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Man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself, though both the indestructible element and the trust may remain permanently hidden from him.

Franz Kafka Reflections

He was balanced precariously with one foot on the roof and one still on the top rung of the ladder. 'I can' t move my foot' he stammered. My husband had determined to get onto the roof of our French house to repair the tiles but the roof was high and the ladder was shaky. Eventually he got both feet on the roof but was fixed rigid on hands and knees like spiderman frozen in time. At last he managed to get down but without having repaired a single tile in fact he broke one in the attempt. 'I don't have the courage to move or the belief that I am safe' he said, frustrated with this last attempt.

Here is a situation that lends itself to self modelling. If we believe that we do have all the resources we need within ourselves to achieve what we want the key is to find them and access them. In this way we redirect our resources to other contexts. My husband realised that he did of course have courage and could identify a situation where he had courage to take a similar action when he was afraid. He also remembered that at that same time he had the belief that he could act in a way that was safe and did so. So in remembering and exploring that time he got an insight as to how he could progressively go through a number of stages to get onto the roof.

So self modelling is a way of releasing the resources we need to achieve what we want. By modelling exactly how we have accessed those resources in the past we can step into them as a conscious choice when we want them. Self modelling is also a form of coaching. When you know how you do what you do then you have choice - choice to do the same again - choice to achieve more of the same or choice to do different.

In working with a manager who had lost his self esteem and who was consequently losing business deals that he felt he would otherwise have got I noticed that he never used 'I' in conversation. He would talk of others but when it came to anything that was potentially to do with himself he made comments such as 'It is important that ....' Or 'You don't do that ....' But actually meaning 'I'. I fed this back to him and he realised that he not only deleted 'I' from conversation but he had diminished and effectively deleted his own significance to the business after having received some feedback a couple of years before that had suggested that he was aggressive in overplaying his personal wants and needs at the expense of others. Being aware of how his conversation reflected this he had an immediate means of monitoring himself and making himself consciously aware of what he was doing.

I quote from some feedback from a delegate on one of our Personal Mastery courses:

The key messages for me really revolve around the value of observing behaviour and language and bringing this awareness into the conscious mind. This was totally reflected in my experience on the programme that you ran and I think this is the key to it all really - making the unconscious conscious and releasing the power that the mind holds. It is also very clear to me about the importance of helping the person being coached to realise that they do have all the resources that they need to bring about change and create a new reality! By making people aware of what they do now and what they want to do in the future you give that person choice. As you say in your first book 'people make the best decision available to them at the time that they make it' and by raising awareness I believe the quality of those decisions improve.

Course Delegate Personal Mastery

Self modelling i.e. making yourself consciously aware of what you so often take for granted with what you do unconsciously is a means of building consistency into the results that you achieve. If for example you know how you make that outstanding sale then you can reproduce it. If you know how you put over your points persuasively then you can have consistency in the way that you do it in the future. Similarly if you know how you get yourself stressed then you could do it with even greater skill unless you would like some new choices! If you know how you get yourself depressed once again you could do it to order or you could begin to change the pattern.

Modelling is at the heart of NLP. Most successful people model naturally. They know what they do that works and they repeat that success. Watch a top athlete or sportsperson preparing themselves to compete; they will have a sequence of behaviours and thoughts that they use because they know it is what gets them into the state they need to play well. Have you ever seen the All Blacks at the start of a match. No doubt about what works for them!