According to NLP there is no failure….only feedback. Now that might seem like an excuse when you’re feeling low and feeling as if you’ve failed. We all know what that feels like don’t we? Sometimes it can be so bad we just want to disappear under a stone and hide until the feelings dissipate.
We do have the resources though to deal with failure and learn from feedback. As babies we just kept on trying to walk and falling and trying some more until we walked our first steps. This continues throughout childhood as we learn to read and write, ride a bike and so on. We encourage our children to overcome disappointments or failures because we know they’ll get there in the end and just need our help and feedback to succeed. When they fall over for the nth time, they don’t give up trying to walk do they? They don’t sit around thinking and feeling a failure, they just pick themselves up and try again and again until at last they take their first step or manage a poo in the potty.
Just as children learn from their mistakes so can we if we get in touch with the ‘child’ within us. As adults we need to tune into the learning experience and learn from the mistake. This is feedback.
Instead of dwelling on the negative experience, think back over what happened and why it happened. What was your internal state at the time, were you feeling tired or stressed, could you have used an anchoring technique to get yourself into a more positive state before tackling this sort of situation again?
Being aware of your ‘state’ will enable you to read your body by checking out how you are standing or sitting, if you are stiff and tense, whether your breathing is easy and relaxed or short and stressed. How are your shoulders, hunched, drooping forwards in a defensive way or just nicely relaxed? If you feel that your body is holding in your stress and not allowing you to feel relaxed there are lots of things you can do to alleviate that. When you know this is how you’re feeling, tense and relax the stiff areas a few times and be aware of how they feel now.
Here are a few ideas
· If you can, go for a walk to loosen up. Exercise is a great releaser of stress and tension so if you notice that this is now you feel most of the time then introduce some cycling or running into the day especially in advance of times of the day when you notice this feeling of failure most often.
· Look up! It’s hard to feel down or a failure if you look up. Looking down encourages introspection and reflection. If you look up you can access your memory of when you get it right and you can visualise what it looks like when you succeed. If your child is feeling a failure say ‘Look up’ and then start talking about what happened.
· If you have a visual preference, use this to imagine a lovely relaxed place you’d rather be in. Focus on the colours and the shapes and make it into a film with you as the main star. See yourself in this gorgeous place and imagine the clothes you’d be wearing, how your hair and face look and what shoes and bag you have. You are the Film Director; make the film just as amazing as you want - no budget limitations!
· If you’re auditory then you could play your favourite piece of music in your head. Be the conductor and bring in every musical instrument in the orchestra or band and play them as loud as you want. Are there other sounds you’d like to hear, bring them in too. Imagine you are playing one of the instruments, which will it be? Play it loudly and then softer enjoying the excellence of the tones and melody.
· Kinaesthetic people respond well to movement and action so the idea of a walk might well appeal to you. Check whether you are too hot or too cold, are you feeling comfortable? How are you feeling, be aware of your body and if you can, move about, laugh at a remembered joke or something your baby did recently.
If you can control your state at stressful times and put yourself in a more resourceful state, you will be able to access feedback.
Feedback
So what is feedback? It is how what you say is responded to both verbally and nonverbally. The meaning of the communication is the response we get. We are communicating all the time by how we stand, where we stand within our environment, how we arrange our environment, the words we use and our facial expressions.
You can tell by the response you get, what was understood from what you communicated or the action you took. If it was not as you intended, follow up with a request for feedback. There are lots of ways of doing this.
“Sorry, what did I say?”
“I’m not sure that came across as I intended”
“Let’s try again”
This may seem awkward the first time you do it but it’s preferable to slinking away and licking your wounds as you wonder what went wrong. What’s the worst that can happen? Is that worse than feeling a failure?
You can help your children by giving them feedback. For example,
“I don’t know whether you meant to look/ sound / come across so aggressively so perhaps you’d like to have another go?”
We have mentioned the importance of controlling your state and your communication but what if your sense of failure is a belief you hold from your past? Has someone in your childhood said or done something that has left you with the feeling of having failed or being likely to fail. This is what NLP calls a ‘limiting belief’ and you can choose whether to hold this belief or not. If the feelings of being a failure are holding you back from what you want to achieve or from being a happy parent then you may want to revisit it.
Some limiting beliefs that lead to feelings of failure belong in our past and need to be revisited as adults to check whether they are outdated. After all, we have changed since childhood, learnt more about ourselves, grown up and developed new skills that make those limiting beliefs no longer true for us (assuming they were then, which might well not be so because sometimes parents pass their own limiting beliefs on to their children).
When we feel those first self doubts creeping in, those destructive and limiting beliefs that we are not capable of doing something or a feeling that we have failed at something, we have the resources to reject them. Remind yourself of your skills. Remind yourself to use the feedback and your response to the situation as a resource to move forward and draw on the skills you have, perhaps in another area of your life to apply to this area where you need it.
From time to time we feel we have failed as a parent or a partner or lover, daughter or friend. This is natural after all we are not perfect. How do you think you have failed? What can you do to succeed; it is in your power. You can turn the situation around by asking yourself
“What would success in that context look/sound/feel like?”
“What skills do I need to achieve this desired outcome?”
“Where do I use that skill?”
“How can I bring it across into the area of my life where I need it now?”
Do a quick audit of your skills. This is a great help when you feel you’ve failed at something. What are you good at?
Write your list here.
I am good at………………………
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Now add in what others say about you because they see you in a different light. Perhaps you are self critical and don’t always see your assets or they are so familiar to you that you take them for granted.
My friends and family say I am good at………………
1
2
3
4
5
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7
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9
10
Now revisit those areas where you feel you’ve failed and look back at these two lists. Which of these skills can you take and work with.
Write down the skill here
I am good at…………………………………….
What does this say about you that you are good at this thing? What can you do differently by using this skill in the area you want to change?
I can……………………………………………………
Try it and ask for feedback.
This exercise is very useful with children too of course.
Children are very good at imagining things and they use metaphors very naturally so it wasn’t hard for Paul to pretend each word he didn’t recognise was a ball and in fact applying his fast and ‘not scared’ skills from football he approached his reading quite differently, speeded up and was soon reading confidently on his own.
When you feel a sense of failure it’s good to use an anchoring skill to put yourself in a resourceful state so you can assess your transferrable skills. Here’s a recap on anchoring.
EXERCISE
Find somewhere comfortable where you feel relaxed and happy to be.
Decide on what action you want to use as your anchor such as squeezing your ear lobe.
Now think about a happy time, a situation or event that makes you smile, something you did that worked out well and that you feel good about. Think of something you feel you did well and were successful at.
When you get that image strongly in your mind, give it plenty of colour, volume and intensity. Imagine it is a photo that you’re taking and you are really focussing your lens on the scene.
At this point, make the action to anchor this strong feeling and image.
Think about something different for a moment, this is called ‘breaking state’.
Now go back to your great moment that you captured and anchor it again. Do this a few times until you can recreate the moment whenever you make that action.
You can use this whenever you feel you’ve failed in order to create that resourceful state in which you can attend to the feedback, apply the skills you have and repeat the task.
You can use ‘clean language’ skills to reduce the sense of failure your child will experience. Expressions such as
“Try to………” suggest failure
“Do you think you can………”imply there is an option that they can’t.
“But don’t…………”is an embedded command for them to do the opposite
“Anyone can……..” is a distortion by way of generalising and is not true
Freeing your child to succeed by not limiting their self belief is arguably one of the most wonderful gifts you can give your child.
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