Kinaesthetics learn by doing, they need to physically experience the learning because they are active full body learners. You’ll see them fidgeting in classrooms when they have to sit still for long periods and they need to take a break regularly to run about and stretch. They’re usually quite sporty and in touch with their body and how it feels so they will be quite tactile and sensitive to the heat and cold. They will also be quite expressive. 

“If they are kinaesthetic, slow waaay dooown . Talk to them about feelings. Change your pace so that it matches theirs, and really get a feel for what they are communicating.” Terry Elston
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“What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” Confucious 

Characteristics of kinaesthetic are that they will be active speakers and listeners and use facial expression, hand and body gestures and will fiddle and fidget when talking rather than the stiller pose of the auditory student. They refer to their ‘gut feelings’ and ‘being in touch’ with their feelings and may respond more emotionally to events than one might expect. Comfort and bodily temperature is important to them so extremes of heat and cold are not endured easily. It is important to them to be comfortable in their own skin, wear clothes that are comfortable rather than ones that look good (visual). Furniture is also bought for comfort rather than style.

They want to get ‘stuck in’ and do rather than watch or be told. It’s all about involvement physically and mentally. Given a new piece of equipment, rather than read the instructions they’ll just work it out for themselves by trial and error. They will get themselves from A to B by what feels like the right route rather than read a map or listen to the satnav. They will be conscious of atmosphere and want to be in rapport because not to be would feel so uncomfortable.

Physically they are very active and will want to stand much closer to you than you may be comfortable with but don’t move away as this will break rapport. They may want to touch your elbow or arm as you’re chatting and they will probably hug and kiss on greeting and leaving. They talk slowly , even slower than an auditory person and tend to look down as they speak as they get in touch with their emotions. Their choice of words will reflect their action and feelings orientation so expect to hear words like ‘feel’, ‘touch’, ‘get hold of’, ‘catch on to’, ‘get a handle on’ and ‘make contact with’. If you work with a kinaesthetic child, you’ll find that they need to be moving and learn best when they appear to be doing something else. Avoid static learning situations.  

Kinaesthetic learners learn by moving touching and doing. Hands-on learning is what they like best actively exploring the world around them. They will remember well what they have done but will have trouble remembering what was said or seen. Fiddling is second nature as is doodling  - why do one thing when you can do two? They’ll have trouble sitting still in a classroom so plenty of active breaks are needed as well as opportunities to move about through class activities such as group work or practical activities.

As a kinaesthetic student you may not be able to control your classroom environment or ask for breaks but there are things you can do to aid your learning. Use coloured highlighters to mark up your notes and use mind maps to transfer information into a form that makes it easier to remember.
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When you have subject choices choose subjects that are more practical or those that have practical elements such a Geography with field trips, science, drama, sport and design. At home when revising or doing homework use flash cards or memory games, interactive programmes on the computer in order to make the most of the material. Many computer based revision programmes offer multiple choice questions and these will suit you. 

I've taken this content from 'Secrets of the NLP Masters' a book I wrote a few years ago which has examples of NLP principles and techniques from all walks of life; work, home, school. sport, health. More specific family examples can be found in 'Be a happier parent with NLP'. Both are available from my website, Amazon and The Book Depository. 

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Whether as students of teachers we need to know which internal representation system we naturally prefer although flexibility is essential because very often we have to adapt to someone’s teaching or learning style that doesn’t come so easily to us. You are auditory if you prefer to learn by being told rather than reading off a white board or printed sheets or book. 

“If you want to get good rapport, you can speak using the same kind of predicates that the other person is using. If you want to alienate the other person, you can deliberately mismatch predicates.” Richard Bandler and John Grinder 

“Your students with the auditory learning style, about 20 per cent of your class, will also be your social butterflies, so it's important to make good usage of their strengths while dampening their need for social time during a lecture.” Kelly Roell

People who would describe themselves as auditory enjoy sounds and music but not noise as they want to control the sounds around them. They enjoy conversation and listening to other people talking such as radio plays and discussions. What people say is very important to them as well as the way they say it. There are two variations of auditory; auditory internal and auditory digital. They are both forms of self-talk. The voice behaves like an inner check to sound out whether what someone says is logical or makes sense. It’s like having your own personal radio in your head and can enable you to be slightly disassociated or disconnected because you don’t directly respond but check out first whether your response is ‘correct’. This can be useful in jobs where an emotional or unguarded response could be unwise such as in the Police or teaching.

Auditory learners learn best through spoken lessons either direct from a teacher in a classroom or via videos , CDs , DVDs MP3 audios , audio books and other online learning environments where there is a spoken word. They enjoy learning through discussion as well so they can assimilate what they’ve learned. Equally in the work environment an auditory boss will favour giving oral instructions and you will prefer being told what to do rather than receiving an email or text. We want to work in rapport so match your bosses preferred representational system and if you are auditory and he or she is not, ask him to tell you, explain it briefly or let you hear it from him. If they are auditory and you are not then you’ll need to write down what they say so you have a visual record to refer to if you are visual and if you are kinaesthetic then you may need to ask them to ‘run it by you again’ if you aren’t clear so ask them to ‘repeat it’.

 When communicating with an auditory learner use words like hear, listen, sound, question and resonate. In order to gain rapport with auditory learners or indeed an auditory teacher speak slowly and choose words carefully. The pitch should match theirs which will be fairly low with their breathing from the mid chest. They will look across not up or down and construct long sentences with questions because they like to interact. When you are talking it may look as if they are thinking about what they want to say next but they are probably just processing what you’ve said so leave a silence for them to get their thoughts and the right words together. If you jump into the silence you will break rapport by not enabling them to contribute to the conversation. 

For more information and ideas about parenting or educating (or both if you're reading this as a homeschooling parent, you can find plenty of information in 'Secrets of the NLP Masters' or 'Be a happier parent with NLP' both available via my website or from Amazon. 

65% of the population are visual learners and it is defined as ‘keeping pictures in our heads’, This is the first skill babies are tested for at 6 weeks when they are checked to find out if they recognise their mother. They do of course but if mum then puts on a pink curly wig they will cry because the picture doesn’t match the picture they’ve got in their head. We use our visual memory to create words and pictures, to do comprehension, revision, sequencing, mind mapping and for short term memory. When people learn visually they make pictures in their head and it is easiest when teaching visual learners to teach them through the pictures they generate. Indeed 90% of the information that comes into our brain is visual . They notice what they see and are very observant. They can easily switch from a 2D image and imagine the 3D version so for example they can see a picture of a house and then imagine it as 3D. Whilst this is an essential skill for architects and designers it can be quite confusing when children are learning to read and the 2D images of the letters become 3D and move about.

When children learn visually they see a picture of the word and associate it with the picture of the meaning of the word and if they are counting they visualise say two apples and three apples. In order to access their visual memory they need to look up so do this if you’re a visual learner and if you are a teacher be sure to tell children who learn visually to look up. Some teachers have been known to tell children gazing up into space ‘you won’t find the answer up there’ but actually they will.  

Words to use when teaching or communicating with a visual learner.

See, look, view, appear, show, reveal, imagine, clear, focused, hazy, picture.

When they ‘don’t see what you mean’ you will need to ‘show them again’.

Use diagrams, maps, mind maps, graphs , colours and pictures to teach visual learners and if you are the student, take what you are told and represent it visually to make it easier to learn. You probably already love drawing and doodling with colours so you’ll not need any prompting. You enjoy organising your notes into coloured folders or with file tabs and different colour dividers. Careers that will suit you will be artistic ones such as photography, video or film, design, planning, art, architecture and similar. 

How do you know if you’re visual?

Of course you won’t only be visual, you will have times when you are enjoying your auditory and kinaesthetic processing systems but you can check which your preferred one is quite easily by doing the following.

Thinking about yesterday, what comes to mind? Are you thinking about what you saw, what you heard or what you did?

When you think about your holiday plans do you imagine where you’d like to go, remember what people have told you about somewhere or think about what you’d like to do on holiday?  

In conversation with friends do you notice how they’re dressed and their facial expressions, do you pay attention to what they’re saying or do you notice what they’re doing?
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Picture an elephant. Is it still or moving, where is it? If you’re a visual learner you will have lots of information about that elephant going on in your head at the same time. You’ll also have a choice and can picture it in different locations, different sizes and doing different things quite easily because as a visual learner the image will probably be moving and changing all the time. In fact you may sometimes get confused when you have too many options and too many images in your head all at the same time.
Just as visual people pay attention to what they see and like to have nice things around them, they will be upset by untidiness or ugly buildings, unattractive people or unpleasant areas. If you find yourself feeling like that then you are probably visual. 

Have you heard the expression “Don’t think about pink elephants!” What do we find ourselves doing? Thinking about pink elephants of course. In order to make sense of the instruction, we first have to get a picture in our head of a pink elephant. So we have now done exactly what we have been told not to do even though it wasn’t our intention. That’s how negative goals work too. As we focus on what we don’t want, inadvertently we are actually getting it.

 “In order to say no to something, your brain must first make an image of the thing you don’t want and then negate it. The problem is that at this point you’re already heading in the wrong direction.” Richard Bandler

Thinking about what you don’t want is problem thinking whereas thinking about what you do want is outcome thinking. Problem thinking arises when we focus on the thing that’s happening now which is of course the thing we don’t want. So the only way we will change and experience more of what we do want is to move away from the present problem state and towards the compelling outcome.

There are two directions in life, forwards and backwards, towards and away from. When Bandler and Grinder developed NLP back in the 60s they found as they studied successful people that they were all ‘towards’ orientated. They didn’t waste their time and energy on what they didn’t want but focused on getting what they did want.

‘Away from’ thinking focuses the mind on the present unsatisfactory situation that they want to change. When we try to get our brain to focus on what it doesn’t want, it gets confused. Think about some of these goals, have you ever had goals like these?

“I want to give up snacking”.
“I must get rid of all the junk in this room.”
“I’ve got to lose weight.”
“I don’t want to come last.”
“I hope I don’t fail.”
“I better not catch his cold.”
“I don’t want to be late.”

Have you ever told yourself ‘I mustn’t forget to…………’ and then found that you did indeed forget whatever it was. Your brain is saying ‘forget …..’ whereas if instead you told yourself ‘remember to……’ you’d have a lot more chance of being successful. On leaving the house for work my husband often tells me ‘don’t forget to………..’ and consciously I have to reword it ‘I must remember…..’otherwise I know I’d forget. It happens sometimes with children doesn’t it? You say ‘Be careful not to fall!’ and then they do just that. It’s because subconsciously they’ve heard the instruction to fall and they’ve focused on that word.

When people are focusing on the problem and being in a problem state there can be fear about what they’ll do when the problem’s fixed. What will they focus on next? Will there be a void in their life? Some people worry that they won’t know what to do with themselves when they are no longer worrying about this thing. This is another very good reason for focusing on something enjoyable, something they do want or who they want to be.
 
At the time of writing this we are going through a pandemic with thousands dying. Whole nations are confined to their homes, people are off work and incomes slashed. It is very easy to think about what we haven't got and what we can't do. But this thinking will not keep us safe. Instead we need to change from

I must keep away from other people to I must ensure I have a 2m space around me 
I mustn't forget to wash my hands to I must remember to wash my hands

Focusing on what we do want rather than on what we don’t want is a matter of thinking first what we really want, imagining what it will be like and taking it on as our identity. This moves us from a state of problem thinking where the focus is on what we don’t want and moves us along the road towards what we do want which is our compelling vision for ourselves.

Looking for a great book to read with bite size chunks on how NLP can help you across all areas of your life? Examples cover relationships, family, health, sport and work. You can buy it here 

​If you're struggling at the moment and need some help please book a free first chat by emailing me

If you are one of the many many mums who is putting off giving me a call about your child because you fear that them coming to a therapist will be an ordeal for them - please read on! 

I have so many years experience of working with children, it's embarrassing and I'm starting to claim fewer in case you work out how old I am! In my market research days of projects for TV companies, toy companies and publishers, I had to find ingenious and fun ways to get kids talking and over the years I've become more and more inventive. Children don't respond well to direct questions and the word 'why' simply sends them into their conscious brain where they won't find the answer because it just doesn't work like that. 

Let me tell you the sort of things your child will do with me...............

Sand Play
Using a sand tray children create their world with dinosaurs, sea creatures, shells and moshi monsters. I get to understand who is in their world, family and friends, how school and home is for them and the main obstacles they have in their life right now. 

They then recreate it as they would like it to be and we have an idea of what we will work on in our sessions. 

Lego Serious Play

This is a set of LEGO designed for therapy use so it has all sorts of interesting bits and pieces rather than simply being blocks to make a set thing.  I invite children to create a model of friendship or confidence or make a happiness machine. As they do this, I observe their process and we can chat without it being direct and without eye contact which children find easier. As they explain how their model works, i learn a great deal about them and what they feel as well as how they'd like to feel. 

Crystal Time Line

By choosing a crystal that represents them, they project onto the crystal, aspects of their own personality which helps me to understand them in a way that a direct question wouldn't. They then choose crystals to represent their family members and friends which enables me to get a feeling for their world and who's in it. 

I also use crystals to get an understanding of what they've experienced in their life so far. We take each school year and they choose a crystal that represents it and talk about what that year was like for them and we can use this as a basis for working on compelling outcomes and overcoming limiting beliefs. 

I'm afraid I can't find any pictures that don't have identifying names etc on them to show you. 

Drawing

Children may be asked to draw themselves as a superhero, draw their dream, a feelings pizza or draw their fear. There are lots of coloured felt pens and the colours all have meanings which tell me more about what we might need to work on. 

Vision boards

Children and young people love to create vision boards from the Visual Explorer cards and then use them as Home screens on their mobile. This could be a vision of their new school year, friendship, their future, their family life or indeed anything I might decide will be helpful. 

Metaprogrammes

NLP explains how we have a number of metaprogrammes which we use to process our world and knowing how we do that, helps children best choose how they work more effectively when it comes to revision, tests or important exams. It also helps parents know how to communicate so their child can process what they are saying quickly without having to translate it into their own metaprogramme. 

So if you feel your child or young person might actually enjoy coming to see me, get in touch and we will start working on whatever they'd like to change in their life. 

​NLP has a number of ground rules or principles that form the basis for all the practical tools and techniques you will learn in this book.
I find that they underpin it in such a way that if I get stuck, just by applying one of these rules I can find a solution.
Each one makes you stop and think differently. It challenges you to assess whether what you do now, works or if by changing it, you could get a better outcome.
NLP is completely focussed on positivity, aiming for a positive outcome, a compelling outcome that is desirable for you. The focus is on what you want, rather than what you don’t want.
There are even some toxic words that by avoiding will steer you a positive, resourceful path.
NLP uses a great deal too much jargon in my opinion and so I have reworded some of the concepts to make them more digestible as you will want to pass them on to your children.
 

This is a great one to start with because it really challenges you to change.

What it says is that if the result you are getting such as your children’s behaviour is not what you want then you must change your own behaviour in order to get a different result.

We tend to think as parents that it is their behaviour that must be changed and we carry on telling them off, shouting at them and getting cross.

So here is a new way of thinking.
Do something different.
If you do something different you will get a different result.

The first way to do this is to decide what result you want. There could be any number of results such as children doing what they are told, not throwing things, shouting and so on. 

Think of a situation that occurs frequently in your family that you’d like to change. Write it down here.
I want to change………..
 
 
 
 
 
 
Now think about what you would like to happen. What is your desirable outcome? Write that down now.
What I want to happen is………
 
 
 
 
 
When you decide on what result you want you need to be quite specific and get to the detail. What exactly do you want, from whom, when and in what way? Write this down here.
I want ………………………….
 
 
 
 
 
The more specific you can be about what you want to happen the easier it will be to decide how to change what you are currently doing in order to achieve it.

Your current behaviour pattern is dictated by your beliefs. The reason you are shouting or using the words you are using, telling them to do certain things is because you have a belief that it is important for them to do what you ask.

This belief stems from your own childhood and how you were brought up, what you consider to be of value and important about how to bring up children. This may also have come from the mores of the culture you are from, the area or region and who you spend time with in your environment.
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If what you are doing is not working then look at the underlying belief for this behaviour.
Are you sure your underlying belief is sound? Could you be carrying forward into the present a belief that belongs in the past?
Look back at the situation you have written about and list all the beliefs that underpin your thinking. What do you hold in your head about what should happen in that situation?
I believe that…………
 
 
I believe that………….
 
 
I believe that…………..
 
 
Where have those beliefs come from?
Are they valid for you today? Are they serving you well or making life more difficult?
Could you re-think a belief so that you could make other choices of behaviour?
Whenever you find yourself thinking ‘I should do….’ - change it to, ‘I could do…’ so that you give yourself permission to do something different. 
Do your beliefs limit your choices of behaviour? Increase your options and change your behaviour to get the result you want.
 
 
This is of course an excellent challenge for children. How often do they repeat the same behaviour, get the same result and wish they’d got another one. They have the same choices as you.
Ask them what they want to happen in the situation and ask them to describe it in detail, even act it out if that helps.
Then ask them what they could do differently to make this result happen for them.
Discuss with them their different options and how likely each one would bring about the outcome they desire.
This process requires that they step into the shoes of the other people involved in the situation rather than just look at it from their point of view. This is an enormously powerful tool that they can learn as a toddler and apply throughout their life. 

There are a number of factors in parenting style that can contribute to low self-esteem in adults.

*  Focus on the negative
If your parents or teachers/carers noticed what you did wrong or where you fell short of their expectations (which may well have been unrealistic) but didn’t praise you for what you did achieve.

* High expectations
Some high achieving parents assume their children will also be brilliant, clever and do well at school but this is not always the case of course. You might have been differently excellent in your own way but if it was not what was expected for you it may not have been recognised.

* Negative comparisons
When parents or teachers constantly compare you with other brighter pupils or siblings and feel that you are ‘not good enough’.

* Neglect
When parents’ busy lives and stressful occupations, frequent absences and lack of contact result in a child not receiving the emotional and physical support they need when growing up.

* Abuse
Children who have been physically or verbally abused find it difficult to feel valued.

* Being different
If you were very different from your peers or siblings through being a different colour, size, culture, religion or temperament this can lead to feelings of low esteem. Sometimes just wearing glasses, having a stutter or a skin condition can make a child feel different.
 
These situations do not necessarily lead to low self-esteem. It is not the facts in themselves that create it but your perceptions of the facts. You may have a perception that whatever you do is wrong or notice the negative responses rather than the positive ones and this can be the result of a pattern in parents. For example, if a parent constantly puts themselves down or has low self-esteem themselves, their child could therefore almost look out for situations or experiences that would lead them to have this themselves. Similarly you can have biased interpretation such that you subconsciously distort the meaning you attach to the situation. For example, if your parent says something positive you still decide that they didn’t mean it or were just trying to be nice. 

​Who we are is not so much about the roles we play, what we do for a living or how we spend our time. We are who we are because of how we respond to what we experience. Take a group of people and expose them to the same experience and they will each respond differently. This difference is explained by the fact that we will base our response to events and people on a number of factors such as:

• Childhood – how we were brought up, where, by whom and in what culture
• Our age – attitudes change with time our response will be different to anyone younger or older than us depending on the environment we were brought up in, the mores of our generation
• Gender – men and women are different!
• Past experience of the event or person
• Values – what we feel is important in life
• Beliefs – what we hold to be true about the world

 
How our parents brought us up, their values and beliefs will have been passed on to us both subconsciously and directly in terms of spoken instructions. They in turn will have been influenced by their parents of course. If you were brought up by one parent this will have affected you and be different from say your partner who may have been brought up by two parents. The area in which you spent your childhood will affect who you are and the cultural environment. One only has to witness two colleagues suddenly discovering they went to the same school or lived in the same town to experience the sense of kinship they have from this shared environment.

We are unique, we are the result of the beliefs of our parents, their parents, our teachers and the environment itself. We are special people and we need to love ourselves so our children can love themselves. 
 

You can read more about self-esteem and how to get more of it in my book 'Self-Esteem Workbook' and I run a self esteem programme for adults and a Confidence and Resilience course for children and teens. 

Feedback is the response we give and get from communication, either verbal or non-verbal. Distortion is the effect of mind reading and making assumptions about a person’s behaviour rather than checking it out with them. 

When we give feedback it needs to be clear and specific and it needs to be what we think based on what we have observed rather than assumptions we make based on our view of the world. Distortion occurs when we make 1+1=3 , where the evidence doesn’t point to the conclusion we’ve drawn because we’ve added in something of our own into the mix. An example of this is ‘my children are fighting to annoy me’ or ‘my boss has given me extra work because he doesn’t like me’. You can also recognise this type of distortion where you have sentences divided by the word ‘so’ or ‘therefore’ for example ‘he hasn’t told me he loves me recently so he must be having an affair’ or ‘she is playing on her computer therefore she isn’t doing her homework’. When we add our own meaning we are distorting the original meaning. It assumes we know better what the intention of the behaviour or communication was. We compare what they say and do with our own map of the world and it becomes our truth. Feedback needs to be given in the spirit of curiosity and respect for the other person’s map of the world.  What else could they mean? Where someone has presented two linked statements for them there is an association or meaning in their map of the world. We need to challenge this using clean questions such as ‘in what way…’ or ‘and how is…and that’s like what?’ we’re looking to understand how 1+1=3 in their map.

When we are given feedback the same thing applies. Be curious about the content, what they have observed and question any assumptions they have made which have distorted it. This is all part of the feedback because you need to know what it was that you communicated that gave them this impression because you are responsible for your communication.

Reverse mind reading is also distortion. This is when someone says ‘if you knew me …..’ or ‘if you cared about me you would……’ or ‘you should know that………’. Here you are criticising someone for not responding in the way they should yet you have never told them what you wanted.

Another type of distortion is cause and effect when we feedback to someone that they ‘make’ you feel a certain way. This isn’t true because someone can’t make you feel something, this is your choice however what interests us is how this can be so for the other person so we’d ask ‘how exactly did I do that?’ or ‘how did x do that exactly?’ 

Parents frequently distort feedback to and from their children partly because the relationship is so intense and emotional that it becomes difficult to objectively observe behaviour. There is a huge amount of mind-reading that goes on because parents unecologically assume that they can do this because the child is theirs, of their own flesh and blood therefore they ought to be able to read their mind. Of course they can’t.
When children disobey their parents it isn’t usually because they want to ‘make ‘ them angry or upset even thought his is often what parents say. Parents often take the action of their children at a very personal level assuming they are involved when usually they are not. Next time you respond to your child feedback what you have noticed without putting any interpretation on it from your own very different map of the world. Be curious about their map as you feedback to them how you feel about what they have done or said. By taking this slightly more disassociated stance you allow for improved rapport and connection. You also model for them how to give feedback and how to receive it.
When you children are giving you feedback that seems distorted , question the assumptions using clean questions such as ‘and how exactly did I do that? or ‘and how exactly did I make you feel this?’  

Everything we experience is filtered through our beliefs and values, experiences and memories. This gives us a unique perception, ours. It is called our ‘map of the world’. But there are several different ways of looking at your world. In NLP we call them positions, they are also called perspectives. They relate to perceptions from three different points of view. A CCTV camera has no emotion but simply records what it sees without judgement.  It notices everything and records it exactly. It can’t be fooled, it is impartial. By being able to access this state for ourselves we get to see what is actually happening in our world when we take away the emotions. This can be instructive in a number of situations.

“What people say they do or believe they do is often far removed from what they actually do”.
Richard Bandler

“Wisdom comes from multiple perspectives, and there is a lot that the athlete can learn from seeing him/herself doing the particular event (disassociated) from different angles and perspectives.” Jeremy Lazarus.

“The skill lies in choosing an associated or a disassociated state for a purpose. The appropriate choice depends on your desire outcome. You might choose to disassociate to protect yourself from painful emotions, or you might choose to associate in order fully to experience all the feelings of the situation.” Sue Knight

“As you practice the technique of changing perceptual positions you will find that moving to third position brings with it a new perspective and calmer insights into any dilemma that you are facing.” Jeff Archer

“Some people believe that this perceptual position allows us to manage our emotions more effectively by ensuring that our prefrontal cortex is engaged in a logical and rational way, as opposed to being at the mercy of our amygdala with all the associated risks of emotional excess.” Richard Churches and Roger Terry

First position is us. When we use the word ‘I’ we are engaging with our ‘first person’. It is from this position that we think and talk about our thoughts and feelings our beliefs and values, experiences and window on the world. It is important to associate into this position and be fully aware of it so you know that it is your opinion you are expressing and your choice of what you are doing. You can’t always stay in first position though because you need to appreciate other people’s point of view and consider their feelings. Be aware when you are in first position and acknowledge that it is one point of view and that it isn’t the only one.

Second position is the other person you are talking to or in a relationship with. You need to step into their shoes to understand the world from their perspective. It will be different from yours, not least because they may be another gender, age or ethnic group. You will be most successful at this if you can imagine and be curious about what life would be like if you were them. Acknowledging the second position is the way you can empathise with someone else and consider their feelings because by putting yourself in their shoes you will know what these are without having to ask them.

Third position is the CCTV camera or some people say ‘the fly on the wall’ or ‘impartial observer’. This third position can observe what is going on between first and second position but cannot intervene and cannot feel the emotion, it just observes the body language and hears what is said. It can only communicate this without there being any judgement or emotion. In order to understand this position, imagine yourself as a fly on the wall or a CCTV camera watching you right now as you read this book. When you are that camera what do you see? What is happening?

This ability to see things dispassionately can be enormously beneficial when emotions are getting high and being able to second and third position in order to see the other person’s map and see what is going on between you both from an outside perspective can take the heat out of the situation.
 
​Become aware of when you are in first , second and third position and practice moving deftly between them to check out what the other person may need or want (second position) what you want (first position) and then check in with third position to view the interaction from a disassociated place where the emotions are quietened. That way, you become flexible, give yourself choices and are more likely to achieve your desirable outcome. 

This extract is from 'Secrets of the NLP Masters' by Judy Bartkowiak. 

When we give up on things very quickly and call it failure it is often because of a belief we have that we should find things easy and succeed first time. This could be because in the past we have done so. Maybe as a child we used to find things easy but then as work at school became harder and we couldn’t do it so easily we decided we were not so bright after all and gave up instead of finding other ways to understand the subject.

Apart from past experience informing how we frame failure we can also blame our upbringing. Parents and significant adults in early life can make it difficult for us to pick ourselves up and get going again after disappointments. They can suggest that it’s inherited “I wasn’t any good at maths either” or “no-one in our family ever went to University and it didn’t do them any harm”. They might tell you that it isn’t important “what do you want to speak French for?” or “exams aren’t everything you know.” In trying to make you feel better they may even persuade you that you didn’t want to succeed anyway and that it’s even an advantage to have failed “you’re better off staying where you are” or “you wouldn’t want the stress of that job”.

In those ways we get into the habit of accepting defeat and we bow to the pressure of other people wanting to make our life easier or for us to feel good about ourselves instead of persevering until we succeed. It is well known that even a successful novelist like J.K.Rowling was rejected many times before being published and what a loss it would have been not to have experienced Harry Potter. Sportsmen train daily to achieve success and study their form in minute detail to see where they went wrong and discuss with their trainer how to do it differently next time. This is what we need to do too. 

Where you choose to place your focus will also have an influence on the outcome. When we feel deflated and focus on what has not worked out we can sometimes fail to notice and learn from what has been successful. We get the balance all wrong. Instead next time you think something has failed, stop and track through the process picking out the things that went well so you hold onto them for next time. Take time to learn from what went well. What skills did you apply? Could you have done anything differently to get a better result?

Write down what you’ve learned from the successes and what you plan to do next time and only when you feel good about what went well should you look at areas which need a different approach.

Those things that went less well, what have you learned? Could you have used these skills you’ve just identified in those areas to get a different result? How? Run through the structure of what happened, the process rather than the content. How could you change the process next time? 

One of the NLP Beliefs of Excellence is 'we already have all the resources we need'. One of these is to learn from failure how to improve next time. 

“There’s only one thing that makes dreams impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” Paulo Coelho

I see lots of mums in my therapy room who have picked up a fear of failure in their own childhood, perhaps even inherited it from their mother's childhood. With this fear deeply embedded in their subconscious, everything that happens in their parenting where they are reminded of it, creates a much more emotional reaction. It might only take a child refusing to do something for them to feel they've failed. If you'd like to work on your own fear of failure, please get in touch. I offer Skype or Whatsapp online therapy at £250 for four one hour sessions.