As a people helper, there are really only 3 kinds of problems.

People want to

• Stop doing something      
• Start doing something      
• Don't know how to do something

The vast majority of outcomes people want fall into one of these 3 kinds of problems.

Frequently what needs to happen to make those outcomes occur is often straight forward.

So you might wonder... what gets in the way?

If things can be that easy, why don't people change quicker, or more often.

When you think about it, you might suggest - their doubts get in the way.

But it's not their doubts that is the real problem.

It's their certainty, about their doubts being right, that get in the way.

As human beings, for the most part, people are oblivious that their mind creates thoughts and emotions.

That they presume that their thoughts reflect the complete narrative of the situation and are reality.

So they can't see a different situation.

They are certain... that they doubt things can be another way.

Thankfully as a student of NLP, you have a special insight, a mental power.

The ability to see things are never black or white. That the map is never the territory.

How people think and feel depends on what the focus on, how they represent and what their brain has made that mean.

Using tools like the Meta Model, the Framing tool and sleight of mouth patterns you can turn those certainties on their head.

Once you open a window of doubt in their mind, about that which they are certain it can expand outward and spread.

Until a new way of doing or trying something becomes 'obvious'.

The natural thing to do.

NLP has always had a healthy disrespect for ideas and worldviews that blocked people from having a better quality of life.

At one point, people thought the phobias took years of therapy to remove and was very slow.

Then two young men figured out a better way.

The NLP fast-phobia pattern was created and suddenly NLPers were helping remove life long phobia's in a matter of minutes.

People who lived with gripping fears and anxiety no longer had to wait, till psychology caught up with a better way.

A different perspective on the same situation, unlocked a way to make the impossible, possible.

So if you find yourself stuck or frustrated by what 'seems to be the truth' of a situation, cultivate the belief "someone, somewhere has got to have found a better way."

Then go find them or the crumb trail that will lead you to a more helpful way to act and operate.

Cultivating this attitude of challenging the implicitly accepted assumptions, rocking the same old limiting thinking has many positive side effects:

• you develop a greater sense of personal power, that you can change things
• you increase your sense of resourcefulness
• you become solutions-oriented
• you discover things you did not know, you find new answers
• you take life less seriously and begin to see it as a miraculous journey of exciting twists and turns
• you become the kind of person other people want to have as a friend
• people start referring to friends and family to you; because you can get results

Next time you find yourself stopped by doubt, in a context that may not be helpful; challenge your certainty!It's the fast track to quickly change.

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