Suggestion Nudging

Blog 15

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The New Meaning Pro-Active Life Skills (PALS) framework contains over 50 different techniques that enable young people to find out how they make sense of their environment, past experiences or where they find themselves in their life.? Why so many? Because we have no idea which technique will land, be found useful by a young person or capture their interest, even briefly.?

That is the essence of human change - keep trying different approaches and using positive reinforcement until one lands and then build on that theme. I always say to tutors, do this at a pace the young person in question can sustain and certainly not at your pace!?

That is the major challenge of the Education system, it seeks to force a linear pace. But as we know from learning to walk, people develop skills at different speeds.? The average child learns to walk proficiently by around 15 months, yet some might achieve it my 9 months and others not until 24 months.? Some people don’t learn to speak until they are 5-6 (or even older) but that doesn’t mean they don’t have something to say, or that they don’t think for themselves.? So why does every young person get pressured to be ready for their GCSE’s by 16/17? Would it really matter if some young people achieved that standard by 24/25??

On occasion when I am wandering into High Wycombe town centre, an ex-learner yells out my name and we stop to have a chat.? They have progressed onwards and in all cases are enjoying their independence – or perhaps more honestly, enjoying NOT being at school.? Sometimes they are with other people who they work with and their colleagues’ comment, “oh you work for New Meaning Training, they talk about New Meaning a lot”.? I am always intrigued about their progression because they often started directionless and with varying degrees of 'Learned Helplessness'.? Yet, before my very eyes is someone who has progressed, often quicker than I would have expected – or perhaps I just set my filter/schema too low!?

In every case when I bump into an ex-learner, they comment that there were 1-2 things someone at NMT said to them that enabled them to gain a different perspective.? For example, I told one young person they are a natural entrepreneur and when I met them 3 years later, they were an assistant of one of Wycombe’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.? I never remember the comments I make, but that doesn’t matter because 1 or 2 always seem to land.? I call these suggestion nudges, and I keep them flowing.???

For suggestion nudges (my term) to work they must be genuine, they can’t be said because you feel frustrated in the moment and want to “get one over” on the young person in question.? If they are genuinely meant, then they will trigger unconscious interest, that will start the unconscious brain “popping up” (another David technical term ??) thoughts and feelings into the conscious brain.? You could call them a form of envisioning – where the nudges suggest a different future and/or new possibilities.?