"5 STEPS TO A MORE FULFILLING LIFE"

Welcome to Lesson Two:

Learning from the Success of Others

Welcome to lesson two of “5 Steps to a More Fulfilling Life”

I hope you enjoyed last weeks lesson and that you really did follow through with the exercises. There is great value to recognising where your self image is encouraging you to achieve amazing personal success or where it maybe holding you back from fulfilling your true potential.

It is my intention throughout this course to unveil to you how easy it can be to start living a more satisfying life simply by directing your thoughts in a particular way. All of the techniques I am sharing with you work for everyone. While it is true that some people will find themselves more open to these insights than others, every person on earth can benefit from these tools because they work in harmony with how human beings naturally function. On one hand we can be very complex creatures with many mysterious facets to the inner workings of our minds. On the other hand there are some very straight forward principles that determine how we experience life, and these principles are the same for everyone.

Most people like to think of themselves as unique, and regard being different as a great strength. I would agree that having individually tailored talents and personalities is what makes us interesting and should be celebrated. However, I’d also like to point out that...

...we are not nearly as different to each other as we want to believe – and that is not such a bad thing!

A MODEL EXAMPLE

The most fundamental way in which we are all the same is that we were each born with a brain, a body and a nervous system that connects the brain and the body together. We only become recognisably unique in our behaviour and characters when we start using this equipment in different ways.

This is great news, because if your brain had the potential to make you the person you are today, then it also has the potential to create something other than what you are used to.

Oddly enough I’ve often had people tell me of their disappointment that they were not born as someone else! They somehow think that if they were born in a different body then they would have been more successful / lucky / popular / happy.

Have you ever looked at somebody who is enjoying greater success than you and wondered what it must be like to be them? What is it that they know, think or feel that causes them to take the kind of actions that lead them to the achievement of their goals?

I think the greatest advantage that anyone has is their ability to be flexible with their thinking and behaviours, because it is this flexibility that allow us to experiment with what does and doesn’t work for us.

Think of it like this. Let’s say you go into a computer store and buy two PCs of identical specification. They both have completely blank hard drives apart from the basic operating system. You intend to use one of the PCs for business purposes, e.g. to create and maintain a website, manage your accounts and build a database for storing important client information. The other PC will be used as an entertainments machine for handling music, gaming and video editing.

So you get the two computers home, set them up and begin to load the appropriate software onto each one so that they will be able to perform the tasks you require of them. It doesn’t take too long before these identical machines start to behave very differently.

Let’s now imagine that six months have gone by and you realise your business PC is now unusable because of a bug is has contracted (if only you’d installed adequate virus protection!!). One alternative is to use your entertainments PC for your business needs, but as you know its hard drive is now full with video, gaming and music files, not to mention the fact that it doesn’t even know how to calculate your accounts, maintain a website or manage your client records. So what do you do?

You realise that if you want your entertainments PC to start behaving like a business PC you’re going to have to remove some unwanted files and make room for the right software.

Your brain operates in a remarkably similar way to a computer. At birth its hard drive was pretty much blank. Your early programming, that is your upbringing, has had a massive influence on the person you have become, and this, combined with the life experiences you have encountered along the way, has ultimately shaped you into an adult with a unique pattern of behaviour, skill set and way of looking at the world.

It’s a fair bet that your next door neighbour has grown up to be an adult with a completely different pattern of behaviour, skill set and way of looking at the world. But they were born with exactly the same equipment as you: A brain, a body and a nervous system.

Does it not seem reasonable to assume that if you were to start thinking the same thoughts, acting the same way and believing the same beliefs as your next door neighbour then you would probably start to share similar results?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if, instead of being envious of people who appear to be doing ‘better’ than us at certain things, we could congruently emulate their thoughts and behaviours in a way that led us to similar outcomes? How about if your next door neighbour was Richard Branson?

I want to introduce you to a powerful developmental tool called Modelling. It comes from the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and is the process of training your nervous system to know what to do in order to experience successful results.

In other words, modelling is a way of installing the right software in your brain so that it can easily do what you want it to.

There are many modelling techniques and the one I am going to share with you here involves you thinking about a person who is already able to demonstrate the kind of qualities that you want to develop. This person will not necessarily be someone you know personally, but they can be. They could be someone famous; alive or dead. They could be a friend or family member. It could be your boss or a co-worker. It really doesn’t matter as long you are able to image them in the act of displaying the skill / behaviour / attitude you’d like to model.

For this exercise it is best to be standing and have your eyes closed, so it is important that you are in a situation where it is safe and appropriate to do so. Obviously you’ll need to read thought these instructions before carrying out the exercise!

So let’s get started:

1. Think about someone who has already achieved the kind of results you want to experience, in whatever area that may be.

2. Close your eyes and begin to visualise that person right there in front of you, just going about their business in that way that has helped them become successful at whatever it is that you want to model.

3. As your imagination becomes clearer draw your attention to their body language. How are they standing (or sitting)? What message does that convey to others? How do they move? Are they relaxed, confident, or something else? Look at their face and notice what you notice about their expression – what does it tell you?

4. If other people are present, how does this person interact with them? What words do they use? What is the tone and tempo of their voice? Really let yourself become aware of exactly how they behave when they are demonstrating this quality you want to model.

5. Now, still with your eyes closed, imagine that you can step into the body of this person (it helps to take a physical step forward as you imagine this) so you are now experiencing the situation through their eyes, using their senses and thought processes. The important thing here is to leave yourself behind so that you assume the identity of your model. For the time being you are them.

6. Physically put your body into the same position as they would have it. Adopt the same facial expression. Begin to get a real sense of what it is like to be them. How does it feel to talk using those words and that tone of voice?

7. This is the really important bit!! Adopt this person’s internal dialogue and investigate what it is they believe that makes them act so successfully in this kind of situation (remember to stay in character as you do this). What is their self-image like? What is their attitude? How do they feel emotionally? Give yourself plenty of time to absorb this information.

8. Now, as this person, think about what advice you would give to someone who wanted to learn to be more like you at this particular skill or behaviour. Notice that your original self is standing next to you and tell them what they need to hear.

9. When your original self has understood and taken your advice onboard step out of the model's body and back into your own original self – taking the learning with you. Give yourself a moment to let the experience sink in before opening your eyes and giving your body a bit of a shakeout to revive your senses.

The purpose of this exercise is to give you a much greater awareness of how someone else manipulates their nervous system to achieve a successful result. Obviously it is impossible to know what it is actually like to be another person, but with this type of flexible thinking it is far easier to make a well educated guess.

In order to participate in this exercise your own nervous systems has to make a shift, and this marks the beginning of a change within yourself. Once your mind has been stretched by a new idea it can never go back to its original dimensions.

So how can you use this technique in your life?

Next time you are in a situation where you’d like to demonstrate similar behavioural qualities of your model, imagine stepping back into their body and experience how differently things take place when go about using their body language, attitude and belief system. This will send a very powerful signal to your nervous system to create in you a highly resourceful state. The kind of state that spells success!

Practice doing this regularly and play around with it. No one need know what you are doing, but you may well find the world starts responding to you in a far more favourable way.

The critical thing is to recognise that modelling is definitely not about trying to be someone that you are not. It is simply an opportunity for you to take a holiday from your habitual patterns of thought and behaviour to experience another way. You cannot lose your identity by trying on the behaviour or belief system of someone else. It’s simply an effective way of learning, just like when you were a child and pretended to be your favourite TV character or film star, which is partly how you developed your confidence back then.

Pretending that you’ve been injected with the spirit of someone you really admire is like carrying your personal mentor around with you – and you can have different mentors for different things – what fun!

Anything they can do, so can you. Practicing this kind of flexible thinking will offer you many lessons for breaking free of old limiting beliefs and behaviours and provide a window into a world where anything is possible.

Until next time, have a wonderful week.