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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