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Outcome Thinking vs Problem Thinking

OUTCOMES

You can think of any personal development as a journey from a current state to a desired state. The extent of difference between the two states determines the opportunity for improvement. To bridge that journey you set up a set of a set of desired results that you want to achieve within a certain time frame. These results are commonly referred to as 'outcomes' in the NLP lingo.

An outcome is not the same as a task. An outcome is something that you want and a task is something that you have to do to achieve it. So just doing some tasks in the absence of any set outcomes is nothing but waste of energy. On the other hand the tasks that you do once you have defined the outcomes clearly would be full of energy.

To make your journey from the present state to the desired state successful you need to be ready to answer the following questions:

• What is it that I want to achieve? ( the outcomes)
• Why do I want what I want? ( the guiding purpose)
• How will I get to what I want? (the strategy for the journey)
• What would I do if  something goes wrong in the way ?(risk management and mitigation)

PROBLEM FRAME VS OUTCOME FRAME

The opposite of thinking in terms of outcomes is to think in terms of problems. The entire structure related that is predominantly focused on problems is referred to as 'Problem frame' of thinking. The whole society today is largely centered around problem thinking. I have no doubts on the intent of problem based thinking but what it essentially does is that it makes our mind focus on what is wrong. And for majority the next step is always to look for 'allocating' blame. The premise here is that 'problems happen because others make them happen deliberately :-)'

Typically the problem based thinking  starts with questions like:

• What has gone wrong or what is wrong?
• How long this has been happening?
• Why have you not solved it yet?
• Who is at fault here?
• When did this problem really start?

These questions are guaranteed to make you and others involved feel worse then you were feeling before and put you in a lower energy state. In this state you cannot apply the level of creativity that may be required to solve the problem.  Thus one can say:

Problem thinking actually makes the problem even more difficult to solve.

On the other hand the 'Outcome frame' starts with instead asking :

• What do I want to get in the given situation?
• Why do I want to get what I want?

The answers put you in an 'outcome orientation' as you are now moving in a more purposeful way. The energy is higher and your mind is in a much more powerful frame to identify solutions.

STATING AN OUTCOME

An outcome is always to be stated in a positive terms. This is because it is easier to move towards what you want instead of moving away from what you do not want.

As an example, just think about a jumping white kangaroo. 

Now, if I tell you that such thinking is bad for health and so you STOP thinking about jumping white kangaroo. So please stop thinking.

Are you still thinking about it?

So you would realize that how it is not possible to 'not think' about something without first thinking about it. So instead of stopping to think about 'jumping white kangaroo' you can think about something you would rather want to put your focus on lets say a Lion!

It is due to same reason why people find it difficult to quit certain bad habits. For example, if someone says 'I want to quit smoking' then the picture that comes to mind is that of him 'smoking'. Instead the person should ask 'why I want to quit smoking?' . The answer could be 'because i want good health'. The focus then should be ' I want good health' which becomes the outcome that the person is looking for.

Just remember:

Whatever you resist persists and whatever you focus on grows..

In the next article we would look at the steps involved in defining and pursuing a ' well formed outcome'.

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Introduction to NLP & Four Pillars of NLP

Introducing NLP

NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming is one of the most powerful and impactful method that can be used to drive personal change. It can be learned and used by anyone who wants to make a change for good.  It is an empowering methodology that finds applications in diverse areas of human potential viz sports, theater, business and so on. Through this blog I would demystify and bring these concepts to you in an easy to understand manner. 

Let us first understand what do we understand by NLP and how does it help us. NLP can simply be defined as the art and science of personal excellence. It is an art because everyone brings in their own uniqueness to what they do and this uniqueness cannot be captured in words or techniques. It is a science because there is a method and a process to identify the patterns that are used by outstanding individuals in diverse fields to get outstanding results. The process is known as modeling and the patterns thus identified are incresingly being used in the field of education and business to drive more effective communication and personal development.

Thus to summarize,  following 3 bullets state what practicing NLP could mean for you:

• NLP gives you the ability to drive human excellence
• NLP gives you the ability to be your best more often
• NLP gives you the power to make an effective and lasting personal change

Pillars of NLP

Pillars of NLP can also be understood as some of the basis building blocks and the entities that govern the entire NLP framework. 

You: the center of NLP framework is the You or the individual. It is you who would be deciding where you are and where you want to go and decide what changes are required to be made by you to reach your destination.

Outcome: This is what do you want to achieve or where you want to go. This is very important because unless you know where you want to go everything else is futile.

Sensory Acuity: This is about making use of your five senses of sight, sound, feeling, taste and smell in the most appropriate manner. Thus training in sensory acuity which results in expanded use of your senses to see, feel and hear things in a different perspective is integral to practicing NLP. It also means you getting a heightened awareness of your internal images, sounds and feelings. 

Flexibility: NLP is all about giving yourself more choices. Flexibility means that when you know that something which you are doing is not working then you do something else, anything else. With increased sensory acuity you would be in a better position to see, feel and hear what is working and what is not working. Once you get clarity on this you can choose the best response to the situation. NLP thus aims to give you more choices which means at least three in any situation. You would appreciate that  the person having the most choices in a situation and demonstrating greatest flexibility in behavior would be in control of the situation.

Let us understand these with an example. Let us say that you want to learn rowing a boat. The outcome that you are looking at is to ferry the boat from one shore to the opposite shore. As you start rowing you notice your direction(sensory acuity). You compare it with where you are supposed to go and if you find that you are off course, you change direction (flexibility). You would keep repeating this cycle until you reach the other shore (outcome).

You can extrapolate the usage of these NLP pillars to any work related situation as well to understand how they apply. We will look at applications of these concepts to work & business situations later on. In the first few posts I would focus on explaining the basics.

I hope you would have got some learning from this post. I am committed to give my best shot at sharing my knowledge & experience in this area. I am hoping to resonate with anyone who is interested in not only taking charge of his/her life but also wants to help his/her near and dear ones. 

In the next post I would talk about the 'Outcomes' in more detail...