There once was a man who said ‘damn, it certainly seems that I am, a creature that moves, in determinate grooves, I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram!’
Alan Watts
Hi, Max here from The Coaching Room. Thanks for checking this article out. Once you’ve read it, I hope that you will have a deeper understanding of how you can get back on track and some meaningful action points that you can use to improve the quality of your life, as they have helped me in mine. Before we begin I’d like to ask a question…
Are you currently on a track based upon your own truth or are you following a preordained path?
Perhaps it was true for you in the past, or you’ve been living through the expectations of others. Maybe you’ve just been on this track for so long that it seems odd to do anything different. That was certainly the case for me. My choice of university, degree, and career were based upon what my parents expected of me, what I believed about myself and how I had been habitually moving through the world – sacrificing my personal happiness and fulfillment until I decided to get back on track with NLP.
To begin, let’s look lightly at a question; what is NLP?
NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is a methodology, a set of tools, models and techniques to help a person communicate more effectively with themselves and other people. With NLP, people can manage their thinking, feelings, speech and behaviors in a way that serves them while still honoring everyone else.
If that is something of interest for you too, in a moment, carry on reading down the page and discover how you can use NLP to get back on track, where I’ll use the leverage point from my own personal development as an example.
While working in the field of financial services, I saw a glimpse into the future of based on what was probable for me, given the track that I was on, the advice my parents gave me and the advice financial planners give to their clients… study hard, go to university, find a good job, work, save, invest and maybe by the time you’re 60 you’ll have enough to retire on and do what you really want.
One of the hardest parts of the job was to inform clients that despite working for their whole lives and were ready to retire, based upon their retirement objectives and financial assets – they did not have enough to retire on – so two main options arose. Continue working or alter the retirement objectives.
I didn’t want to reach the end of my track sacrificing my personal happiness and find myself in this position. I wanted to change tracks.
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Probability vs. Possibility
On the last day of my NLP training I was volunteered to be part the demonstration of an NLP technique referred to as “Parts Integration” or “Visual Squash” which works with two conflicting parts, generally arising from situations where one would say “on one hand I want this, and on the other hand I want that”.
On one hand there was my job and career of a financial planner based upon the decisions I made from a younger self-living up to my parents expectations, where I could live out what was probable for me while sacrificing my personal happiness and continue on the track I was on.
On the other hand there were my aspirations of entrepreneurship, building a business, creating and facilitating personal freedom to create the life that I want based on the endless possibilities of stepping into potential.
What I decided for myself was to step off the track I had been on. The next day, I handed in my resignation from my financial planning job to pursue my intention of personal freedom through entrepreneurship. I found that paradoxically, getting back on track with NLP for me was actually getting off track. Getting off the track of probability and stepping into possibility, where there is freedom from habits and the fullness of a happier existence.
What kind of relationship do you have with yourself? Do you relate to yourself by the memory of your past? Is the unfolding of your future then a probability of what has always been?
Responsibility
There is a cost to getting back on track as I saw through my probable self (the person I took myself to be). I lost the excuses where I had no choice and lost the ability to blame others for my circumstances. The thing is, I now had to take responsibility for my own life and my responses because I couldn’t default to the old reaction of “this is just who I am” – it was how I had been programmed, habitually.
I mentioned before what you can do with NLP – you can manage your thinking, feelings, speaking and behaving in a way that serves you while still honoring everyone else.
Will you choose to take responsibility and ownership over your thinking, feeling, speaking and behaving – Given that these are the powers YOU own? If not, where and why are you giving them away?
Our heart beats are finite. The question is, are you spending them in the right place for you, because we don’t have heart beats to waste living in the past, so If you choose to, get back on track with NLP and step into what is possible.
