How cutting edge Fitness Professionals are achieving their results. If a Goal’s worth having - it's worth having a Well Formed Outcome
In the last of the series we looked at how we can identify and help clients overcome their limiting beliefs. Clearly, a client needs to believe in their own potential if they are to achieve their fitness goals - but there is another important element to consider and that is what motivates your client?
Are they motivated by wanting to move Away From their current state, or are they compelled to move Towards their goal, or outcome, (as goals are referred to in NLP) ? In other words, are they fed up with being over weight and unfit or are they looking forward to being slim and having more energy?
Both are in pursuit of the same outcome, but their motivation is crucially different and it is their motivation that will determine whether they succeed or not - being motivated by wanting to move Away From some state is seldom as successful as being driven to move Towards an outcome.
Why so? I can hear you asking, and the answer is because the unconscious mind cannot process negatives. If I asked you not to think of a pink elephant what happens? You think of a pink elephant ! By the same token the unconscious mind doesn’t get the ‘don’t’ in ‘I don’t want to be fat anymore’ – conversely, what happens is the idea of being fat is kept very much alive. While the client’s focus is firmly on what they don’t want, unfortunately, they tend to get more of it. Their dislike of themselves will probably get them as far as the gym; but all the while they have this mindset the likelihood of them being able to maintain a real lifestyle change in the long term is hugely diminished.
I can even think of clients who in terms of behavioural change alone have done all the right things and have still not reached their targets. They have exercised more ( I know this because, as a Personal Trainer, I witnessed this), and, having listened dutifully to the whole re-education bit they have said they had eaten less and more healthily. I had no reason to disbelieve certain clients and yet still there was no change of the type they said they wanted. My personal belief now, knowing all that I do about NLP, is that these particular individuals were strongly motivated by wanting to move away from where they were- they were trying to avoid a state they had come to loathe - rather than focussing on what they wanted. It’s a case of mind over matter; only in these circumstances the impact of the negative mindset negates the positive behavioural changes.
So how do you tell; how can you identify a client who is an ‘Away From’ as opposed to a ‘Towards’ and what can you do about it?
A couple of simple questions around what a client feels is important with regard to their health and fitness can be illuminating.
Ask your client
“What is important to you in terms of your health and fitness?”
and they might answer
“Looking good, having energy, being able to run for the bus”
and of course, these are the types of answers people will come out with during their induction in response to standard questions such as
“What do you hope to achieve from your fitness program?”
But it’s what you ask next that will get the result. What you do is to ask them why?
“Why is looking good/having energy/being able to run for the bus important in the context of your health and fitness?”
It is this line of questioning that will reveal the
“Because I am fed up with looking like the back end of a rhinoceros”
(actual quote)
type statements – pretty much an Away From I would say!
The problem with negative thinking is that it becomes habitual; but when a client begins to think and speak ( this is the ‘L’ – Linguitics – in NLP ) more positively for example, the easier it will become because we learn by repetition. This is similar to a person walking through a field and always taking a particular route. After a number of times through the field, a path will begin to form. As the path forms, the person’s pace will become faster since one knows where to go and consequently the grass is worn down under one’s steps, eventually becoming a well trodden dirt track. In the same manner, by practising thinking positively, a neuron path will begin to form. After a period of time, thinking positively will become second nature because the neuron connections have been conditioned to set up that particular route.
But how do we get client’s to make that shift in the first place ? How could we help this client to focus on what she would like to look like, presumably slim, rather than being preoccupied with what she doesn’t want to look like -a rhino.
Basically you will need to persuade your clients, and demonstrate to them, that they can, literally, change their minds ( this is the ‘P’ – Programming- in NLP). You will need to encourage them to get very clear about and focus on what it is they want, because you get what you concentrate on. Their task is to begin to focus on how they will be when have achieved their outcome, rather than where they are now, and there are many NLP techniques you can employ to help them do this. Advanced techniques such as Timeline work, for example, can be used to help clients create a compelling future; given the level of complexity involved such techniques are best taught at Practitioner level by qualified NLP Trainers. It is possible however to utilise models such as the Well Formed Outcome Model (see below). Working through the questions will in itself help a client re-focus and encourage them towards a Towards orientation. And remember , if a goal’s worth having, it’s worth having a Well Formed Outcome !
Think of something you want to achieve, be it a business or fitness goal, and work through the questions yourself, or with a colleague a few times, before working with clients.
Well Formed Outcomes
1. Stated in the Positive
“What do you want?”
“What will that do for you?”
2. Demonstrable in Sensory Experience – Evidence Procedure
“How will you know when you have got it?”
V “What will you be seeing when you have got it?”
A “What will you be hearing when you have got it?”
K “What will you be feeling when you have got it?”
V “What will I see you doing when you have got it?”
A “What will I hear you saying when you have got it?”
3. Started and Maintained by You
“Can you start and maintain this outcome?”
4. Appropriately Contextualised
“When, where and with whom do you want it?”
“When, where and with whom do you not want it?”
“How long for?”
5. Maintain the Current Positive Byproducts
“What do I get out of my current behaviour, that I would wish to preserve?”
6. Ecology Check
“Is it worth the cost to you?”
“Is it worth the time it is going to take?”
“Is this outcome in keeping with your sense of self?”
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