How to Take Charge of Your Life: The User’s Guide to NLP

Joe was leaning forward on the edge of his seat.

For example, if I were to ask you where your car is parked or where the train station is, you’d have to go inside your mind and mentally create or remember a picture of the route to get to it. If I ask you what you did yesterday, you’d only know because you’d remember it in the form of a picture. Now, these pictures or images are unconscious. We all make them, but we rarely notice that we do. The trick is to become aware of them first; then we can do something different.

So all of our thoughts are made up of images, sounds and feelings. Once we become aware of how we formulate our thoughts we gain the ability to change them. Because our feelings and behaviours are determined largely by how we think, then once we discover how to think differently, we can achieve more effective results.

Think, for example, of someone who annoys you or makes you feel bad. Make an image of them in your mind. Now, notice the qualities of the image. Notice the size, where it’s located, whether or not the image is in colour or black and white.

Joe tried to do this. Into his mind popped his boss, sticking his head into Joe’s office and demanding that he finish a report by the end of the week because he was going away and Joe was the man for the job. Joe thought of their argument, about the fact that he didn’t have the ability to do it and that it was unfair to expect so much of him in such a short time-frame. He thought of how his boss had laughed in his face and how he had told Joe to ‘get on with it’.

Now, as you think of this image of someone who annoys you or makes you feel bad, do the following: take the image, and if it’s colour, make it black and white. Make it really small. Reduce it in size. Now move it way off in the distance. Notice how you feel.

Richard smirked, as if he already knew the answer. He pointed to a man in the front row.

You, sir. Did you do it? Now, I want you all to really do this exercise. Let me reveal a secret to you.

He whispered to the audience:

If you don’t do it, it won’t work.

Joe joined everyone else in laughter.

It takes you a few seconds and actually changes how you feel.

Joe focused on what Richard had asked. He took into his mind the image of his laughing boss and first made it black and white. Then, he made it as small as a piece of a puzzle, and finally he moved it as far away as he could. Suddenly he was very surprised to discover that the negative feelings that he had just moments before were not nearly as bad. He now just felt a little annoyed. If someone had told him it would help this much, he wouldn’t have believed them. ‘That is cool,’ he mumbled to himself.

The incredible thing is that the qualities of your mental images can be easily altered, and this will affect how you experience these images. You can also take something that makes you feel good and make it bigger and brighter and bring it closer, and you’ll probably feel the feeling more intensely.

Joe decided to try this as well. He thought about a time when he was at an important game played by his favourite football team, and they had won. It was a magical evening. He remembered how good it felt. He remembered the image of how the fans and the stadium looked, and immediately he felt fantastic. He made the image bigger, brighter, more colourful and more vivid. He could feel the elation increasing inside of him. A smile crept across his face.

Whenever you think of something, you make images of it or run movies of it. You can’t avoid it. Your brain works that way! So if you remember an experience that you went through, you’ll probably imagine a movie of that experience, either looking at yourself in the movie or from your own perspective back then. Those images or movies affect how you feel. That’s why people feel good or bad. It often comes down to what kinds of things they’re thinking about and what kind of movies they’re playing to themselves inside their own heads.

The secret is to take the images in your mind that make you feel bad and make them small and black and white, move them farther away from you and get rid of them, then take the things that make you feel good and make them big, bright and vivid. When you do this you’ll be teaching your brain to make good feelings stronger and bad feelings weaker.

Joe was really struck by the logic of this method. This was a huge revelation. He pondered the many implications that this had for his life. Was it possible that this technique could change how he felt about everything?

The answer came from his critical voice, the voice that was often ready to destroy his hopes, the kind of voice that we hear when we think of negative things or we represent pessimistic possibilities. Don’t be stupid. Are you really going to fall for this? It’s too easy. Change is very hard. He shook his head. His critical voice was right. It all seemed too good to be true. What comes next?

Well, it’s time to have a break. I want to introduce some of my trainers who will help you during the next few days.

Can I ask all the trainers to stand up and raise their hands, please?

Richard presented each of them briefly. He finally introduced the trainer that Joe had met at the registration table.

This is Alan. He has worked with me for a lot of years. He is one of the best trainers around. Really, he’s a Master Trainer. If you have any questions about the exercises, you can ask him. And now, enjoy your coffee!

During the break Joe remained in his chair. He didn’t feel like chitchatting and socializing with people. He picked up the brochure that he’d found on his seat and feigned reading it while watching the brown-haired woman out of the corner of his eye. Anna had shot out of her chair the instant the break started. Joe had a feeling that she wasn’t sure what to say about what she had just heard. Had Richard’s approach challenged her beliefs?

Joe turned around in his chair to see where the woman with the long brown hair was. He eventually spotted her at the back of the room. There were two guys fawning all over her. She seemed not to notice the depth of their interest and was smiling politely as they talked to her enthusiastically. Joe smirked at the spectacle and shook his head. Losers, he thought. Who do they think they are, trying to impress her? He tried to convince himself that they were being foolish, but if he was honest he would have loved to have the courage to approach her.

‘Are you going to talk to her?’ A familiar voice came from behind him. Joe turned round … It was the trainer he’d met, Alan. He nodded his head towards the brown-haired woman.

Joe blushed. ‘Well, no. Not now.’

‘Why not?’ Alan inquired. His tone was friendly.

‘I will. Later. Maybe. If I feel like it.’

‘Are you telling me that you don’t feel like it now?’ Alan asked with a smirk.

‘Yes. No. I mean … no, I do feel like it, but I don’t. I … well, I’m a bit shy and definitely too nervous. I’ll just make a fool of myself.’

‘Isn’t that what everyone else seems to be doing?’ Alan pointed in the woman’s direction. As Joe turned back around he saw the guy to her left bouncing around like a gorilla, trying to make her laugh. She was laughing, but more politely than anything else.

‘Yeah,’ Joe replied. ‘But I just wouldn’t know what to say. I’m no good with women.’

‘Here’s a thought. I’ve met a lot of people who feel bad about themselves, then wonder why nobody enjoys being with them. You have to learn to like yourself before you can get others to like you. Once you do that, the next step is to focus on how you make them feel. Far too often in life, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to impress other people. Instead of focusing on being impressive, it’s more useful to focus on how you feel and how you make others feel. It’s important to start with yourself. If you feel good, they’ll probably want to be around you more. It’s that simple.’

Joe took this on board. He could give this a try the next time he spoke to someone he liked. It seemed so obvious that maybe it could really work.

‘What do you think would happen if you approached her?’ Alan studied Joe’s face for a response.

‘Well, I imagine she would just stare at me and wonder what was wrong with me. Then it would be awkward, and she’d make excuses and avoid me for the rest of the course.’

‘Wow, that’s amazing. You can see into the future and read her mind? Quite the skill,’ Alan teased, a broad grin spreading across his boyish face.

Joe smiled back. ‘Yeah, she would do that if I had nothing to say.’

‘When you think about her staring at you and wondering what’s wrong with you, how do you do that?’ Alan asked.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ Joe furrowed his brow.

‘Basically you’re making a movie in your mind of what would happen if she rejected you.’

Joe nodded.

‘Let me guess. This movie is pretty big and colourful and bright, right?’ Alan said.

Again Joe nodded.

‘OK, so what would happen if you practised what Richard just taught you and took that movie and made it small and black and white and moved it farther away? Then what would happen if you replaced it with a new movie of you going over there, starting a conversation, getting her laughing and smiling and making her feel good, and made that movie vivid, clear and life-size?’

Joe found the new image in his head, and for a second he felt excited and confident about the possibility of talking to her. As he looked over at the brown-haired woman, he could have sworn that she caught his eye for a few seconds and smiled at him. Then, a reality check. ‘It’s a nice thought, but reality doesn’t work that way,’ he said to Alan. His critical voice spoke loudly: Too good to be true. It can’t be that easy.

Alan stared at him quietly for a second, and then said, ‘Maybe reality isn’t what you think it is. Maybe whatever you think becomes your reality.’ With that, he walked once again to the back of the room as people began taking their seats.

Dr Richard Bandler returned to the stage and continued speaking.

A young woman approached me at a seminar last month. She told me she was on the bus that blew up in London during the infamous July 7 tragedy. That was when explosions rocked London because the underground trains and city buses were targeted.