When you feel how you’ll feel when you get what you want, you’ll open yourself to the possibilities of getting what you want
Posted by: Matt in nlp & hypnosisSo this weekend I attended the first module of my NLP practitioner course. Three days is a lot of information and my head feels a little like your stomach after Christmas dinner - full of stuff that needs to be digested!
We covered lots of really interesting stuff - how to “unstick” people who have developed a hang-up, fast ways to give people back choice where they previously had only habit, and how the best way to help people change is by first accepting them exactly as they are (neat homeopathic analogy there).
Along that line there was one profound concept that I am still turning around in my head. Firstly it was good to spend a weekend with a similarly minded group of people all looking to actively pursue their goals. However each one had varying levels of discontent over the fact that they weren’t yet where they want to be. This was where the Focus Creation Cycle* kicked in.
The Focus Creation Cycle*
The focus creation cycle is a model of the way human beings bring things into their experience – it’s a process for manifesting whatever you desire, and it goes like this:
1. Focus – what you focus on increases (over time). People often focus on what they don’t want rather than what they want. Guess what shows up?
2. Expectation – what the thinker thinks, the prover proves. Whatever you truly expect to show up in your reality (over time), that’s what will show up. This is often referred to as ‘belief’.
3. Filter – Our neurology filters out all data that doesn’t fit with what we believe. This helps us create a sense of consistency in a chaotic world. If you say “I can’t find my car keys†your neurology will delete them from your perception, even if they’re right there on the kitchen table.
4. Emotion – At this point we have an emotional response, a feeling. The feeling is either a nasty one (“Uuuurgh – I need to go to work & I can’t start my carâ€) or a nice one (“Oooooh! I knew this was going to work out brilliantlyâ€).
5. Action – Emotions move us to action, and so we take actions in line with the emotions we feel and the things we believe. Of course, this means the actions we take support what we focus on.
I used to dislike the question “Do you see the glass as half-full or half emptyâ€, as I thought it was a tedious way of asking if a person was an optimist or a pessimist. But it turns out that it’s bigger than that. According to the way human neurology works, if you see the glass as half-empty, it gets emptier over time. If you see the glass as half-full, it gets fuller over time.
What you focus on increases.
The above process is the key to how you can bring whatever you desire in your life. The secret is to feel how you’ll feel when you’ve got what you want. We all have comfort zones, and they’re mediated by our feelings. Humans tend not to go very far outside their comfort zones if they can avoid it, but you can extend your comfort zone, by feeling how you’ll feel when you’ve got what you want. This way you become comfortable with the life you desire. Nature abhors a vacuum, so here comes the good stuff!
And so I’ve begun work on focusing on how I’ll feel when I have achieved what I want to achieve so that I become open to the possibilities that move me along the path to that time and place. This is a quantum shift in belief systems for most people I feel, as our culture tells us to be happy only when we have achieved what we want to achieve.
We covered a lot of other stuff that I am sure I will tell you about, however this is a starter for ten whilst I think about what other cool bits are worthy of mention here.
* Jamie (our trainer from www.saladltd.co.uk) used a “TM” on the Focus Creation Cycle, however I’m not sure whose trademark it is…
