NLP At Work : The Difference That Makes the Difference in Business

WE HAVE ALL THE

RESOURCES WE WILL

EVER NEED WITHIN US

ALREADY

not hold this belief; people who give up when they encounter

a difficulty. However, if you truly hold this belief then the

chances are that you will find a way to influence them as well.

The most self-sufficient people recognize that the place to look

for resources is within themselves. Most of us have largely

untapped reserves of qualities, skills, and attitudes that we

have never learned how to use. I have often met people who, if

they are aware of some of their untapped skills, keep quiet

about them for fear of coming over as arrogant or self-important.

From the day we are born we are experiencing, learning,

experimenting, and growing. En route we are developing an

immense set of approaches that are unique to our particular

circumstances. Even if we only experience a skill briefly, we

still have it in our memory banks just waiting to be drawn out

and developed when another time is appropriate.

If I am faced with a situation in which I recognize that what

I need is confidence to put across what I know with fluency, but

what I am experiencing is doubt about my ability, then I can

look within myself for resources. If I believe that I have all the

resources within, I can search until I find a time in my life or a

context in which I had the very resource I want now. Just by

asking myself the question “Where do I have this resource (I

might name it—self-confidence, or whatever the skill is I

need)?” I begin the process of finding and releasing exactly

what I want. By now you may realize that if we think about a

time (in an associated way) when we had the resources we

want, we create the effect of tapping into those resources in

the present.

My mother has severe osteoporosis and struggles to walk or

move without pain. Her back is now deformed as a result of the

decreasing bone density. She often talks about the discomfort in

her back and when she does she moves with discomfort and

with a tense facial expression. One day she was talking about

an Austrian Major that she had met during the war and how

whenever she came into a room he would stand to attention.

The memory clearly amused her and as she explained how the

Major stood to attention, she sprang to her feet and illustrated

exactly how he did this. She was smiling and amused by the

250 NLP AT WORK