58 Part I: Introducing NLP
with compassion. She realised that her own self-esteem needed a prop and
began standing her ground – she discovered how to challenge her colleagues
whenever they were unpleasant to her.
Although the process was difficult in the beginning, Mary not only raised her
own sense of self-worth, but also became less troubled by the supervisor’s
behaviour. Changing her thoughts about her own positive qualities increased
her own confidence, which in turn led to a change in the behaviour of people
around her.
One way in which you can change things around you is by examining and
changing yourself, and you can achieve this aim by taking responsibility for
your thoughts and actions, and overcoming obstacles such as blaming others.
Focusing on blaming others
Blaming others for your misfortunes is a lot easier than taking responsibility
for putting things right yourself. You can have difficulty recognising that by
blaming someone else you’re handing over your power to that person: you’re
adopting the role of victim and perpetuating the problem.
Mary complained that her boss refused to give her a pay rise, which was
true. However, Mary was overly modest about her achievements at work, and
because her boss wasn’t the brightest penny in the purse she was unaware
of Mary’s good work. Romilla made sure that Mary prepared well for her next
appraisal, and Mary confidently presented a list of her successes since her
previous appraisal as well as areas for improvement. She talked about her
goals for her job and suggested ways in which she planned to work with her
manager to achieve these aims.
In NLP terms, when you focus on something you give it a ‘frame’. For example,
by focusing on the problem, ‘I can’t get my leaking roof fixed because I don’t
have the money,’ you put yourself in a problem frame. Blaming someone else
for your problem – for example, ‘I don’t have the money because my louse of
an ex hasn’t paid me my settlement’ – is putting yourself in a blame frame. The
problem frame and blame frame are closely linked because of the tendency in
both to blame someone or circumstances for a problem, and putting frames
around experiences like this limits you to thinking within a box. By reframing
the experience, however, you think differently and can break out of constrain-
ing thought patterns.
Mary switched away from the blame frame – in which she blamed her lack of
a rise on her boss – and moved to taking action herself. When she realised
her boss’s inability to recognise her strengths, Mary showed the flexibility of
