Intoxicating new years resolutions

It is January, 2006 has clicked into 2007 and the champagne bottles have been dropped off to be recycled. It is resolution time. So here is something I wrote with the aim of offering you your heart’s desire this year – or at least a method to identify and develop it.

Keep reading and you will find a set of ideas and instructions. You can try them on your own, or what is more fun is to get a group of friends together and try it with them. Actually they don’t even have to be friends, just people you know. But be warned, you could have a magical time doing this and find yourself with a bunch of new friends.

Before you get on the phone to your friends here is the basis of the method. Often we start making our resolutions based on what annoys us. Because we feel frustrated at not having done something, or because we keep doing something that we (or others) think that we shouldn’t.

What I propose here is something else. Rather than starting with a unfulfilled desire, I’d like to start with an experience of something that you value deeply. The way into that experience is through stories. Stories are a basic unit of human communication, and they allow us to access states, emotion, motivation and information in a way that more ’rational’ methods fall down with.

Stories are best told within a group, and that’s why I suggest doing this with friends. The presence of your friends makes what you do much more real than the presence of a notebook. It is a privilege to be able to offer the same quality of witnessing back to them.

As you follow the steps, you will ideally enter a shared space with some really pleasant qualities to it. Operating from this space will allow the dialogue and scripting below to flow more naturally.

From stories into values
Tell yourself, your partner or your friends a story about an experience that you value in some way, a story that is special to you

When you tell the story, let yourself re-experience it as fully as you can. Three or four minutes should be enough.

It doesn’t have to be an epic tale. One of the last ones I chose was about the pleasure of taking my daughter on the back of my bicycle. Someone else told a story of learning excel with ease, instead of frustration. Of course there were also stories of moonlit coral reefs, helipads and luxury.

At the end of the story your partners can ask:

‘What was important to you about this experience?’
or ‘What is it about this story that you value or is special to you?’

feel into the answer, and give it simply without a huge discussion.

When asking these questions be minimalist. You ask them to help the person to go deeper into their own experience, rather than explain their experience to you. Frankly it doesn’t matter whether or not you understand their experience or not, just that you witness it with as much presence as you can.

You may come up with words to label your values. For example excitement, or connection, or contribution, or love. Make a note of them if you like.

Once you do this allow the next person to tell a story and repeat the process, and cycle through the whole group 2-4 times.

Since each story with its appreciation will take about five to ten minutes you may want to keep the groups small, unless your are happy to do this for hours. But since this is likely to be a very pleasant experience you may want to take hours!

At the end of this you will each have a series of values, not just as written words, but as feelings, images, sounds from the memories of your stories and elsewhere. You may notice certain themes and patterns that repeat between the stories, which may represent especially important values for you.

Those values won’t be abstract concepts, but something you can be aware of living in the moment.


Values into the future
Now is the time to start turning these values into goals. Get your partner to start going into an imaginary future that is an expression of or in line with their values.

Before you do this imagine all the pleasure you are experiencing in the moment (and which is an expression of your values) moving into the year ahead. Take a few moments or minutes to do this.

For me this was a bit like inflating the time line of my future with wonder, connection, gratitude, curiousity, love, and service. That may not make any sense to you rationally. It doesn’t have to. But the important part is that it makes perfect (if non rational) sense to me, as your version will to you.

Now start exploring that rich future. Do this by asking yourself or your partner

‘Allow yourself to float into this future filled with (state values) where you are living as an embodiment of (state values)

When you ask this of your partner use their exact words for their values - it will be much more powerful for them that way. Again you don’t have to explain or justify this to anyone else, just experience it as best you can. Be present and witness.

If you like you can add in a discrete background patter to support their exploration, something like this

‘and in this time you are living as an expression of (state values), what do you see around you that shows you that (values) are present now.’ Repeat this with hear, and feel.

In doing this you get an increasingly detailed picture of a goal, or moment in this valuable future. But you may also be happy to have a hint of what lies ahead, with the details implicit, the exact surprise you want, for you to unwrap through time.


Goal ecology
If you wanted that goal, that situation from the future, so much you’d have it already. The situation your are already in has benefits that you may have to give up, or reorganise to get to where you want to go. In your desire for this delicious and juicy future dripping with the bliss of your values you may have missed something, something important about the way things are now.

I doubt you want to throw away your curret benefits, the positive byproducts of your life now. So ask your self or your partner if it’s ok to have this now, and be alert to signals from yourself. Sense if there is something, whether it is rational or not, is impeding your goal. It could be that you think something, say something to yourself, see something, or that you have a feeling somewhere in your body – possibly of closing off or clamping down.

If there is nothing, great. If there is something, great! Because now you have the opportunity to work with it. If it is some rational idea then you can work with it rationally. I won’t go into how to do that now.

If it is more metaphoric, something felt, perhaps a critical or disbelieving voice then you can treat that as a ‘part’ of yourself that you can communicate with. One presupposition of NLP is that every behaviour has a positive intention (for the person engaging in that behaviour), and the same applies to working with parts.

So greet that part with gratitude and ask something like this

‘Hello, and thank you. I know you’ve been doing something for me, something important, something valuable, and I’d like to know what it is. Can you let me know, what’s your highest, most important intention for me?’

Many times people get an answer like ‘to stop you looking silly’ which may well have the intention behind it of ‘security’, or ‘good connection with people’ or ‘confidence’ or a combination of these. When you have your answer you can negotiate. Ask:

‘Thank you for letting me know that. I value what you want for me, and can you find a way that we can integrate this in with (state previous values) and (the goal).’

All of this can be done internally. It can also be facilitated by a partner, who asks the questions with that quality of presence and benevolence.

The ability to work with parts like this, and harmonise their positive intentions with a goal is a fundamental skill of an NLP. It is found in a great many techniques. It uses non verbal communication, linguistic patterns, modelling and more. I don’t really have time to do it justice in this article. Better to get a direct experience at a training or with an NLP coach. You can read some more about parts and positive intentions in the Encyclopedia of NLP

Next steps
Now you should have a value driven, ecological goal. You can begin to embody the goal, to be the goal ask

‘If you are an expression of (values) now, how will you sit, look and talk? Allow it to move through you now, and show me in your posture that you are (state values) ’

The idea is that you rather than having to make lots of effort to get your goal, you move towards it easily, anything you need to ‘do’ to get there just happens naturally as a result of who you are. In fact if you do this you are your goal.

Once you or your partner have done this then you can ask:

‘Now as (state values) what is the next things that you can do in service of (goal)?’

It could be something that has direct relevance towards what you envisioned, or it could be something apparently unrelated like going to see a film, phoning an old friend, or taking a walk in the park.

The point is that whatever you choose you can do it as an expression of your values. This way the ends do not justify the means, the ends and the means are one.

All you have to do is keep living in this way…Of course you may get knocked off track and out of state. That’s life giving you more opportunities to deepen your capacity to live your values, and calling you to develop new ones.

But that’s enough reading me for now. Much more interesting are your stories. How are they important to you? What state does reliving and going into the value of them put you into? Who do you want to share them with?