Chapter 19: Dipping into Modelling 299
Think about when you discovered a new skill: learning your alphabet, riding
a bike, driving a car, playing a sport, running a meeting, cooking a meal,
how to choose clothes that suit you, managing your finances. Most likely,
everything that you can now do well involved you learning from some kind of
role model who showed you how it was done. You may not have been taught
consciously, but you absorbed the knowledge by hanging out with someone
who did that thing already, such as your big brother and his friends who
rode two wheeler bikes round the neighbourhood while you followed behind
with stabilisers fixed on your cycle.Sometimes obvious role models such as parents, friends or people you spend
time with, are less competent than you once believed them to be. What you
learn by being with them doesn’t increase your capability for the better, so
you need to choose more suitable role models who demonstrate the excellence
you seek. For example, if your father was someone who believed he was
unable to make a meal without burning it, you may have modelled his habit
of nipping to the local shop and buying ready meals to pop in the microwave.
Or, what if your mother was unreliable with money, wasting every last penny,
you may have unconsciously modelled her habit of leaving your bank account
overdrawn. Your role model of parenting may have been less than helpful and
you need to find a new one to save you repeating their mistakes. As you pick
your own new exemplars, choose the best ones to whom you can get access.In Chapter 4 we look at well-formed outcomes and the resources you need
to achieve your goals. Finding appropriate exemplars whom you can model
can be a valuable way of accelerating your ability to reach your outcome. For
example, if your goal is to learn hang-gliding, yet you are held back by your
fear of heights, then find three people who have the capability to hang-glide
in spite of any fears. By modelling these exemplars you too may build your
confidence.
Getting to a deeper structure
NLP modelling seeks to bring the intangible to the surface. The model you
create of the other person seeks to extract the essential thought processes
and strategies in a certain context, yet it will always be a partial description
of the whole complexity of that human being. Just like when you visit the site
of an historical ruin, and a miniature model clarifies the pile of dusty rubble
and broken mosaics in front of you, an NLP model seeks to get beneath the
skin of a human being who excels in a particular field to identify the essence
of what’s going on inside.