Appreciation The 5 Principles of Success (1 Viewer)

jasque · 30 July 2019

1. Know your outcome
Step 1 in the five principles for success is to really know what it is that you want to achieve or what you want your outcome to be. Recognise the outcome is the ‘start’ place, you give it your hundred percent. It’s important you put your attention on what you want and stay focused on the goal, it’s often the high level focus on the goal that gets you through the challenges you face as you progress on the journey. As Henry Ford famously said ‘obstacles are only obstacles when you lose sight of your goals’ .

2. Take action
I like the butterfly effect metaphor from chaos theory , where it said (metaphorically) that a hurricane can be influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a butterfly thousands of miles away weeks earlier. The butterfly effect describes the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic, in a nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. In every day behaviour, such as goal setting, this translates to taking action right now, no matter how small and then continuing to take those actions towards your goal.

This small action strategy breaks the procrastination associated with overwhelm frequently associated with bigger goals. Sitting around, waiting for the law of attraction to kick in will not help you achieve your goals. Action and more action is the route to success. So when you set your goal take immediate action, no matter how small that action may be. It gets you committed and gets the ball rolling.

3. Have sensory acuity, use your senses with precision
Many people are oblivious to what is going on around them and therefore are missing important feedback regarding their goals. This means they are walking around with their eyes and ears closed to the signals in their immediate environment and are unaware of their gut feeling which is giving unconscious feedback on what is being absorbed in the other senses. When en route to a goal, like an explorer, it is important to track where you are at all times.
If you are off track, you get back on track, if there is an obstacle ahead, rather than colliding with it you work away around it. If you have a strange feeling, investigate the possible messages that feeling is communicating. Have your sensory awareness tuned to a very high level.

4. Have behavioural flexibility
In NLP there is a presupposition borrowed from cybernetics which says ‘the person with the most flexibility will have the most control in the system’ I prefer to say ‘the person with the most flexibility will be the catalyst in the system’ . So what does this mean? Many people set a goal and think there may be only one route to achieve that goal, or maybe not recognise when it’s time to take a different approach or modify the goal.
The business world is full of stories where ‘start ups’ take a different approach to business than the established companies. The established companies being so successful fail to calibrate the change in the market or a hungry young competitor that is barking at their ankles. In a relatively short period of time, the hungry young competitor is leading the field through the initial flexibility in their approach.

The same is true in sports where the underdog is underestimated and through behavioural flexibility is victorious, and more recently we have seen this in politics, who would have thought that a proactive and sometimes aggressive Social Media campaign would be the difference that made the difference in the US elections. Like it or not, Donald Trump became the US president, not on policy but on flexibility.

Many people set out with the goal to set out to President, and after the primaries, there were two candidates with the same goal, Trump was more flexible. I am not advocating Trump policy here, I am pointing to the form inherent in behavioural differences and the willingness to break from the tried and tested approaches.

5. Operate from a physiology and psychology of excellence
So what do we mean by a physiology and psychology of excellence in NLP terms? How you stand, how you breathe and how you carry yourself creates a physiology and psychology of excellence. States of excellence are communicated in your body and voice tone as well as the words you use. Adornments such as the clothes you wear also communicate powerful messages. Have you ever heard the saying ‘there was something about that man/woman that makes them different and stand out’. Such sayings are usually attributed to posture and walk.

Our internal dialogue determines our individual psychology. If you have negative internal dialogue talking about difficulties, you will find it difficult when you face unexpected challenges and could talk yourself out of success. Additionally negative internal dialogue will correlate directly to your physiology, which is more likely to be shoulders hunched, spine curved and general tension.
Such physiology will sponsor tiredness and weakness.If you have positive internal dialogue and positive personal psychology , your body is more likely to be upright and without tension giving you energy to focus, work through challenges and achieve your goals. A useful NLP pattern is the ‘Chain of Excellence (Grinder and Bostic 2001) whereby when facing a challenge dominated by negative internal dialogue, you adjust your breathing and then posture, which will influence your state and ultimately your performance.

Breathing –> Physiology –> State –> Performance

In this article I have documented some of public changes that seemed unlikely a year ago. You probably had unexpected events more closer to home. Life brings change, it’s how we adapt to changes that determine our personal happiness. The 5 Principles of Success is an excellent way to set up your 2017 and go for your goals with passion, offering strategies to deal with the unexpected which is sure to occur.

I wish you the best for an amazing 2017