which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment
that one definitely commits oneself then providence moves too. All
sorts of things to help one that would never otherwise have
occurred manifest themselves. A whole stream of events issue from
the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen
incidents and meetings and material assistances that no man
could have dreamed would have come his way.”
W H Murray
Consider this statement: “Don’t think about kangaroos!” Can
you not do that? I doubt it. Your unconscious mind cannot
recognize negatives. When you tell yourself not to worry or not
to make a mistake, you are actually programming yourself to do
just that. However, if you program yourself to think about being
calm or getting things right, you are dramatically increasing the
chances that this is how you will be.
Often people have expressed concern to me about the
programming aspect of NLP, or what they believe the
programming aspect to mean. They say it sounds like a
brainwashing technique. The truth is that we are brainwashing
ourselves all day long by what we choose to think about and
more especially howwe choose to think about it. What we get
with NLP is the recognition and awareness to program ourselves
in a way that will not only work for us but for others too.
My husband used to manage a team of software developers who
had been very successful in winning business with their
contribution to the sales pitches for new systems. In 2000 they
were taken over by a bigger company and my husband reported
to a new director. The bigger company asked the development
team to pitch for the software business for some of their existing
accounts that they had been at risk of losing. Normally this
team’s style had been relaxed and confident and this was how
they approached the new challenges, until the director
instructed them “On no account lose this business.” He followed
this up with “You just can’t afford to go wrong here.” After
several days of these problem statements the tension in the team
began to mount and they found themselves feeling unusually
stressed by the prospect of the presentations. They did not get
the business.
“Don’t think about kangaroos”ACHIEVE WHAT YOU REALLY WANT: WELL-FORMED OUTCOMES 269