Don’t worry!Job profiles“towards” are more likely to achieve what they do want. Those
who think of what they don't want are likely to achieve just
that. For example, if you tell yourself not to worry you are
effectively programming yourself to worry. If you think about
being confident, that is what you start to feel.Look at the shapes below and describe their relationship to
each other.What do you notice? Do you notice in what ways they are similar,
i.e., they are all oval, or do you notice that two are upright and
one is on its side? In effect, do you look for what is the same—
match—or do you look for what is different—mismatch?
When meeting a person for the first time, someone who
sorts for a match might think of similar people, similar
situations, or how the other is like them. Someone who sorts for
a mismatch will identify what is different about this person and
this situation compared with others they know and themselves.
Certain professions train people to think in a particular way.
For example, I have come across more mismatching patterns
of thinking in professions associated with information
technology and finance than I have in many other fields of
business. There is no right or wrong. Certain jobs depend on a
person's ability to match, just as some depend on an ability to
mismatch. A software engineer trained to uncover system
“bugs” may be skilled at mismatching, looking for what doesn't
fit, as indeed will someone in accounting whose job it is to find
the imbalance. What matters is how appropriately these skills
are used. If used appropriately they are fine, if not they can
cause problems.
The “yes, but” pattern in conversation is an example of
mismatching.42 NLP AT WORK