One of the many reasons why NLP resonates so well with me is because I am fascinated with human potential. NLP was founded on human excellence when John Grinder and Richard Bandler joined forces and modelled the geniuses to create the field of NLP. A distinction I observe in high achievers is they know what they want in life. They have a deep commitment to doing whatever it takes to get their goal and there is no doubt about getting it. In NLP speak we call this being congruent with your outcome.
Many years ago when I worked in the financial services field, a wise man said to me, “there are two types of people, those who set goals and those who don’t”. He added “the people who don’t set goals end up working for those who do”. This man was a very successful entrepreneur who had always has excellent sound bites for me. Another great saying he had was “by failing to plan you are planning to fail”. I thought about his quotes and to me they made sense. So I set what I now know to be an outcome for owning my own business and now 25 years on have achieved hundreds if not thousands of goals through that early outcome. So what is the difference between a goal and an outcome?
In some ways a goal and an outcome are similar and in other ways they are different. A goal is very specific, measurable in the sense it can be touched and is generally linear. An outcome is higher level, multi dimensional and usually includes multiple small goals. In terms of creating change in your life an outcome can be something that is not necessarily tangible in the sense it can be touched i.e. you could have an outcome to be ‘smoke free’ or ultra fit, the evidence criteria for the outcome is what is measured. The evidence criteria may consist of many goals. One of the many contributions NLP made to the world of personal development is utilisation of outcome criteria, see below.
The above process is quite extensive, but if something is worth having it’s worth thinking through properly. Each step supports the whole goal. Take one step away or even dilute it and the whole outcome process is weakened. I like to think big picture when working on an outcome. This means your outcome is not static. A question I ask myself is ‘what will achieving this outcome enable me to do?’ This question should get you thinking at a big picture level. You are thus connecting the concrete description of your outcome and first steps – with the big picture of your life. This type of thinking merges pragmatic doing with visionary thinking.
In New Code NLP we utilise what is known as third position. A clean third position is seeing and evaluating ones performance from the perspective of an observer. To create a third position just get a sense you can step out of your body and see a clear image with sound track of yourself in the context of the outcome. There is a set of questions in NLP that utilise a language pattern called modal operators of possibility to test congruency of a goal. These questions seem to work very well when asked from third position. The questions are below; you can test your commitment to the outcome. When describing the outcome reference yourself as him/her or by your name, that means you are using third person language. The questions below will further test the ecology of the goal. Remember to use sensory specific language.
Did the questions bring anything else to your attention that you need to pay attention to? Or are you ready to go and fully committed.
We already know successful people set goals and outcomes, but are successful people simply lucky at achieving their goals? It may appear as if they are lucky as people and situations find them, but I don’t think it comes down to luck. I think by setting a well formed outcome you increase your so called luck potential. The different stages of the outcome create a filter in your mind. Your attention will be drawn to things that will support you achieving your outcome. There is also the law of attraction at play; you will attract to you what you need to make your goal a reality.
To summarise, successful people regardless of their NLP experience set outcomes. The NLP outcome setting process helps make an outcome more concrete as well as testing the congruency behind an outcome. A well trained NLP coach works with client to help them define their outcome in a congruent manner. The use of third (observer) position is useful in exploring the congruency and ecology of an outcome. When you set outcomes, you tend to get lucky and attract to you what you need to make the outcome a reality. So what are you waiting for, set yourself an exciting outcome and enjoy achieving it.
