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My journey of personal development started a couple of years ago when I wrote about self development books for the magazine Success Now. My brief was to read books and then write about them from a novice's perspective, which was the only perspective I had at the time. The first book I read was NLP at Work by someone called Sue Knight. It was so easy to read and to apply in the world around me that it gave me a practical and useful understanding of NLP. It helped me to understand the other books that I read. And it raised my awareness of my own thought processes and how I might influence my thinking and therefore language and behaviour. I quoted Sue in my articles. I remember particularly that I wrote about visualising a well-formed outcome - the intention being that you would know if you had reached your desired outcome if you had experienced it already in your imagination with all of your senses, knowing what you would see, hear and feel like in the moment of achievement. At the time of writing I provided an example of singing in performance. I wrote something along the lines of:

'...if I imagine I'm standing on a stage and the audience are standing up, applauding and shouting "more, more....here's your contract for Covent Garden" and "where did you buy your frock from?" ...then chances are that I am more likely to sound like Dame Kiri Te Kenawa (rather than Dame Edna Everidge)'

Since writing this, not only have I had opportunities to sing solos in performance but I have accepted them willingly, in the knowledge that I can because I've imagined that I can, and as Sue says, your brain doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction. This year I'm singing at three weddings. I don't do this for a living, it's a gift to my friends and family but before being introduced to NLP I am fairly sure that I wouldn't have even noticed the opportunities let alone accepted them. So where did these opportunities come from? On the surface the opportunities might seem extraordinary. One minute I have a very notional idea that I write about for a magazine and the next thing I am up there singing in front of large groups of people. Not at Covent Garden I hasten to add. Perhaps that was just a metaphor.

Another extraordinary thing is that I now work for Sue Knight. Now, how did that happen? The sequence of events seem so circuitous that it would appear on first inspection that there was nothing specific that I deliberately chose to do to contrive this to happen. However, my reading and learning has moved on since I started the journey of development and as with all my learning, the more I know, the more I realise what I don't kno, so my thinking in this area is a little vague. However, my impression is that there is something bigger than my individual conscious and unconscious processes influencing my life and behaviour. Much bigger.

This idea was discussed at length on the Business Practitioner course that I am currently attending through The Sue Knight Partnership. We talked about "the bigger system" and what it might mean. For example, it might mean in environmental terms, the weather system. The weather system exists and up until fairly recently it just happened to us - we didn't think about it as something we could influence.

However, nature is now giving us some very clear feedback. Mankind does influence the weather system, by polluting the atmosphere through driving cars, spewing out rubbish from factories, flying in aeroplanes and cutting down rain-forests. The ecology of what we are doing is not particularly productive or positive and nature is giving us the opportunity to make a choice. If we chose to act upon it we would alter our behaviour. On the other hand, to not do anything is also a choice, and nature will run its course. That's for sure.

So, with this in mind, what does the "bigger system" do for me? My understanding so far is that if I open up an idea or concept or behave in some way then the long term consequences along the line maybe something that I don't initially think about. When writing for Success Now, singing in public was a possibility, I did sing and I had singing lessons and sang in a choir, but no solo work. Meeting Sue Knight couldn't have been further from my mind - although was it? I may have considered (I don't remember) what meeting such a person might be like. I thought through how it would be to be evolved and writing about it - something I enjoyed doing anyway and the NLP and personal development was certainly intriguing enough to compel me to want to read and write more. At the time I would have framed the notion as "just a thought". I also know that I did wonder, years ago, what it would be like if business people behaved in a "nice" way to each other rather than so aggressively. And one career consideration after graduating was to work for author. And where am I now? Working for Sue Knight getting the advantage of constant and rapportful feedback and coaching, being given (?) taking (?) the opportunity to learn as much as possible and writing about it. Strikes me that the "bigger system" is at play. So, be careful what you wish for because your dreams may come true.

I do recall, however, that I realised reading books is one thing but doing some courses would really get the information "into the muscle". So here I am now, having completed the NLP Fundamentals course and learned about influencing myself, currently on the Business Practitioner course learning about coaching individuals and teams, how to give and receive feedback, how to create options, what a Learning Organisation is all about, addressing the future of business and leadership.

Leaders in their field, Dr David Hemery and Sir John Whitmore, who joined the group on module one of the Practitioner's course, lived and breathed every word of advice they proffered to us. They were an example of content free coaching and keeping on the performer's' agenda. Not an issue was talked about that was not solicited from them by the group. David demonstrated effortlessly, using a golfing example, how you can set yourself a goal, but rather than focussing on your outcome, if you stay focussed in the present moment, you can learn how to take the very next step towards your goal. And then, as you take the next step, your goal may shift. One delegate from ICL suddenly exclaimed how she had limited her team by requesting they double their output by a certain deadline. Which they did. But by setting and focussing on that goal, she feels now on reflection, that she may have limited their achievement. She could see that if she had asked the team what they thought they could do, and coaching them to make the next step, they may have trebled or quadrupled their output. John chipped in that letting go of control usually does ease any performance. What a concept for business!

The irony for me is that whilst learning anything, including the principles of NLP , I have a desire to create a structure so that I have pegs I can hang my understanding on. I wonder if I let go of that desire to control and influence my learning, I would learn better, faster, more. I could let go and see what happens. One thing is for sure, if I try to let go, that won't work because that's a control in itself. However, whatever I do will be what works for me. I recall learning to drive and how long it seemed to me before the information I was taking on board was assimilated from conscious to unconscious competence. And yet now, as with most drivers, I can drive to somewhere I know (goal) without even thinking about it for a moment and looking back cannot recall how I got there. However, the same journey can vary every day, every moment continuously and always, with different traffic and diversions. I don't recall reacting in the moment and yet I still arrive at my destination. I don't recall controlling that.