Creating Excellence

Humans have a wonderful ability to adapt and change. As such, you have the capability to create excellence in the area of life you choose. The question is how some people manage to create that excellence, whilst others get stuck or simply go with the flow. There is a very good technique used in NLP, called modelling.

Creating excellence with NLP

The NLP techniques that are taught in the training, were created through modelling other people who were most excellent in their own fields. Examples would be Virginia Satir, a renowned family therapist; Fritz Pearls the creator of Gestalt therapy and Dr. Milton Erickson, who was one of the foremost hypnotherapists.

The creators of NLP modeled each of these people to understand how and what they were doing to create the wonderful results that they were achieving. In essence, they modeled experts in their fields so as to be able to achieve the same results. They were then also able to achieve these results in much less time than it took the experts to learn the skills in the first place.

What does that have to do with creating excellence?

What this means for you in everyday life, is that you can model others who are getting the type of results that you are striving for. Here are a couple of very big picture examples. Let’s say that you want to become a better golf player, then you would look at what makes an expert golf player so good. Or, let’s say you wanted to become a more successful business person. Then you could model somebody who you respected as a successful business person, so that you could create similar results.

How do you achieve what you want?

Again as a big picture overview, you would look at a number of aspects of and about the person you wanted to model. The important thing to bear in mind, is that modelling is not copying. It is about finding out what is it that the other person is doing that is important in achieving those results, and what is idiosyncratic. So separating what is necessary from what is not. Example, it is probably not important to tap your bat against your foot to be a brilliant baseball player. It is however important to have certain beliefs, strategies and self-talk etc. This is true in whatever area of your life you are looking to create more success in.

In the video below, we see how students have learnt to model how to do a board break. Most people may not learn this skill for at least 12-24 months of them taking up martial arts. However during the NLP master practitioner training, they learn how to do this in a few minutes, through the process of modelling. In a similar way, you can learn what is it that other “experts” are doing to create the type of success that they are.

There are specific things to do in the process of modelling and creating excellence. Here are some examples of questions you could ask yourself and the person that you want to model.

• What exactly do they do to get their results?
Get a precise description of the activity

• How do they do it?
This provides more detail on what they do. Are there any specific steps that they take, things they say to themselves etc.

• When do they do it?
Is there a specific time of day example morning, afternoon or evening? Do they do it every day?

• Where do they do it?
Do they do it at home, office, sports field, in the car or maybe continuously?

• Why do they do it?
What motivates them to do it? What they get out of it?

What is the benefit of modelling?

The question really should be why is it that you want to be more excellent in any area? There is a very interesting concept around continuous improvement, called Kaizen. You can read more about it here.

My personal opinion is that I want to be the best version of me, for myself and my family. This does not mean striving for perfection, as that can lead to its own set of problems, which we can discuss in a later article. It is about wanting to maximize my abilities and not being a victim of “I can’t do it, or “They are better than me.”

As my friend Geoffrey Prince always says, “Success, the choice is yours.”

If you need any help in creating excellence in your life, then feel free to contact us. We are always happy to help.

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