external sound is your preferred sense.
2. ·         Tidy/beautiful/untidy/ugly it is? How clear/faded the colours are? If this is you , for our purposes today,  you tend to respond most strongly to visual cues,
3. ·         Musty it seems? Or how over powering the plug-in air freshener is? How great the fresh coffee smells or how overpowering the lilies are? If this is you smell is likely to be your dominant sense.
4. ·         You can’t wait to finger the furnishings – curtains, sofas, other furnishings etc? Or how you would normally but are somehow repelled here? This means it’s likely that you respond most strongly to tactile clues.
5. ·         You have a strong sensation in your mouth – it could be warm, sweet, pleasant – or perhaps cold, bitter, nasty. Either way, this suggests that taste is very important for you.

So, now that you’ve done that. Pick any ONE of the other five senses (i.e. anything other than your preferred/dominant sense- and if you already have a sense of your least preferred style it would be great to pick that) and spend today (or tomorrow if you’re reading this late at night) noticing and recording how many examples of your chosen (not preferred) sense you notice that day. And what you learn from that.

I’ll share my own observations/learnings in a future blog.

Making time to stand and stare

I wonder whether you, like me, were taught as a child that it’s rude to stare?

And whether again like me, you learned this poem – with its apparently conflciting message –

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

(Leisure by W. H. Davies)

I was reminded of this poem while watching a video on YouTube recently. A local samba band had ‘invaded’ Sainsbury's on Saturday morning and treated the shoppers to a samba flashmob.   Some shoppers stopped and stared, some  grabbed their mobiles and started filming whilst others simply jigged gently in time to the hypnotic rhythms. I am sure all of them would have mentioned the experience to at least one person they met that day and that they left Sainsbury’s with a smile on their faces. 

There were, though,  others who, as someone who commented on one of the videos, said

just HAD to get on with their shopping - five minutes of fun wasn't going to keep them from their porage (sic) oats!

 Somehow I think that few – if any – of this group will have mentioned it to anyone else. It simply didn’t register with them.

Our senses are constantly bombarded by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures and feelings and part of our way of dealing with this – and staying sane – is to delete or disregard, often without noticing, things which a quick internal scan shows to be unnecessary or irrelevant. Sometimes, though, we need to recalibrate this internal mechanism  - otherwise we can miss out. When, for example, I am at my cottage in the LakeDistrict, I am mesmerised by the sound of the river running past the balcony ; next time I visit, however, I will be sure to make time to savour the

Streams full of stars, like skies at night

as the sun dances through the trees on the water.

So, go ahead, disregard the inner voice that tells you ‘nice girls (or boys, or women or men) don’t’ – and stop and stare. You may be surprised and delighted by what you’ve been missing.

100 Not Out

A couple of weeks ago my grandmother celebrated her 100^th birthday. In giving thanks for a life well lived she commented that she ‘hoped she had achieved something.’ And that got me thinking about how so often many of us don’t focus on what we really want but somehow muddle through just dealing with the day to day. Time stretches out seemingly endlessly before us. And then we notice that the years are rolling by more quickly and suddenly we have rather a lot we still want to cram into life.

So, whatever age you are – ask yourself what you'd like to achieve before you hit 100. Write it down. The go through the list and ask yourself ‘how would I feel if I didn’t do/feel/experience/see/hear this?  You might find you cross a few things off your list as ‘nice to have’s rather than ‘must do’s. Next look at the whole list and ask yourself how you’d feel if you DID do/feel/experience/see/hear everything on your list. Is anything missing?

You might want to repeat these steps several times over a few days, until you’re happy with your list.

Next, fast forward to the day before your 100^th birthday. Imagine that you’ve done and experienced everything on your list. Which memory gives you the most pleasure? Which is the one that makes you feel most proud? Which one wouldn't you’ve missed for the world?

Better get started now then.

Bogart's guide to NLP

Let me clear that the Bogart we are talking about here is not the screen star of Casablanca, The African Queen etc. No, Bogart is a cat. And right now he’s reminding me of a lot of the core NLP principles that can be so helpful.

Until recently, Bogart had 9 lives, 4 legs and a very fine tail. Now, most probably as a result of a car accident, he has (by the vet’s estimation) 2 lives and (by my own observation) 3 legs and about 2 inches of tail.

Bogart as he still sees himself

A friend asked how he would manage without his tail – given that it’s used so much for both balance (and his balance is, of course, already potentially dodgy as he’s one leg down on the usual feline quota) and communication. I said that I’d been telling him to act ‘as if’ – ‘as if’ he had a perfectly fine tail (he does, it’s just shorter than most) or ‘as if’ he were a Manx cat.

Of course, I have been doing no such thing – Bogart manages perfectly well without me clucking round him like an over anxious mother hen. He, however, has been acting ‘as if’ his tail is complete and well able to do its job.  He doesn’t have to have a  full length tail, he doesn’t have to believe he’s got one – but by acting as though he has he is managing to communicate and balance pretty well.

For humans, the same principle of acting ‘as if’ can be enormously helpful and, for some, liberating. Often clients say to me they ‘can’t’ do something – something which they’d very much like to.  Often, the desired behaviours is related to confidence or being at ease in social situations. Making presentations comes up pretty often, too.  By working with them to help them to identify and adopt

• ·         The physiology (body language, posture etc.)
• ·         The vocabulary
• ·         The ‘look’ (clothes, haircut etc.)
• ·         The mannerisms and behaviours

they find that they are able to ‘do’ confidence/enjoy parties/make small talk/give powerful and impactful presentations etc. etc. and that, over time, the line between acting ‘as if’ they are confident, successful, sociable and engaging – or whatever it is we’re working on – and ‘being’ those things becomes blurred, indistinct and unimportant. Indeed, by acting ‘as if’ they often find it no longer exists at all.

Build your list size

Every so often in get emails suggesting I built my list size. They promise 'quick and easy' ways of increasing the size of my mailing list. And, since my last post - on giving up things for Lent - I have given up opening them and consigned them to my 'trash' bin instead. Not that I don't want to build my list, I do - just that my experience in the past has been that these emails promise more than they deliver, generally demand far more time and money than they suggest and put a premium on quantity over quality. 

This month, I have nevertheless been busy building my list size  -both in terms of people who subscribe to my blog, article, newsletter  and web feeds  - and, as importantly, in terms of 'things I'm giving up' (for the context behind this, see the previous post 'I give up!').

So, here are just some of the additional things that I've given up since my last post

 R 

•  Returning/forwarding (unless the pictures are particularly stunning or funny, in which case I might still forward)   'chain letter' emails - the ones that come with a 'send this to all the people you care about including me' tagline at the bottom. There are far more practical, tangible and meaningful ways of showing someone you care about them than simply hitting the 'forward'' of 'reply' button on your email system without bothering to add even one or two words of personalisation.
•  Subscribing to email lists that I rarely read or have never implemented - I can do without them cluttering up my inbox and mental space
• Putting my credit card bill to one side with the intention of paying it later (within the deadline - but 'later). Out of sight all too often becomes out of mind - so I now pay it as soon as it arrives so that if, as is likely, I forget about it, I don't fall liable for interest charges.

These small, straightforward and, to many, second nature changes have made a huge difference already.

What could you do/give up that while it requires little effort could have a significant and positive impact on your life?