Neuro Linguistic Programming

Chapter 12: Driving Habits: Uncovering Your Secret Programs

mind when you exhibit a particular behaviour. The purpose of your behav-

iour is to get as close to your desired outcome as possible. You test your

strategy in order to assess whether you’ve reached your goal. If your goal

is reached, you stop the behaviour and exit the strategy. If the goal isn’t

reached, you modify the behaviour and repeat it, thereby incorporating a

simple feedback and response loop. So, if your outcome is to boil the kettle,

the test is whether the kettle has boiled; if it hasn’t, you carry on waiting for it

to boil, test for the kettle having boiled, and when it has you exit the strategy.

Figure 12-1:
The TOTE
model.

TEST:

Has your

goal been

achieved?

YES

Exit

NO

Loop around

OPERATE:

If your goal hasn’t

been achieved,

modify your behaviour.

The NLP strategy = TOTE + modalities

NLP suggests that you experience the world primarily through your five

senses: visual (eyes), auditory (ears), kinaesthetic (feelings and touch), olfac-

tory (smell), and gustatory (taste). These senses are your representational

(rep) systems, also called modalities, which you can read more about in

Chapter 6.

Submodalities are the different qualities that combine to make up modalities.

For example, if you create a picture in your mind’s eye, you’re using your

visual representative system or modality. You adjust the qualities or submo-

dalities of the picture by making it bigger, brighter, or bringing it closer to

you. You can discover much more about your submodalities and how they

affect the way you experience your world in Chapter 10.

Bandler and Grinder included modalities and submodalities into the Test

and Operate phases of the TOTE model, refining it further to create the NLP

strategy model. According to Bandler and Grinder, the goal you have when

you initiate a strategy to achieve a specific goal, and the means by which you

assess whether or not it has been achieved, is dependent on combinations of

your personal modalities. For example, when you think of your goal, you may

make a picture of it, create a sound that you hear in your head, or get a feeling.

The success of your strategy ties into the success of your goal and you judge

success by whether or not you feel, hear, or see what you imagined you

would through the submodalities.