Performance Psychology — 1% Factor

April 17, 2009

Lesser Known Tips, Techniques and Takeaways that High Achieving Individuals use Daily

My research over 20 years has led me to these skills that I use for maximum benefits of my business consultancy and coaching clients.

NLP — “The study of human excellence, demonstrating how to communicate effectively and influence others.”

Neuro: Relates to the way the brain works and what happens in your mind.
Linguistic: Relates to language and the way you use it.
Programming: Relates to patterns of behaviour learnt by repetition.

Four Key Principles

Rapport — with yourself, others, body language, speed and pace of communications.
Outcomes — focusing on the outcomes that you want.
Senses — actively using sight, hearing, feelings, touch, smell and taste.
Flexibility — in approach to situations, to create new perspectives.

Modelling — Fundamental to NLP is modelling excellence.

Modelling excellence involves finding out how someone does something well and copying that excellence. From birth, children copy their parents and replicate what they do. So beware, parents.

Presuppositions of NLP (NLP presupposes the following)

The map is not the territory — my mental map of the world is different to yours.
You have within yourself all the resources you need to achieve what you want.
Every behaviour has a positive intention.
There is no failure, only feedback.
The meaning of communication is the response it elicits.

Your brain…

Weighs the equivalent of 1.5 bags of sugar.
Is 80% water, 10% fat, 8% protein.
Contains 10-15 billion neurons (brain cells) and the body generates 1000 new ones each day.

The Mind and Body are Inter-connected — if you affect one, you affect the other.

Recent research in the area of psycho-neuro-immunology has shown that the immune system is linked to brain activity. Mental stress can inhibit the performance of the immune system, reducing your ability to combat illness. Thoughts are transmitted through your body by neuro transmitters. These chemicals transmit messages between the brain and the rest of your body, so in effect your body is expressing your thinking. When you feel good in yourself, you have a better chance of remaining healthy. Conversely, when you are feeling unhappy or depressed your immune system will be depleted.

The Habit Virus — The Pike Syndrome

If you do something often enough, you will believe it is true. Make sure it is positive and you are in control. In an experiment, Pike fish were put in a tank with a transparent barrier between the Pike and food. After a while the barrier was taken away — however the Pike never attempted to get the food because they believed that it was not worth trying. They starved.

Re-wiring your brain

Fold your arms and notice which arm is on the top. You have probably putting that arm on top all your life. Fold your arms the other way and see how it feels. The more you repeat this exercise the more new brain pathways you will set up to make this feel normal. Keep doing things differently.

Unconscious Mind — brain’s response to negatives

The brain has no understanding what is real and what is imagined, and does not process negative words directly — it deletes negatives and works more efficiently with positive commands. The brain ignores the word “don’t” in a sentence and has to process what follows before it can imagine not doing it. For example, if you say “Don’t think of a blue tree,” your mind has to think about a blue tree.

Inappropriate Use	Alternative Use
Don’t Worry	Stay Calm
Don’t do that	Have a go at this
Don’t take this route	Go this way
Don’t spill the milk	Be careful with the milk
Stop watching TV	Put some time into your homework
It’s a problem	I can do that for you
You can’t miss it	It’s easy to find

Mirroring and Matching — from the work of Milton Erikson

Words, tone, and body language — people feel drawn to people who are like them. If they hear the same language, voice tonality and see similar mannerisms to themselves they are much more likely to think you are like them — and are much more likely to like you!

Chunk sizes

Your mind can deal with around seven plus or minus two bits of information at any one time. People get overwhelmed when they have more. Chunking information into bite size chunks help retention and memory.

The ability to chunk information up and down is “the essence of sanity” and avoids the brain being overwhelmed with the multitude of information that there is today.

Language filters

Deletion — being selective about some of the information. Leaving out some facts — a good example is politicians’ speeches.
Distortion — creating a meaning that may not be true. “Someone is laughing, they are laughing at me…”Generalisation — with generalisations, you unconsciously develop rules, which may or not be true. “All people on social security are lazy…”

Words often include — all, never, every, always.
E.g. “I always catch colds at Christmas.”

What do these words have in common? They lack evidence and proof!

Your inner voice

Your inner voice can be very powerful and rather loud. It links to your unconscious mind and provides important messages and answers to problems. Acknowledge what your inner voice is saying and then ask yourself:

Is this a helpful thought? What would be a more positive thought?
Does my inner voice have a warning/message that I need to be aware of?
Is there a positive reason/intention behind the message from my inner voice?

Every thought in your mind is passed around the body by neuro transmitters; being aware of your inner voice can provide the answers to issues. Look for the positive intentions behind your thoughts.

Accessing your skills — Beliefs used in NLP

We have all the resources we need; we just need to learn how to access them to achieve excellence.

You cannot teach a person anything. You can only help them discover it within themselves.

“If you want one year of prosperity, grow seeds. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity grow people.” – Chinese proverb.

Enabling and limiting beliefs

Enabling Beliefs — with a Positive Impact (+)	Limiting Beliefs and a Negative Impact (-)
I can do that	I can’t do that
I am good at that	I was never any good at that
I can achieve my goals	I can’t draw
I can see the glass is half full	Nobody likes me
I am finding a way to do it	I am useless at …
Let me have a go	It is too difficult
Being different is good	I always do it wrong

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t you are probably right” — Henry Ford.

When people say they can’t, add the word “YET” to the end of their sentence — “I can’t do that YET.”

Words to take care with

BUT — Negates anything before it.
SHOULD — Creates pressure and possibly a sense of guilt.
DON’T — Leads the brain to associate with a negative first.
TRY — Carries the expectation that failure may happen.
WHY? — Implies that you need to justify something. Alternatively use HOW?

Anchors

An anchor is a stimulus, which reminds you of events and can change your state positively or negatively.

The stimulus can involve all or any of the senses (e.g. something you see, hear, feel, taste or smell) and can be internal or external.

An internal anchor is generated in your mind, e.g. as you remember a visual image which evokes certain feelings. An external anchor can be triggered when, for example, you hear a piece of music which reminds you of a lovely holiday or experience.

Often anchors will be triggered by other people or outside stimuli, and you will be left in a negative state without knowing it. Having an awareness of this will enable you to recognise what’s happened to you and immunise yourself from these people; not allowing them to give you their toxic waste. Negative anchors are often triggered by TV, news broadcasts, newspapers, etc.

When to use anchors

When you feel unhappy or in a negative frame of mind, you can create a more resourceful state by triggering positive anchors in your mind and your body.

Anchors to create positive feelings

A favourite piece of music.
An aroma/smell — fresh coffee, perfume, aftershave.
An outdoor scene — peaceful garden, outdoor scene, mountain.
A memory of something you did really well — when you were at your best.
A special holiday destination.
A favourite item of clothing.
A lucky charm — that is special to you.

Use all your senses — to create positive anchors.

Kinaesthetic: Placing your thumbs and middle finger together, watch Tony Blair do this.

Auditory: Using a piece of music, phrase (“Fantastic!”), a sound, finger click.

Visual: A colour, a positive image, a beach scene, a success.

Olfactory: An aroma that you associate with success.

Gustatory: A taste that boosts your spirits.

Sporting example — Johnny Wilkinson during the Rugby World Cup in 2003. To get to his ultimate resourceful state, he placed his hands together in a particular way.

List your positive anchors…

Associating – Disassociating

Associating: To be more enthusiastic — to be in the situation — see it through your own eyes.

Disassociating: To be less involved and less emotional — see it as if you were in a picture you are looking at… To relieve stressful situations.

Be the cause not the effect — be the dog, not the tree.

Reticular Activation System (RAS)

The part of the brain that focuses you on what you want. As the brain cannot process negatives very well, be careful always to reframe what you want into the positive. “I don’t want to catch a cold,” versus, “I am staying healthy.”

Goal setting

A Harvard survey showed that 20 years later, people who had set clearly defined goals had 97% of the wealth, and they were only 3% of the students. The secret is to imagine the goal as having been achieved by using the present tense. The RAS focuses you on what you want.

Timeline

We all have an imaginary timeline. If we were to access something in the past, we would either imagine it was behind us or in front of us in one direction or the other.

Close your eyes and point to where the past is. Now point to where the future is. That is your time line.

Now imagine it is 12 months ahead of where we are today and you have achieved all your goals. What does it feel like, what do you look like, how does that voice in your head sound?

Relaxing — accessing alpha brain waves

There are a number of ways of relaxing, fast, accessing the creative right side of your brain.

Accessing your Peripheral vision.
Putting your tongue just behind your top front teeth.
Closing your eyes, looking upwards with your eyes shut.

Nested loops — For use when telling stories, metaphors.

You tell one story and then go to a second story and then revert back to the first story. This has an effect of reinforcing both stories on the unconscious mind.

Positive language

Strangely there are three times more negative words in the English language than positive words. Look at the effect positive words have on you rather than negative words, internally and externally.

Superb, sensational, awesome, unbelievable, fantastic, fabulous, marvellous, wonderful, terrific, tremendous, dynamic, brilliant.

Double bind – Used as a motivational force for yourself or others.

It is used to give an illusory freedom of choice between two possibilities. Do you want to go to bed at 7:45 or 8:00? Would you like the car in red or blue? Do you want to go into a trance now or later?

Yes tag questions

That’s right, isn’t it?
It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?
News broadcast are 94% negative, aren’t they?

Words that have a curious double meaning

ASSumptions
GeneraLIESations
Buy now — Like ME — you will have found
nEGOtiations
reLATEionSHIPS
transACTIONal

InCANtations

“Every day, in every way, I am getting better.” — Émile Coué 1913).

Paradoxical Intention

By thinking the opposite and trying really hard, you confuse the brain. For example, if you can’t sleep at night, really try and stay awake and see what happens; you will fall asleep.

– Victor Frankel

4 stages to learning new skills – such as NLP

Unconscious incompetence	Don’t know what you don’t know
Conscious incompetence	Now know what you don’t know
Conscious competence	Know and think about what you know
Unconscious competence	Just do it unconsciously

How thoughts affect your destiny

Thoughts become words
Words become actions
Actions become habits
Habits become you
You are your destiny.

Whose life is it anyway?

Most people understand how to programme their DVD better than programming their brain.

Are you programming your brain — or are you letting outside influences, people, TV, Media etc programme it full of rubbish for you?

Thought provokers

Every problem is an opportunity.
Who are you letting programme you brain?
Have you got your ladder up against the right wall?
It you always do what you have always done you will always get what you have always got.
Go out and make a difference.
Most people know more about programming their DVD than they do about programming their brain.
Stressed trees make the strongest wood.
Be the cause — not someone else’s effect.
“We must be the change we want to see.” — Gandhi.
“It’s not what happens it’s what we do about it that makes the difference.” — Nelson Mandela.
“Do not wait, the time will never be right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your disposal.” — Napoleon Hill.
You become what you think about.
Words create pictures.
Ideas without action are worthless.
Ships in harbours are safe — but that’s not what ships are for.
A plane is off course for 95% of its flight.
When you are green you grow — when you are ripe you rot.
The grass is greener where it is watered.
E+R=O (Event plus Reaction = Outcome).
When you sow you reap.
When you learn you earn.

SCORE Model

Symptoms: What is it that you want to change?
Causes: The root of the problem — where it came from?
Outcomes: Your goal — what you want.
Resources: What is required to solve the problem?
Effects: What will you do differently in the future?

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Derek Arden