Imagine you are employed by Area 51 where your boss handles you a strange looking object which came from the alien spacecraft, and gives you an urgent task to “make this object better.” You are looking at this strange looking thing thinking saying to yourself, “I don’t even know what it is”.
Then you go inside your mind, digging deep in your reservoir of experiences seeking a comparison with something you know. You perform various mental operations to decipher the meaning of this object and formulate hypotheses as to what it could be. You have to test those to make sure you are correct. None apply.
Suddenly you have to step outside the box of your own experiences and step into the dreamland – the universe of possibilities where the answers as to what this object is, are hidden. But before you can find the answer you must create a strategy for discovery. You have to formulate the right questions in order to unravel the meaning of this object. You need to know what to ask in order to find your answer.
Knowing what to ask is the key to your success.
If you are a strategic researcher, you will first gather all information that you already have. You can touch the object and see it, you can examine its texture and shape. You can assess its weight and its physical properties. You know it came from somewhere that is not here, and you know someone else than humans made it. You also know it serves a purpose and was designed by someone who intended it to be made. You know many things already, and you know you don’t know even more things. You must define what it is you don’t know, and what it is you need to know in order to begin the task you were given.
In order to fulfill the assignment, you must be aware of what you need to know about this object, how it was made, and the intent of the one who created it. Unless you have the answers to all these questions, you will never complete the task correctly. You will fail.
Making this object “better” requires an answer to this questions and a strategy for creating an improved version of it. That process requires strategic thinking inspired by a great dose of curiosity.
If you are looking for a valid and transformative NLP coaching, your coach needs to follow the same process of thinking as you would in Area 51. If you want to become a strategic and powerful NLP coach, you need to adopt the mental strategies you would need in Area 51 assigned to make the object “better”.
Human mind operates on some very precise and logical principles. When you have created a successful problem, you had followed a strategic and logical process to have created it. You designed your sadness, depression and anxiety. You know what it means to you, how to create it, how to maintain it and when to decide to feel it.
The same applies to any other successful outcome such as a state of extreme focus needed to accomplish a task. The internal engine driving your mind is hidden. It remains in the deep recesses of your other than conscious mind. Even you may not be aware of all the mechanics that take place there.
If you are an NLP coach, you need to be able to get into the recesses of the other than conscious mind and disassemble that engine to pieces so that you know its design, its components, the process needed to have built it, and the purpose it serves (that part is the most exciting).
You must adopt the mental strategy needed to complete the task, and the strategy to engineer something different. In essence you are the archaeologist digging deep into the mind, the analyst formulating meaning about what you have found, an engineer designing new mental strategies.
You need to be very good at all these things in order to be an effective NLP coach. If you are the client, you must make sure the NLP coach you found has these skills.
To be a powerful agent of transformational change, you must be logical and strategic in your thinking. You must also be artistically creative able to recreate your client’s internal universe for yourself. You must be able to understand the world from your client’s point of view as though you had put on a different set of glasses.
To be able to do that you must be able to get yourself out of the way. You must be able to silence your inner voices of judgment or a desire to be “right”. Unless you are able to do that, you cannot succeed as an NLP coach. You will not elicit the change your client wants.
These skills are learnable and teachable. Take your time to find the right NLP coach for a change. Seek an NLP training organization that focuses on developing transformational coaches. Enjoy.