Hello and welcome to another value packed Disruption Session.
On our journey of disruption we are looking to break up or interrupt the norm to find new, fast and effective ways of getting positive results in life and business. Where can you disrupt the rules that you’re putting on yourself, disrupt your life, disrupt your health patterns, your relationship patterns, your business, your career, in a really, really positive way?
Often we can get stuck in the norm, which is chock full of negative unconscious behaviour patterns and belief systems. We follow these patterns on autopilot, almost like being in a trance, doing the same thing over and over again, even if it’s not working well or is making us unhappy, even if we don’t want to do something somehow we just keep going around again and again.
And it’s often only when there is a crisis or we are disrupted in life that we start to look at these patterns and unconscious stories that play out and make some changes or realise we can reset our behaviour.
I’ve done a lot of mentoring in my time as a business and life coach and when you are working with people and helping them with their mindset and looking at patterns on a regular basis you really get to realise just how important they are.
It’s been a good reminder for me this week to get back to that because sometimes I get stuck on focusing on strategy and content and ‘how to’ for business growth and development so when I get back to doing Nuero-linguistic Programming (NLP) work again and I realise, wow, it is so powerful.
And it’s powerful because when we don’t do consistent work on auditing our mindset we can get addicted to our behaviours and patterns, myself included, no one is immune to this, and that addiction can mean that we sabotage great results or get stuck in a rut of negative and unsatisfying behaviour.
I was working with one person this week and they were so addicted to doing, so stuck in the future and they really could not understand the concept of getting off the process of doing and focus on more about being.
Here’s the thing: There is nothing you need to DO, just BE.
In the work we were doing together we started to uncover some old patterns, and if you’re unconscious to these patterns they’ll just take over and run your life for you. So I helped this person get conscious of their patterns and then they could really see that if they let this trance-like behaviour continue unchecked then they would be stuck on this same painful merry-go-round for the rest of their life.
So this gets us back to an earlier conversation I had about true target versus false target. A lot of the time we can have what I call a false target and a false target is this process of fixing. If I fix this, fix this, fix this, fix this, fix this then one day I can actually have what I want. It’s about arming yourself with a whole lot of reasons, or a whole lot of stories about why we can’t achieve what we want to. ‘Well, I would do that but I can’t because this happened and that happened and the other thing.’
So we say, well, if I can get rid of all these reasons and move those things out of my way then I can have a clear path to my goal and actually achieve something. Only as soon as we get rid of one problem then we are attracted to another one, like people who break up from a bad relationship and then start a new relationship only to find all the same problems exist in this partnership too so you end up having the exact same arguments, only with a different person. That happens in work, in health, in business, you can fix as much as you like but because you haven’t done the work on mindset so you are still on that merry-go-round and still attracting that same ‘story’ in different situations.
It’s only when we let go of that story, or that wound from our past and step back from our fears that we can see that it’s just an excuse and those ‘obstacles’ were never really blocking us from anything.
When we get clear on that then we can start to look at what is actually the purpose of all of this? What am I actually wanting to achieve; is it connection, is it love, is it freedom and will I actually get it doing this process and running this pattern?
Once you start to unhook yourself from it, then you can start to realize, well, there’s actually a choice. There’s a choice whether I keep being stuck in this process of doing or I can actually step back and start creating.
And that’s when it’s easy to get off that addictive behaviour and stop doing and just be who we are meant to be in the present moment. That is the true target, not what you are supposed to be doing, but who you are supposed to be living. And when you switch on that True Target then you can start living the life you want instantly, you can start feeling better and pursuing your real goals in that exact instant so that’s what I mean by powerful.
And from there your future vision and your goals get really exciting because they are completely aligned with your passion and purpose and you start moving towards them really quickly, and better yet, doors just open for you because you are focused on moving forward, not on being stuck. SO when you are stuck, all you are thinking about is how stuck you are and how many things are in your way, and because that is your whole energy and focus you just attract more and more issues. When you are aligned to your personal power then you are focused on your target and you just start attracting more and more positive things that will accelerate you there.
I know that saying it like that makes it sound really easy and in some ways it is but you need the right people around you to help you discover it and coach you through or provide you with the right training if you want to do a self-audit because it is a challenging thing to undertake. Often, for complexity to drop away, it means we’re dropping things from our life that aren’t working and sometimes they can be people, it can be jobs it can be safety and making those changes can be such a chaotic thing, but the exciting part is that after the challenge things become so simple and you get back into flow and really get to living again.
The other challenge is often these patterns have been running for a long time, so long that they can feel like they are part of us, part of our identity, but really they are hitchhikers we picked up before we understood them properly and they have never gotten off your bus so you are potentially doing this amazing life tour only your have these hitchhikers who feel so genuine that you let them direct your journey and tell you where to go and when to stop and what to do. So while that is happening you don’t get to do any of the things you want to do or go where you want to go and you are watching other people doing amazing things and wishing you could too.
If you look at the way our learning development works, in Maslow’s Development Period from age 0 to 7 is when 75 per cent of the human personality is formed. That means 75 per cent of our internal patterns have been formed during those early periods.
And if you think about the kind of decisions you liked to make when you were that age some of them are pretty damaging, like wanting chocolate for breakfast, wanting to stay up late, wanting to start a fire in the middle of the lounge room or watch a horror movie. So, what about those patters we run in our adult lives? Are some of them, or even most of them based on a child’s view of the world that might not be as useful or as accurate as we thought when we created them?
This is why we can sometimes identify with those patterns so strongly, because they are so familiar and so trusted we think that’s who we are. Or conversely it’s been passed on through generation after generation and we think, well, that’s just how it’s been done. The amazing thing is that once you actually unhook yourself from those decisions that are no longer working, you start to find that true target, flow starts to set in and moving about in the world becomes easy and straightforward.
The only way to know is to take another look at our decision making patterns, start paying attention to our behaviours and learn what actions we take when emotions pop up and start asking questions.
This is where NLP comes in, Time Line Therapy, root cause techniques, all of these things are amazing at quickly and painlessly identifying these old patterns and uncovering these unconscious stories that have been playing over and over again. With Time Line Therapy techniques you get an opportunity to revisit the moment you made that initial and long lasting choice (go back to meeting the hitchhiker) and have another look. From there you can ask more detailed questions, put some conditions in place and have a look around for options and alternatives. That way you are making choices going forward based on adult understanding alongside what you learned as a child many years ago.
One of the things that I love doing is really helping people look at the root cause and go back to the beginning.
When did these decisions originate?
Where did these patterns come from?
And then I can start to help that person simply change their story to something more accurate and genuine and they move from being in effect, powerless, or giving their power away to someone else, to bringing their power back to themselves.
The minute someone starts to take responsibility around all of their patterns they suddenly tap into their natural ability of being a creator, and I think that’s who we are naturally, creators.
When we learn excellence around communication (internal communication and external communication) and look at excellence around our psychology then we can actually take charge of those patterns. It blows my mind that a lot of this work is not taught at school because it’s something anyone can do, even kids. And when we are kids it’s a great time to start because the patterns haven’t been running for so long and we can start to catch ourselves before we make something concrete going forward.
Learning how it works means we can be in charge of those emotions, choose the emotional states we want and look at the habits and the rituals in life, not just our life but the people around us to understand them and approach situations with more flexibility and more ability to create positive outcomes.
The minute someone starts to take responsibility around all of their patterns they suddenly tap into their natural ability of being a creator, and I think that’s who we are naturally, creators.
When we learn excellence around communication (internal communication and external communication) and look at excellence around our psychology then we can actually take charge of those patterns. It blows my mind that a lot of this work is not taught at school because it’s something anyone can do, even kids. And when we are kids it’s a great time to start because the patterns haven’t been running for so long and we can start to catch ourselves before we make something concrete going forward.
Learning how it works means we can be in charge of those emotions, choose the emotional states we want and look at the habits and the rituals in life, not just our life but the people around us to understand them and approach situations with more flexibility and more ability to create positive outcomes.
NLP is about being powerful around our habits, taking responsibility for our actions and having access to choices, lots of them.
I think once you start to build this relationship with your conscious and unconscious mind and paying attention to your thoughts, you become aware of these patterns and with that awareness you can start to simply change those things that are keeping you stuck.
These are the tools that I’d love to give to people because often we are at the effect of all of this programming.
As I said before, we’re not taught this at school, so if our grandparents and parents have ineffective strategies with dealing with certain emotions, they are typically passed on generation after generation. We don’t have to be in those cycles anymore. With the technology we have today that we are able to access so much information about mindset and unconscious patterns which gives us access to all sorts of amazing stuff, like how to deal with emotions, what limiting decisions are, how values shape our lives and decision making and how to effectively and easily change our habits.
With knowledge of how mindset works you can change a habit instantly and effectively. You don’t have to use the brute force 21-day method to create a new habit, you can change it on a subconscious level which is far more powerful. If you use brute force to change a habit and you experience a triggering emotion during those 21 days you’ll probably go back to that pattern or addiction straight away because it’s the best choice or fastest way to unconsciously get what you want.
Our mind is wired to always take the path of least resistance. So to change, we simply need to show it a faster way to achieve what we want.
It’s amazing how much more energy and drive you have after you find your true target. We just don’t realise how much time and effort goes in to maintaining the norm and handling the onslaught of emotions that comes with it.
So my suggestion to you is get out there and start to learn about your unconscious mind. Start to understand these patterns that are often running on autopilot and realize that these patterns are not you, they’re just programs that have been running unchecked. My challenge for you is to start to look at these patterns and to work out if they are true targets.
Are you on your true target or are you on a false target?
The best way to uncover this stuff is to do the work on yourself and to learn some new information. We can help with anything you need to get started, be that an NLP training course, a life coach or a releasing and reenergising weekend at Live It Now.
But the biggest thing is just don’t sit there and think it’s magically going to change. You actually have to do something. A great mentor of mine once said to me, Matt, if you want to change your life, you actually have to change something in your life. So that means you’ve got to do something different.
I’d love to hear from you so drop me a line or ask any questions you might have in the comments below. Have a wonderful week and we’ll catch you next week.
Matt Catling