Long to do lists are often a great challenge for many of us.  Most people feel demotivated and overwhelmed when they look at a list with more than 10 items on it.  The longer the list is, the more likely we are to focus on the simple tasks we can do the fastest.   We want to start things off quickly, many of us like immediate gratification for their efforts, and it makes the list look shorter.   So we find the easiest tasks to get us going.  We may have the intention to do some more complex tasks later in the day, but invariably we get sidetracked.   And by the end of the day the list looks just as daunting as it did at the beginning.  Sounds familiar?  So what’s the cure?   Read the rest of this entry »

How many times have I heard and read this mantra before?  Yet, people don’t realize how they’re doing themselves total disservice by acting according to it…  But why do they?

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If you are or know a financial services representative or a financial advisor in the retail banking sector or an independent financial professional, you [or that person] too can enhance your [their] performance by some simple NLP tricks. Here they are:   Read the rest of this entry »

The case of my friend whose volunteering as a counselor for the Samaritans had recently been halted by her program coordinator for “being too direct with the clients” inspired me to write my view of this topic.  Is being too direct good for your clients?   Read the rest of this entry »

The answer to this is simple: because two reinforcing feedback loops operate here.  Another familiar name for the reinforcing feedback loops would be virtuous circles.  As you’ll see below, these two circles operate at the opposite ends of one continuum, thus in this sense one of the feedback loops / circles will be perceived as virtuous and the other as vicious.  However, in the sense of reinforcing the action in itself, even the vicious circle is virtuous, because it results in more of the same action and therefore reinforces it.

Now let’s get to why help never gets to those who need it most by demonstrating the principles of the two opposing reinforcing feedback loops on a few examples.   Read the rest of this entry »

How does NLP help to improve your memory performance?  Psychologist George A. Miller carried out experiments on human processing of information and discovered that the maximum amount of bits of information that people could deal with simultaneously was between 5 and 9 or, in other words, 7 plus / minus 2.  A ‘bit’ of information is the amount needed to make a decision between two equally likely alternatives.  For example, the result of tossing a coin will produce one bit of information.   Read the rest of this entry »

Never underestimate…

The ability to learn language is value neutral.  Each child will learn whatever is current parlance in the child’s environment.  Some children will learn to mouth a string of obscenities, because that is what is modelled by significant others and other adults.  Others may learn a quite specialised vocabulary if that is the linguistic climate they grow up in.  For this reason some young children will learn words or phrases that many older children do not know, such as, for example, ‘biodegradable’ or ‘sibling rivalry’.

Very few 6 year-olds know these words, because few adults use them when talking to young children.  But if a 6 year-old hears, for example, ‘sibling rivalry’ and someone explains it as ‘brothers and sisters fighting over something they both [or all] want’, the child will be able to report accurately “there’s a lot of sibling rivalry at our house.”

Contact me for more practical NLP advice if you have very young children in your family or immediate environment.

If you’re a parent, minder, or teacher of very young children, bear the following in mind.  When children begin making sentences, they structure them in the order of subject – verb – object, as when they say “Mommy give juice!” or “I want ball.” and this is the standard word order in English.  Passive constructions don’t make sense to children under 5 years of age.  In the passive construction the word order is reversed: objet – verb – subject.  When young children hear a sentence such as “The truck was bumped by the car.”, they think the truck did the bumping.  They assume that what comes first causes what comes next.

Young children also think that the order of ideas in a sentence and sentence order is a clue to time sequence.  So to a child under 5 years of age a sentence like “You can go outside after you pick up your toys” can mean the reverse of what was intended, i.e. ‘go outside, then pick up your toys.’  Consider then what is likely to follow from “Before you eat your dinner, you must wash your hands.”!

Contact me to work your linguistic skills with your children up to a higher level.

If you work at the computer for long periods of time, no matter what your profession, you’ll probably be no stranger to:

• headaches
• backaches
• digestion problems
• feeling scatty, floaty, ungrounded, all over the place
• stress
• inability to concentrate after a certain point in the day
• frustration
• hating it all
• feeling drained of energy

Here’s what you can do to improve, eradicate, or prevent many of them:

• drink water throughout the time at the computer.  Water is grounding, energizing, brings electricity to the brain, and helps mental pictures to be still which helps concentration
• keep your workspace as tidy as possible.  This will minimise distractibility of the mind and will help grounding, calming, and concentration
• make a habit of keeping your feet on the ground while working on the computer.  This will be hard to get into for many people, but hard doesn’t equal impossible.  Disciplining yourself to keep your feet on the ground will ground you, help the mind stay calmer, and mental pictures stay still

Are you a computer professional?  Contact me.

The legal profession may be paying well, but the money is earned in much more subtle ways than meets the eye of the member of the general public. No lawyer avoids at least some of the stresses of the profession, such as difficult and demanding clients, pressure to increase the firm’s revenue, doing all possible to prevent clients being enticed by competitors, reduced secretarial and paralegal assiastance, increasing costs, new and more regulations, etc.  Read the rest of this entry »

How are you voting with your energy?  What do you want in your life?  What are your highest values?  Is [for example] peace of mind important to you?  How often do you do what it takes to cultivate your peace of mind?  Or is connection a high value of yours?  How often do you choose to connect with people? Read the rest of this entry »

With each amount of money you spend you’re voting.  Spending money is a political act as much as or even more so than casting your vote on election day.  Every time you purchase a product or service you’re helping an individual or a corporation to stay in business.  Your vote says that you want that product or service to exist in the world.   For example, you’re reading this article.  You’re reading it online, which means you are – or somebody is – paying for internet access.   Whoever is paying for internet access votes with his/her money for the internet service provider to keep providing it to you and the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Every minute we’re voting with our time.  Think of the options of saying yes and no to exercise. By saying yes to one activity we’re saying no to another.  We’re voting. Read the rest of this entry »

The mainstream education system in Ireland, and elsewhere too, exists primarily to give secure, comfortable jobs to large numbers of people while giving the appearance of providing a service.  This is just as bad at higher education level as it is at primary level and this phenomenon is apparent elswhere in the public service, particularly in health and government.  In any group of people engaged in any activity there is a percentage of those who can’t do it at all / properly, or can’t be bothered, another percentage of those who are satisfactory or mediocre, and then the top 10% who are committed and excellent.  Unfortunately, the activities of the 90% serve to frustrate the best efforts of the top 10%. Read the rest of this entry »

How can travelers minimize the effects of jetlag? In at least 4 NLP ways: Read the rest of this entry »