Advertisers are among the smartest Jedi persuaders out there. When you think about it, if you are good at persuasion, becoming an advertiser is a great way to make a living.
However, today I’d like to talk about personal change. One of the great things about NLP is that you can use to it model anything, and then apply it however you’d like.
So first, let’s talk about setting and achieving goals. Most of us have goals. And most of us have things that are between us and where we want to go. If there wasn’t anything between us and where we wanted to go, we’d already be where we wanted to be, and we’d be looking back on where we were and think to ourselves, “Damn, that was easy!”
Unfortunately, it’s not usually like that. Most of the time, we think things like, “well, I want to get xxx but…”
Well, you’re about to learn a trick from advertising that will help make those “obstacles” into small little pebbles you can easily step over.
We’ll go through an example, and just substitute your own experiences in the appropriate places.
Let’s say your goal is to become the top salesman of your company. But in order to do so, you’ve got to be able to stand in front of a group of executives, pitch your service, and close a significant portion of the time.
The problem, or obstacle, is that you’re terrified of public speaking. Or maybe not terrified, but you definitely can’t perform as well as when you’re talking to your buddies.
Now, every time you imagine your goal, you’ll also be thinking of that terror inducing obstacle.
Not so helpful. This is precisely why just focusing on the goal, which is the way goal setting is usually taught, won’t work.
You need to focus on the obstacles, and change the automatic emotions it creates from one of “terror” to something else.
What else?
Preferably some “good” emotions that are already genetically pre-programmed. Like getting money, satisfied lust, a tasty cheeseburger, or whatever good feelings are easy to conjure up.
How to do this?
The same way advertisers sell cars.
The put up a picture of a car, next to some hot girl in a bikini. The idea isn’t so that you’ll think consciously, “Hey if I buy that car, I’ll get that bikini girl!”
The idea is that all those good feelings that you associate with the girl in the bikini will kind of “bleed over” onto the car. Pretty soon, when you think of the car, you’ll automatically think thoughts of sexual desire, or whatever else you think of when you see a hot bikini girl.
So how do we do the same thing with public speaking?
The same way. Just conjure up a couple images in your head. One of the “obstacle,” in this case, public speaking. Another of something, anything that automatically gives you really good feelings.
And since this is happening in your head and not on TV, it can be as X-rated as you want.
The more often you hold both those images in your head, the better this will work.
Then, when you focus on your goal, the steps that it takes to get there won’t cause fear, but desire.
Which will make achieving those goals a lot more fun.
Try it, and see how well it works.