Compelling Future or Compulsive Past

One of the truly great contributions that NLP has made is to offer people a means of controlling their own lives. Gone are the days when a person might be stuck in an endless cycle of repetitive behaviors and responses resulting in the tedium of ever diminishing effectiveness. So what is the means by which these, at times near miraculous, results are achieved?

By calibrating oneself at the level of sensory specific process (how you use your internal VAKAd) direct control is gained over your immediate state of mind. With the ensuing concordant behaviors the expected desired results become a lay down misere - given appropriate skill level and compatible external factors out of your control.

So how do you consistently maintain this approach until your outcome is reached and beyond? The answer is found in your ability to link a desired outcome to a compelling future of such an irresistible magnetism that your state of mind and behaviors are increasingly drawn to the ultimate conclusion - your outcome. A compelling future is formed by appropriate use of submodalities with your desired outcome strongly linked to your values and sense of identity.

Desired State

A simple process, it would seem, to make the world a better place, at least for yourself. What does a desired state actually reflect? Basically, the satisfaction of certain aspects of our psyche or personality. These can include our passions, coping mechanisms, compulsions, fears, perceived lack, habits, appetites, sheer sensory stimulation, societal dictates and basic wants and needs. Any analysis of these influencing driving factors will show their roots to be well and truly buried in the past. Another way to refer to these collective facets of our personality would be the Ego or the perceived self.

If a compelling future is oriented to cater to any of the above (the Ego) chances are it is actually based on compulsions rooted in the past. Even with the desired outcome the past would merely be reproducing itself in a different format. Ecology checks, common to any NLP process, would not prevent this as they serve the same facets of the Ego. You may notice how some people have a constant theme running through their lives - or you may have a constant theme running through your life whether you are aware of it or not. Is someone obsessively driven by success, a successful relationship, power, an easy life, security, waiting for the right moment, perfection, uniqueness and so on?

What are the implications of this for someone in today's society? It would seem that the consistent scratching of an old itch, so to speak, really just leads to an ongoing development of increasingly sophisticated coping mechanisms. At best a person who consistently and successfully pursues this path will be recognized as a successful product of their time - as naive and even pathetic as that would seem to future generations.

A Bhuddist would say that life is suffering, and that desire is the cause of suffering. A Christian would say that the love of money is the root of all evil....take out the word money and insert whatever attachment you are compelled toward.

Personal Power

Locking your desires, state of mind, identity, values and behaviors into a compelling future now, is to lock yourself into the current state of the Ego - with all its inadequacies. No matter, as that fails in time to deliver you from unfulfilling results you can do it again. Bolster the Ego up with more resources: perhaps more confidence might work - hence the growing war cry of "Personal Power" or "Self Empowerment" - a child of the 90's - 00's.

Perhaps more sinister are the implications for society at large. The greatest criticism Carl Jung had of the pre-war Nazis was that they gave the people what they really wanted. Political, social and economic structures become the tools for catering to society's passions, coping mechanisms, fears.....etc. Leaders who perpetuate this myth will be naturally chosen (with appropriate ecology checks) until all these systems begin to fail - as they must. Within the futility of such crumbling structures the latter leadership issues will be more "who is less likely to damage" on to "who can offer salvation" - note the current election issues.

The ultimate social costs to those unable to contribute to or become part of the current paradigm is enormous - the desolation, despair, poverty among the youth and underprivileged today accentuate this.

The natural response to this is to develop another system: shunt up to another more sophisticated coping mechanism in the face of such structured change. Play the game yet again. It may be of passing interest to note that, for the first time in history, we don't have time for that anymore. So where can appropriate leadership come from? Perhaps lessons from the past can be useful at one level: The occasional rising of someone different enough and counter intuitive to the current trends whose prescient qualities show another course - such as a Gandhi.

But, why relieve yourself from appropriate change. Carl Jung was consistent in his opinion that the single most important development for the planet would be the individual's own interior journey beyond the Ego.."We are hanging by a single thread. Any one of us could make the difference." He may or may not rest easier knowing I agree with him. It seems that self-knowledge, self-awareness and self acceptance are fundamental qualities for the ever new beginning of this journey.

NLP can be an incredibly useful tool along the way but perhaps an inadequate total blueprint or paradigm for life. Follow the sheep or follow your own path. So how do you truly develop yourself beyond habitual patterns or the Ego? Good question.

May you spend the rest of your life resolving the answer.

Return from Compelling Future or Compulsive Past to How NLP Works Home Page