Achieving Excellence - 3 NLP Patterns
Author
Damon Cart
Date
Oct 08, 2018
Content
Author
As some of you know I'm traveling in Asia right now. Call it a vacation, but I'm also working as you might have guessed from receiving this email.
I've found that I don't like taking long periods off from work because I'm passionate about what I do and I don't want to stop. One of my aspirations of excellence is to merge work and play to the point that they're fully integrated.
It's working really well.
Writing this from Hanoi, Vietnam but I shot the video below in Hong Kong next to the Bruce Lee statue overlooking Kowloon Bay, which is quite a symbol of excellence.
It's quite possible that you could just use one of these three patterns to achieve excellence, but why leave anything up to chance?
Use all three!
Bruce Lee used to teach his martial arts students to not just aim at the target they want to hit. Instead he told them to aim inches beyond the target.
You can hit or miss your target, but if you aim beyond it, you're much more likely to hit it and achieve the desired result and more.
How does this apply to excellence?
Don't just aim at your goals and hit them. Aim beyond them.
Do this by understanding what achieving excellence in a particular area will do for you. What's important to you about achieving excellence?
This is the first pattern.
Ask this question repeatedly until you elicit your highest values for achieving excellence. Connecting with and fulfilling these values removes the need for focusing on willpower and discipline to achieve excellence.
Willpower and discipline are good for getting started on the journey, but they won't take you the whole way because they will run out.
Your values are pure motivation unless you're not clear what they are. When you're clear about what they are, you will be motivated without even thinking about it.
The second pattern is strategy.
What strategies are you using to keep you from excellence?
Does that sound like a weird question?
Say you work a full time job doing something you're not passionate about and that doesn't fulfill you, but you need to pay your bills so you do it.
Been there my friend. It's tough, I know.
You want to work toward excellence in something that fulfills you but when you get home from work you would rather drink beer, watch movies, or play video games.
Those are actually strategies you're using to fulfill a value or values.
"No that's not Damon. That's laziness" you might be thinking.
Laziness is a strategy. Laziness is not a bug or a virus you catch. It's a strategy.
Stop feeding this idea of laziness. Stop giving it meaning. Stop creating a story about it like "I've worked all day so I deserve to go home an do nothing." While that may be true, it's not helping you.
Get out of content and start looking at structure.
There's nothing wrong with rest, doing something mindless just for fun or getting in some downtime in. In fact, it's necessary up to a point.
Understand this as a strategy, not as a fact. Content is the story you're telling yourself. Calling it lazy is giving it meaning, which is a form of content.
Understanding it as a strategy is looking at it as structure and this will free you.
You just need a new strategy.
How about scheduling your laziness?
Give yourself a certain amount of time to do nothing or do something that rejuvenates you and then afterward get to work on whatever it is you aspire to be excellent at.
How's that for a strategy?
Last but not least, what resources are you not accessing, internal resources that are missing that keep you from excellence?
What do I mean by resources?
In NLP we say that you already have all of the resources you need to accomplish anything you want and also that the only thing keeping you in a state of desire rather than a desired state is whether or not you're accessing an internal resource or resources.
Examples of resources are creativity, compassion, resilience, determination, courage, acceptance, charisma, abundance, etc.
Let's say excellence to you is creating a successful business. You know your values driving this aspiration. You have a good strategy in place and yet, it's still not working.
What's missing?
Look inside and find out what you're not accessing or rather what you need to access within yourself to make your strategy work.
Values and resources are not the same thing but they're closely related. A value can also be a resource. You can value creativity and creativity can also be a resource you need to create a solution to a problem that's holding you back.
Many people complain they don't have time so time becomes a missing resource but you can't change time. Look to your values for help.
I once saw a quote from Ghandi that goes something like "action determines your priorities."
If you truly value something, it needs to be a priority.
Make time for it because otherwise you'll never accomplish what you want and if you're not fulfilling your values you're not going to be happy and fulfilled.
Once you find what resource or resources are needed, how do you access them?
The easiest way is to remember a time when you accessed that resource. What was it like?
For example if the value is creativity, remember a time when you were very creative.
Step into that time. What do you see, hear, and feel when you're in that memory experiencing that resource?
You're there. You're accessing it.
Now just combine it with your strategies and your values and you're on your way to excellence!
Damon Cart
NLP Coach and Trainer
Hong Kong, China
Damon Cart
Author
Damon Cart is considered to be a natural talent by some of the best NLP trainers in the world. His approach to guiding and teaching students brings to their awareness that they've been doing NLP all of their lives without realizing it and he empowers them with skills and resources to thrive and reach their full potential. With the understanding of how Neuro Linguistic Programs create oneβs experience a person can then take charge of those programs and create the experience and the life they want. By taking this approach into his own rigorous, daily NLP practice Damon has been able to rapidly accelerate his progress in learning, coaching clients and teaching workshops.
