NLP Way To Work On: THE OBSTACLES IN OUR PATH.
Maheshwari Jani
Executive & Leadership Coach I Learning & OD Evangelist I Assessment & Development Center I Visiting Faculty- Professor of Practice
In Ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway.Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.
On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road.
After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been.
The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many others never understand.
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For many people, even the naturally positive and focused, there are usually obstacles and distractions on our journey towards achieving goals.
Obstacles may include other people in your life not wanting you to achieve the goal, your own impatience / frustration at lack of progress, lack of knowledge (yours and/or other people’s), changing circumstances / priorities and overwhelm.
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How to tackle Impatience / frustration
Here are two simple NLP-based methods to deal with impatience and frustration.
There is an NLP technique called
‘Lateral Chunking’, which involves asking yourself questions like:
1. For what purpose do I want this?
2. What will this do for me/how will this benefit me?
3. What is this an example of?
and then ask yourself:
4. What’s a different way to achieve this?
5. What’s a different example of this?
Another method is to use an NLP technique called ‘Perceptual Positions’.Essentially this involves seeing the situation from other perspectives. For example the perspective of other people involved, and from someone who is completely neutral.
Often stepping back can help you to gain a calmer perspective and clarity about ways to move forward.
Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.