unconscious mind Archives

80% of People Do This Without Realising What They Are Doing

People frequently come up to me after hearing me present this talk at seminars and say something like, “I love your message, but I can’t even find all the clustered beliefs that are tying me up in knots and stopping me from achieving my potential! What can I do?”

The question is triggered by their realisation that, like the majority of the population, circumstances and life experience have built up unconscious patterns that are sabotaging their success.

Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

Wendy, one of my clients had a problem with procrastination. She’s amazingly skilled at her core proficiency, and has deep skill in other areas as well, yet she’s constantly finishing things up at the last minute and racing the clock to fulfil her commitments. This isn’t great for her reputation, her health, or her own self-image.

Wendy had tried every productivity hack on the planet as far as I could tell, and every defeat dug the seeds of doubt and procrastination more deeply into her mind because they entrenched her belief about what she could and (mostly) what she couldn’t change or do. It was a classic case of “one step forward, two steps back” with the added twist that every one of these steps back gave her unconscious mind more ammunition to use against her.

Awareness is NOT Enough!

Even when Wendy realised what she was doing and the cost she was paying for it very little changed. As she said, “The power of my past is just too strong for me. Something happens, and before I know it the flow of habit sweeps me into that same sequence of self-sabotage. It’s not evil, or cruel, or morally outrageous, but it’s incredibly destructive… and I can’t beat it!”

BUT… There is a Solution!

On a Profitable Business Accelerator (PBA) live call a couple of months ago, we used a simple process to help each of our participants (including Wendy) let go of the clusters of beliefs and behaviours that were no longer serving them.

This is How it all Starts…

An interaction doesn’t turn out the way you want it to… you lose a sale, break up with a lover, argue with a friend, are disappointed by your kids, break your mum’s favourite vase etc.
Your itty-bitt-shitty committee tells you… what a bad person you are, how you always mess things up and fail, that you’re selfish, that you’ll never succeed in life, and your kids will end up a mess etc.
A similar situation rolls around… and your itty-bitt-shitty committee leaps into action reminding you of all your past failures, horrible outcomes, and what a bad person you are;
You follow the prompts made by your unconscious mind… and history repeats itself. Again, and again, and again, each time reinforcing your internal chatter and your external behaviour.

This pattern is developed early in life and your reactions are strongly influenced by the expectations and responses of people around you in early childhood. It can be reversed, but the usual way of doing so is one incident at a time: a slow painstaking process, that unfortunately is rarely effective because you deal with a couple of situations, but there are always new ones popping up and reinforcing the old patterns before they are obliterated.

The process we use is like peeling velcro apart: it rips all the hooks and claws apart in a few minutes so that you are ready for a fresh start the next time a similar situation emerges and can choose your behaviour freely. It sounds brutal, but it’s incredibly freeing.

As you know, I’m all about empowering my clients and facilitating their success. Nothing worthwhile comes without work, but if you can get your Unconscious Mind supporting you in the background (rather than sabotaging your efforts), then suddenly your work becomes easier and your results are more satisfactory.

If you’ve done your NLP Practitioner or Master Practitioner Certification with LifePuzzle you’ve already experienced the energising power of this process.

A Quick Self-Evaluation:

What patterns of behaviour are you are running that aren’t serving you?

Stop looking at them as individual incidents and notice how they cluster together.

When your itty-bitt-shitty committee starts whispering negative thoughts in your ear, ask yourself:

What is this particular situation or behaviour an example of? and
What can I learn from this situation or behaviour?

Once you spot connections and identify the clusters of similar behaviours you’ll be able to dissolve them all using Time Line Therapy® and create the future you really want.

It’s not about technique!

When YOU set goals, what happens?

If you said, “Not much,” you’re in good company and you probably don’t think goals have played much of a role in your success.

I’m not going to talk about the process of setting goals here, instead I’m going to talk about how you can use your unconscious mind to keep you on track and help you achieve your goals. more easily and effectively

I talk to a lot of people who say, “Goal setting doesn’t work for me, Chandell, but I still get plenty done.” Usually, that’s true, but then when we start to talk it’s clear that while they may not have followed a formal goal-setting process, the ones who are kicking goals and shaping their lives have a vision of how they want things to be, and have made significant decisions about what they want to be, do, or have and then set out to act in ways that would lead to that outcome. That’s goal setting!

But here’s the thing… Like most outcomes there are faster and slower ways of getting from A to B. I always like to find the fastest, best, and easiest way to achieve my outcomes and what follows is an outline of a goal-setting method that ticks all those boxes for myself and my clients.

What is Goal Setting?

Goal setting is all about deciding what you want, why you want it, and what achieving that thing will do for you. Whether you do this process formally or informally it is behind all your accomplishments.

When you decide that you do (or do not) want something, your unconscious mind sets to work behind the scenes to turn that decision into a self-fulfilling prophecy and the clearer and stronger your vision of the outcome is, the more effectively your unconscious mind can do this.

Goal Getting

Once you’ve set your goals … and yes, choosing not to achieve anything is also a goal … your conscious mind sets to work to make those goals come to fruition.

Have you noticed how much less distractible you are when you have an important or appealing project to work on? You may not have written down all the steps you need to take, but your mind is creating momentum without any overt effort on your part. You might wake up in the morning with a new idea, or find that it comes to you while you’re taking a walk, then, when you sit down to work on it everything falls into place.

That’s because your unconscious mind is propelling you towards that goal. Thus, even when your conscious mind is toying with the idea of watching TV or playing another level of your favourite video game your unconscious mind keeps offering you the choice to act differently.

One of the things that often stops people from reaching their goals is the amount of willpower and deliberate effort it takes to stay focused. When you harness your unconscious mind and give it clear instructions about what you are trying to achieve then you take that pressure off your conscious mind. This frees up your energy to actually do the work required to reach that goal, so it’s a really powerful tool for achieving goals.

The Importance of Visualising Your Outcome

If you really can’t visualise yourself achieving your goal, then you probably should ask whether you can achieve it. The clear picture mental of yourself achieving your goal gives your unconscious mind all the momentum it needs to carry you forward to success.

In my experience, people who can’t get a clear picture of themselves achieving the goal often have unconscious reservations about their ability to do so. That’s important information, because once you realise what is happening inside your head, you can change your beliefs and your behaviours.

“That which was unconscious, when made conscious ceases to exist.”
Carl Jung

The limiting beliefs and negative emotions that hinder our goal-setting can only be removed when we become aware of them. Often they are hidden beneath years of habit and thinking patterns that are so engrained that we don’t even notice the little voice that pops up and says…”Ooh, you’re not good at that!” or, “That’s risky!” or… “If you do that, you’ll lose the love of your life!” But, we hear it… and it rules our behaviour without our noticing.

However, you have a choice…

Once you’ve given your unconscious mind a vivid picture of where you want to be, you can work through the milestones you need to achieve those goals and your unconscious mind will support you through all the decisions and action you need to make along the way instead of sabotaging your intentions by tempting you to indulge in “just one more episode of “Big Bang Theory”.

When I was writing my book, “Confident Closing: sales secrets that grew a business by 400% in six month and how they can work for you,” my final goal was to hold that book in my hand and be able to say, “I’ve done it!” Early in the process I created a mock-up of the cover so that I could focus my unconscious mind on what the finished product would look like. Although many things change in the process (including the cover and title) while I was writing it I had a picture in my mind of me holding the finished book.

Along the way there were many milestones:-

Write the book;
Edit the book;
Design the cover, illustrations, & internal layout;
Organise printing, ISBN, etc.

At every stage, I had a clear picture in my mind, and I was feeding that in the background to my unconscious mind so that I stayed focused and kept moving forward. I still had to make decisions, and put in the effort, but my unconscious mind kept prodding me into action.

The Importance of Visualising Your Outcome

When you program your unconscious mind properly it does most of the work, but you can give it some help.

This is where physical prompts like lists, posters, vision boards, and white boards come in. My computer desktop, iPad, and phone usually contain visual prompts to keep my primary goals top of mind. That way, every time I open a device it focuses my intentions both consciously and unconsciously on the goals I’m working towards rather than distracting me.

Here's a Quick Exercise...

Do you have a clear visualisation of what you want to accomplish today and this week? Here’s how to harness the power of your unconscious mind to achieve it more easily.

First set a goal for this week: maybe the next stage of a big project;
Shut your eyes and visualise that project or stage completed – what’s the last step that when completed you know you can check it off? Get a really clear picture of that final step.
Now break that into smaller tasks or milestones. They will be among the smaller tasks you will do each day.
Now let’s get back to today: think of your very next task;
Shut your eyes and visualise that task completed – what’s the last step that when completed you know you can check it off? Get a really clear picture.
Now open your eyes and get to work. Pay attention to how your focus changes and how many more things you actually complete.

#TuesdayTips

What’s going on in your mind while you are talking to prospects and clients?

Does it matter?

I don’t know what is going on in your mind while you are talking about your product or service, I do know that it matters! In fact, if you are struggling to sell I would bet that the problem lies in your mind, not in your product.

Ninety per cent of your life is lived unconsciously – and your unconscious mind is talking to you all the time. In most cases, your own voice is the loudest you hear. So what are you saying to yourself, and why does it matter?

Back in my pre-NLP days I wanted success and I was prepared to work hard for it. I wasn’t worried about the amount of action that I was taking because every day I worked three times as hard as the people around me. I knew from the way that I had been brought up and all the belief systems I had that you have to put action in if you want to get results out.

Since I really wanted the results, I put in a lot of effort, yet in the back of my mind, I had this little voice saying, “Well, what if you don’t get it? What if it doesn’t happen? Maybe it won’t.” “What if you’re not good enough?” That voice of self-doubt was very powerful. It said, “Something will stop you from achieving this at the last minute, just as it always does.” and you know … something always did! I’d be right on the edge of closing a deal, and it would fall through. Week after week, month after month, I’d fall short of my goals because I was losing the game inside my head.

Your inner voice does a much better job of sabotaging your efforts to succeed than your worst enemy could ever do – and you put up with it! In the end, it doesn’t matter how many people tell you what a great product or service you offer, and how valuable it is if you don’t believe it yourself.

Imagine that you’re in a sales meeting, and you’re doing a great job with your presentation, but in the back of your mind you’ve got this script running, “Nobody wants to buy my product because it’s not worth anything, so these guys won’t waste their money on it because they’re smart.”

Of course, you’re not saying any of that aloud, but those kinds of thoughts are running through your head all the time while you’re telling your prospect how fantastic you are, and that you can definitely give them the results that they want. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, the tone of your voice, and your physiology will tell the prospect that you don’t believe what you are telling them. If you do a really good job, they might not even be able to put their finger on the reason, but they will still feel a niggling sense of doubt based on your projection.

On the other hand, if you have the picture of successful outcome you obtained for a client in your head, you might mention it in your presentation or you might not, but as you think about the outcome you just got for this guy, and having the certainty that you can reproduce it your presentation will come across in a completely different way.

Your prospect will see that you believe in your product, you believe in the service you are offering, and you believe in the outcome you are projecting! Their response will be dramatically different when you project confidence, from when that questioning voice leads you to project doubt. When you are talking negatively to yourself, there isn’t anything that anybody could say that will cut through the voices in your mind.

Try it for yourself next time you are talking to a friend (because you don’t want to deliberately sabotage a sales presentation). Compare what happens when you fill your mind with thoughts about how what you are doing isn’t going to lead to a good outcome, and then try to convince your friend that it will turn out well, and then try visualising a win and talking about that as the outcome. Successful athletes know that the biggest part of the game is won or lost in the mind – and that is true in other endeavours as well.

Next time, we’ll talk about how to control our own minds … and the power that gives us over our outcomes, and other people’s perceptions.

Meta Description: What goes on inside your head when you talk to people can dramatically alter your sales results. Why does your thinking matter, when no-one can see it?

Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

Years ago when I was employed as a sales person, I attended a meeting with a gentleman. From the moment I walked into the board room of this big corporate organisation, I immediately got the impression that he wasn’t really tuned in to anything I had to say. As soon as I realised this, I started matching and mirroring his body language. We were sitting across the board room table from each other and he had his arms resting on the arms of the chair and was tapping his fingers. I subtly did exactly the same thing at the same rate. He didn’t pick up on it at all but within 5 minutes he seemed much more responsive and we went on to have a great working relationship that still exists today.

The value of non-verbal communication is still not fully appreciated in the business world, though many more executives and business people are learning and trusting that body language and simple actions can be the difference between a deal being made or broken.

Selling is really a process, not an action. The pressure comes when we start to see selling as purely transactional. This works okay in some situations (at a supermarket for example) – not so well in others (service businesses like hairdressing or coaching – or even choosing an accountant or financial planner).

So the first step in the process is to establish rapport – because mostly people choose to buy from those people whom they like.

Without rapport it’s harder to accomplish everything. Most people aim to build rapport by uncovering common experiences or finding common ground. This is fine if you have unlimited time to build rapport, or if you have a guarantee of further meetings, but it’s not so useful in a business context where you may only have a few seconds and no time for chit-chat. Matching and mirroring (done subtly) is an almost fail-safe way of building rapport in just a few minutes.

Building Rapport

Rapport in communication is made up of three things: words, physiology and tonality and most people think that the words we use are the most important. The secret is that they are only about 7% of the impact you make. Link to Blog on Building Rapport

Think back to a time you walked into a networking event, or a party, or some other function where you see someone that you don’t know – you have absolutely no idea who they are, you’ve never met them before, and you don’t know why but you get a funny feeling about that person, there’s just something about them that attracts you. How do we know that we like that person? How do we make that decision? It’s based on the instant decision of your unconscious mind. Link to Blog on Unconscious Mind

Again, this is an example of our unconscious driving our behaviour – so 93% of your decisions about others, and their decisions about you is an unconscious response to tonality and physiology. That puts tremendous pressure on you – but it also creates amazing opportunity because once you understand it, you can use this skill to create win-win outcomes with people.

What is a win-win outcome? Well, if you tap into what’s important to another person and can deliver them the service that they’re looking for that’s a great outcome for both of you. People don’t buy based on your experience or how long you’ve been doing what you’re doing or because your logo has pink and blue as opposed to yellow and green – at the end of the day the buying decision comes down to how it makes them feel.

Since all of this is going on inside our head, part of the art of the confident closer gets down into how you present your information so that your prospect sees the tiny fraction of the information they need to make a buying decision. It’s ensuring that the key bits of information they need to know about the outcome will get past their filters. Once you’ve accomplished that, their buying decision is made for them.

The art of influence is not just in the words, it’s not just in the tonality, it’s not just in the things that you choose to show them, it’s about whether you present all this in the way that they want to see it. A sales pitch that totally convinces one person might not work at all on someone else, because they’re two different people. The art and the skill of communication lies in the ability to find out what’s important to each particular person, and then give him the information that he desires. However, you actually have to observe, and focus on the person to do this – you can’t just go through the motions.

Matching and Mirroring to Build Rapport

Suddenly you find all these similarities, because you like each other – you’re in rapport. You might use the same words a lot of the time, or you might find yourself shaking your foot in the same way or talking at the same volume, or using the same tone of voice – and all those pieces of information play a role in how much you like each other. The reason you get along is because your body language is picking up on the fact that you’re actually the same. So in those 11 million bits of information that are flooding your neurological system every single second, you’re unconsciously picking up on bits and pieces that match you and unconsciously make you like that person. Most of the time this happens unconsciously, but what if you could do it intentionally?

It’s quite easy to match and mirror so that you gain rapport intentionally.

For example, if I was meeting with Janine and she was playing with her pen, I might get my pen and play with it in the same way, or I might position my feet in the same way that she’s got them on the floor. Unconsciously she would pick up on the fact that we’re like each other. If you remember that physiology is a whopping 55% of communication, you’ll see why one of the quickest ways that you can build rapport with someone is to mirror their actions.

In matching and mirroring physiology, there are many differing things you could copy – I’ve mentioned habits like tapping fingers or pens, but you can also mirror their breathing rate, their posture, their gestures, and even their blinking. I know the idea of mirroring someone’s blinking sounds strange, but we all blink at different rates so one of the easiest ways to match and mirror someone without making them aware of it is to actually blink at the same pace as them.

Remember 90% of our lives is lived unconsciously, so our ability to perceive our space around us is controlled largely by our unconscious. We’re not aware of it, but our unconscious will pick up on it and decide that we actually like each other. Posture and gestures are other things that you can match and mirror. This is something that you can easily do while you’re sitting there talking to your prospect about your product and service and if you do it properly they will never even be aware of it.

Exercise Caution in Matching & Mirroring

Please exercise caution in this and use common sense. If somebody’s got a physical impairment or a speech impediment, don’t match and mirror that aspect of their behaviour. And that really goes without saying.

Just as important, don’t match and mirror unresourceful states like depression or anger. If someone’s depressed, you want to try and pace them into a nicer state, rather than sinking down into a depressed state with them.

This list of behaviours that you can match and mirror is not exhaustive. If you can think of more examples, please tell us about them in the comments.

Meta Description: Matching and mirroring behaviour is one of the fastest and easiest way of building rapport with just about anyone. Here are some ideas of physiology you can match and mirror.

#TuesdayTips

Do you know what the Number 1 reason people don’t set goals is? It’s because they are afraid of failure. Sometimes clients say, ‘I don’t know what I want?’ – what they often mean is, ‘I’m not clear that I can achieve what I really want so I’ll pretend I don’t know.’ At other times, they genuinely don’t know because they’ve suppressed their dreaming for so long that they’re not aware of their real thoughts and desires.

Perhaps you fail to achieve your goals as often as you succeed and you wonder why that is. Today I’d like to explore the link between achieving your goals and giving your unconscious mind clear direction.

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) one of the key areas we help people deal with, is letting go negative emotions – the core emotions of anger, fear, guilt, shame, and sadness. It only takes a few minutes, and usually clients will feel an immediate sense of relief which is fantastic. The negative emotions are gone, but your unconscious mind needs clear direction on how to think. If you don’t provide that direction, then your unconscious mind will quickly fall back into the old habits of thinking using those negative patterns. So, you’ve dealt with the problem – but now you have some re-training to do as well.

It’s the same with S.M.A.R.T. goals and your unconscious mind. You’ve created your S.M.A.R.T. goal – it is specific, measurable, as-if-now, realistic, and has a time frame – you’ve visualised it and made it as visceral as possible but you need to communicate that goal clearly to your unconscious mind so that it will help you achieve it. Your unconscious mind really wants to please you – but you need to tell it how it can do that and you need to make sure the instruction is clearly embedded.

When you create your S.M.A.R.T. goals and visualise them, that’s step #1. The rest of the process involves reminding your unconscious mind of those goals – that’s where vision boards, pictures, and regular review of those goals comes in. It may sound like hard work, but the truth is that once your unconscious mind knows what it is aiming for, it will support and help you at every turn. You’ll find yourself taking the needed decisions and completing your actions much more easily and effortlessly than ever before. It almost removes the need for self-discipline because your unconscious mind is working for you day-in, day-out, helping you to accomplish everything you ever dreamed of doing.

Think about that! Think about having your feet on a path towards the goals you really want, and moving forwards almost by instinct – easily and relentlessly. That’s what happens when you form your goals well, and then harness the power of your unconscious mind to draw you towards them.

Failure to achieve these goals isn’t really an option – because you only fail when you are conflicted about your goals. This time, you’ve set your goals carefully using the S.M.A.R.T. method, and you’ve given clear directions to your unconscious mind via your visualisation, and frequent reminders. All of a sudden you’ll find yourself smashing goal after goal as you work on them using a combination of deliberate action and effortless motivation.

Meta Description: How to achieve your goals every time without conflict and stress by harnessing the power of your unconscious mind.

#TuesdayTips

I was about 14 when I started selling Nutrimetics to my friends at school. They were polite and sort of interested but I didn’t get many sales during lunch hour. A couple of them thought their Mums might be interested and held parties at home – and that was when my business really took off. I won sales awards, medals, and you name, it … but I also learned an important lesson – it’s much easier to sell to people who are thirsting for a solution, than to people who are just showing polite interest.

I took that lesson to heart and it helped me in all my later sales experiences – whether I was actually selling products or services, or sharing ideas. Polite interest just wastes your time, and the other person’s time as well. If you’re in a social situation then you can move on to other topics of interest. If you are in a business situation then polite interest just wastes your time, and robs you of other opportunities.

Don’t Be Afraid of ‘No’! - It Might Even Be Your Best Friend

It is far better to spend your time talking to people who have the problem your service solves and the money to spend on your solution, rather than with people who are just being polite – because after all, business is about sales, not just interest. That’s why it is always good to elicit a ’no’ response sooner rather than later if the person you are talking to is really not a good candidate for your product.

So, I don’t want to make people’s decisions for them, and I really want to give them the information they need – but how do I open the door so they are willing to listen.

5-Steps Sales Process That Works.

Establish Rapport. The easiest way to do this is to match and mirror their behaviour, or identify their preferred internal representation system and use that to communicate with your prospect. Without rapport, it’s harder to elicit the information you need to determine whether you and the prospect are actually a good fit, and if you don’t seem to be getting anywhere in establishing try to work out why.
Ask Questions. You can use questions to continue to build rapport but you are really listening carefully so that you learn about your prospect’s problems and concerns. You’ll be asking questions throughout the interview so that you can discover what they value, and what their decision-making process is, and trying to uncover their objections so that you’ve answered them effectively before you come to the point of closing the deal. These questions will help your prospect feel that they were heard, and they will help you know whether the person is actually a real candidate for your product.
Establish Value and Need. Your questions will have shown you whether this person actually need your product or service. At this point you are making some decisions on their behalf. If you realise that you can’t add enough value to this particular business for it to be worthwhile that’s okay – you can tell the other person how you feel and end the conversation. You never want to go into a deal so hungry that you need to get it at any cost. If you can’t add enough value to make it worthwhile for the prospect then you’re better off walking away. If you do make a deal under those circumstances neither of you will be happy with the outcome.
Propose Solution. Hopefully you’ve taken all the time you need to ask questions and listen to their answers, because by the time you get to this fourth step in the sales process you should be ready to propose your tailored solution succinctly and clearly. Your prospect should be nodding agreement at this point and demonstrating that they can see the value you are offering to them specifically. As you outline your solution the prospect should feel confident that it will solve their specific problem, not just be the package you happen to have in your cart ready to unload on them.
Seal the Deal. This is the final step in the process – whether it involves signing a contract or a verbal agreement. If you’ve done your job well, the outcome won’t be a surprise to either party because your will be offering your prospect a custom solution that will truly fit their needs.

I’ve taught this 5-step Sales Process to hundreds of people in corporate sales trainings and through my Confident Closing Workshops [LINK HERE] and I usually receive this kind of feedback: “By the time I actually proposed a solution I had all the information I needed to offer a tailored solution using my prospect’s terminology. Their ‘yes’ was almost instant and price became a non-issue.”

This 5-Step Sales Process is one of the easiest ways to move your closing rate from average (or below average), so astronomical – and it also takes the sting out of rejection. Most of the time, you’ve already determined that this person is not a good fit before they get as far as saying ’no’.

Meta Description: How to move your sale closing rate from average to astronomical with a simple 5-step process that doesn’t rely on scripts or programming

#TuesdayTips

I’ve already talked about the power of your unconscious mind [Link to Post], and how it influences your behaviour, so today I’d like to take a closer look at how we can become friends with our unconscious mind and use it to help us achieve our goals, rather than blocking them.

Listening to your Unconscious Mind

Have you ever really listened to the things you say to yourself – the words and tone of voice you use when no-one else is listening? What are you saying? Are you speaking words of encouragement, hope and power, or are you constantly criticising yourself and belittling yourself?

Negative self-talk is one of the most common causes of depression. Therapists know that if they listen carefully to what their patients are saying to themselves they will be able to understand 90% of the problems besetting them. The problem is that often patients get caught up in the rehearsal of these negative conversations, emotions and experiences and they can’t let them go. That’s really where I was, when I struggled through my depression – every week when I met with my therapist we would go over the same ground, and I’d feel worse. He would try to help me see the lies I was telling myself, but somehow I missed the road out until I went to the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) training.

One of things I love about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is that it propels you forward. It doesn’t leave you wallowing in your misery but offers you a clear choice.

Take responsibility for your life, or take the consequences!

We can either be ‘At Cause’ in our lives, or we can be ‘At Effect’ – the creators, or the victims of our circumstances. I don’t know about you, but the idea of being a victim doesn’t appeal to me … on the other hand sometimes I’m not all that keen about taking responsibility for things either. And that is where we can call on our unconscious mind to help us.

We can’t turn back the clock and undo the things that we’ve experienced, but we can always choose the direction we’ll take moving forward.

Make Friends With Your Unconscious Mind And Let It Work For You

Once you become aware of your unconscious mind, you will start to hear what it is saying to you. If it is encouraging you to keep moving forward, to stick your neck out and take some risks, and feeding you positive thoughts and emotions then you’re probably in pretty good shape. But maybe things are not quite so rosy and your unconscious mind is tearing you down with negative ideas and feedback. Don’t worry, you’ve taken an important first step – now you know that the part of you which should be your biggest cheerleader is letting you down.

You spend a lot of time listening to your unconscious mind, so you need to feed it positive thoughts, ideas, emotions and images – because whatever you feed it, it will send back to you quietly and without making a fuss. That’s why we need to choose our mental diet at least as carefully as we choose the food we eat. A lot of people take great care about the food they consume, but they fill their minds with random programs from the TV, radio, or magazines.

Your thoughts shape your future just as surely as the food you eat shapes your body – so take time to consider what you are putting into your unconscious mind. They say we become like the five people we spend most time with – that time could be spent with them in person, or via TV, CD or books. Who are your 5 top influencers?

Meta Description: Our unconscious mind is a very powerful influence, but we can use it help us achieve everything that we are looking for in our personal and professional lives.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

“90% of your life is controlled by your unconscious mind, And only 10% of your life is lived consciously!”

When you think about it, that’s a scary statistic!

You may think that you are in control of your life, but the reality is that the way you process information and respond to situations is mostly done on autopilot. If you’ve ever been in a situation and responded instinctively – or had someone respond to you and thought, “Where on earth did that come from?” you’ve seen the unconscious mind in action.

It might be a strong reaction to some sound or smell that is totally out of proportion to the cause – like the feeling of sadness that wells up when you hear a song that your memory links to time of sadness or stress. On the surface it seems like a totally irrational response, but the reality is that it is a deeply-rooted and natural outcome of a habit, belief, or experience that may be so deeply buried in your unconscious mind that you don’t even remember it.

In fact, while many people are aware that they have an unconscious mind they are usually unaware that the unconscious mind controls 90% of their lives. That means that we are only consciously controlling 10% of our lives, the rest is directed by our unconscious mind – by the habits we form, and the attitudes we learn either deliberately or by chance.

How Learning Happens

When a baby learns to walk, a child learns to read, an adolescent learns to drive, or you learn a new skill, at first it demands all your concentration and you need to work really hard at it. As time goes by most of those actions sink into your unconscious mind and you do them almost on autopilot. That is why it’s so important to start out with good habits, and why your first lessons in any new skill are the most important.

We see it in top tennis players like Roger Federer – despite his very successful record he realised that he needed to make some changes in his game to stay at the top, so he changed his tennis racquet, and his coach, and developed a more aggressive playing style. That didn’t come easily, and under stress he was still reverting to his former style at this year’s Australian Open – but it illustrates the point I’m making. We can change our deeply engrained habits!

We can change our deeply engrained habits … but it takes conscious planning and some effort.

On the other hand, if the unconscious behaviours and habits you have are no longer working for you (even our worst habits usually worked for us at some time) then isn’t it worth the effort to change?

I don’t know about you, but I’m a firm believer in the saying that: “Doing the same things you’ve always done, and expecting different results is insanity.” If I’m doing something that isn’t working I want to find an alternative that will work for me, and help me get the outcome I desire. That’s why I studied Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and became a Master Trainer – because I wanted to change my life, and help other people change theirs.

Facilitating that change through group training, and individual and corporate coaching is what gets me out of bed each morning. It’s just so exciting to watch people go from one level of achievement to another as they retrain their unconscious mind and get it working for them, rather than against them.

Meta Description: The idea that you are not really in control of your actions and thoughts is pretty scary. Most of us like to think that we are in the driver’s seat when really we’re operating on instinct. Can we change that?

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

I firmly believe that each of us have all the resources we need to make a success of both our business and our personal lives – it’s just that sometimes we get caught up in ways of thinking and behaving that mess us up over and over again. I’ve seen it a lot in teams I’ve worked with, and individuals and corporate groups I’ve trained.

In my book, “Confident Closing: Sales Secrets That Grew A Business by 400% in 6 Months And How They Can Work For You!” I talk about the transformation Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) brought to my own life, and how quickly I was able to teach others so that they had similar transformations in their own areas of particular need.

Our Roadblocks May Look Different, But They Have The Same Root Cause

In a way, we hate to hear this because we like to think that our problems are unique and that’s why we can’t move past them, but if you think about it differently, this reality is quite comforting: – If others have found a tool that helps them change, then I can too. I don’t need to stay ‘stuck’ in my problem!

The root cause of all our problems is our unconscious mind, and the beliefs and behaviours that we store there. The real problem here is that they are unconscious so it’s very hard to pinpoint them and change them. When I attended my first Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) training I’d been seeing a psychologist to help with depression for months and going over the same pile of misery every week. It’s hard for me to believe even now, what a transformation a few days made in my outlook, but I’ve seen the same thing happen over and over again in other people.

The key is that while Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) doesn’t teach that your past isn’t important, it does teach that you are not bound by your past and it delivers the tools you need to release the chains that are holding you to your old ways. It is almost like magic!

Let me tell you about a couple of the transformations I’ve seen as people overcame the personal and professional roadblocks that had been keeping them stuck for years (I’ve changed names, but the stories are real):

Samantha is an effervescent extrovert

she is so bubbly that she scares some people. In a sales team this is great because it doesn’t matter how many rejections she gets, she’s always ready to get up and go again – on the other hand, she scares off some really great prospects. She was in one of my group trainings and we looked at ways to develop rapport and relationships. As she learned to read her prospect over the phone or in person she was able to tone down her effervescence and close more sales.

Samantha never felt as though this was ‘putting on an act’ because she was simply thinking more about what would make the other person comfortable than herself. She was excited about the fact that she was able to close nearly twice the number of sales, but she was even more excited by the fact that she was able to build a closer relationship with both her sister and her own son – both of whom were introverts. They’d always got on fairly well, but now they were actually enjoying being together.

Maybe you know someone like Clive

Clive has been moving ‘away from’ things his whole life. He didn’t want to be fat, or unfit, or poor. In the business context he didn’t want to fail – so every month he reached the acceptable target that he set for himself. The problem with this is that you end up on a see-saw. If you feel fat at 60kg (or 80kg or whatever) then you start to work on losing weight – but your only real goal is to be lighter than that point. So you lose a bit of weight, feel better about yourself, relax … and next thing you know your weight is right back up there (or even higher) – and that was Clive’s problem – he just got heavier and heavier incrementally.

It was the same with finances – he wanted to be ‘not poor’, so he’d make some good money, feel much better, relax and his financial situation would sink back to where it was. Fitness … Sales Targets … same story. When we uncovered the unconscious beliefs which were driving his behaviour and dealt with them, things started to slowly change for Clive. He learned to move toward genuine goals that he was passionate about, rather than ‘away from’ states which he didn’t like.

I could keep telling you stories about others who have been able to overcome their roadblocks, and achieve their personal and professional goals after years of frustration. But I’d like to invite you to experience it for yourself. Come along to my next Confident Closing workshop CONCLO and learn more.

Meta Description: Most people have roadblock – barriers they keep coming up against no matter which route they try. The good news is that NLP is a powerful tool that can help you overcome them and live resourcefully.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

You’re probably familiar with the concept of S.M.A.R.T. Goals – you may even have tried them and discovered that they worked well … or maybe you struggled to formulate your S.M.A.R.T. Goals properly and gave up.

A S.M.A.R.T. Goal is:

Specific – clearly stated in precise terms
Measurable – you can tell if you have achieved it or not
Achievable – it is possible
Realistic – not only is it possible, it is possible for you given your circumstances
Timely – there is a date attached to it

When you’re setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals you don’t want to try to set too many at a time because your unconscious mind will get confused [Unconscious Mind] – and also you will probably get lazy in your goal setting process. It’s much better to create 2-3 well-formed goals than 8-10 sloppy ones, but sometimes we get carried away by our desire to create change in several areas of our lives all at once.

One thing that often gets people confused when they’re setting goals is that they mistake a state or value for a goal. Happiness, for example, is not a goal – it’s a state. It could be part of a well-formed goal if you thought about it like this:-

I want to be happy …

I would be happy if my relationship with my spouse/partner involved more conversation …

I will plan to have 2 hours together talking about important things or doing projects with the TV turned off every Tuesday and Thursday …

After 2 months we should be communicating much more deeply about things that matter.

You do have to think about the specific change that equate to realising your goal, and the steps you will take to get there.

Active Visualisation Makes S.M.A.R.T. Goal-Setting Truly Powerful

The thing that really makes S.M.A.R.T. Goals dynamite is actively visualising the outcome using as many senses as possible. Feel the satisfaction, hear the roar of approval, smell that new car smell … The more clearly you can experience the emotion that is linked to your success, the more likely you are to achieve the goal. If it doesn’t seem real to you, the chances are you won’t achieve it.

Posting pictures of your desired outcomes in plain view will really help keep you motivated and on-target. So find pictures of the holiday you want, your dream home, the relationships you want to enjoy, the people you want to help and put them on your walls, your computer, or in a notebook that you keep nearby and you’ll be amazed at how many wonderful things happen in your life.

Your Amazing Magical Mind

Studies in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) show that when we send very clear messages to our unconscious mind about what we want, it helps us get where we are trying to go. Your brain is a very powerful and amazingly complex structure and it influences your behaviour at many, many levels. Science has hardly begun to tap the power of your mind to direct your life but there is no denying its almost magical powers. The thing we really need to do is set up the conditions and then get out of the way.

Evidence Procedure for S.M.A.R.T. Goals

So, you’ve set a goal, and thoroughly visualised your successful accomplishment by harnessing all your 5 senses. Now you need to to set out your evidence procedure.

How will you know you’ve reached the goal? – Make this as specific and concrete as possible. Whether it’s an action like booking your ticket for Hawaii, or boarding the plane, or information like a specific sum of money in your bank account, or even a signed contract. Be sure you can say, “When this particular thing happens, my goal has been reached.”

Then set 3 intermediate milestones which will tell you that you are on target. Make them just as specific as your final goal because they will be your progress markers along the way. Use pictures for these as well.

What is my goal?
How will I know that I’ve reached it?
What is my 1st Milestone?
How will I know that I’ve reached it?
What is my 2nd Milestone?
How will I know that I’ve reached it?
What is my 3rd Milestone?
How will I know that I’ve reached it?

If you follow this process thoroughly and focus on 2-3 goals at a time, you can’t help seeing dramatic changes unfold in your life. Start with just a single goal – something you really, really want and see what happens.

***

Meta Description: S.M.A.R.T. Goals are a great way of giving your unconscious mind directions, but making them truly visceral adds a whole new dimension to their achievability.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

80% of People Do This Without Realising What They Are Doing

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Awareness is NOT Enough!

BUT… There is a Solution!

This is How it all Starts…

A Quick Self-Evaluation:

When YOU set goals, what happens?

What is Goal Setting?

The Importance of Visualising Your Outcome

The Importance of Visualising Your Outcome

Here's a Quick Exercise...

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

Don’t Be Afraid of ‘No’! - It Might Even Be Your Best Friend

5-Steps Sales Process That Works.

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Listening to your Unconscious Mind

Take responsibility for your life, or take the consequences!

Make Friends With Your Unconscious Mind And Let It Work For You

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How Learning Happens

#TuesdayTips

Our Roadblocks May Look Different, But They Have The Same Root Cause

Samantha is an effervescent extrovert

Maybe you know someone like Clive

#TuesdayTips

A S.M.A.R.T. Goal is:

Active Visualisation Makes S.M.A.R.T. Goal-Setting Truly Powerful

Your Amazing Magical Mind

Evidence Procedure for S.M.A.R.T. Goals

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