chapter 16

Timelines and other techniques for Motivation and Success

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“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” (1)

Nelson Mandela

In this chapter

Over the years NLP has evolved a range of techniques to help people drive their own internal processes and make changes to how they think and feel. But the techniques are not NLP per se. NLP techniques develop over time as our skills improve and we find faster and easier ways to help people drive their own brains. Some techniques are no longer used because we have found better ways, but the fundamentals of NLP don’t change.

Here we share with you some of the tried and tested ways to help your students to success. It is not an exhaustive list; it is designed to help you to begin to use your skills to create solutions for yourself. So these techniques are to get you started. The more you practise and build your confidence with this material, the easier it will be to find your own processes that work and you can begin to use NLP to improve the lives of your learners. We are sure that your creativity can find new and exciting ways to use these processes.

Timelines
Working with timelines allows you to support your students to unlock motivation and become self-managed learners. You can anchor the feelings of success and utilise the resources that are in the past, present and future. This enables learners to gain insights into the stages of their learning journey in relation to goals that are both short and longterm, and you can help them to install time-management strategies to help meet required deadlines.

We experience time in different ways at different times in our lives. Very young people have little concept of time – everything is very much in the moment. Think of how we explain to little ones that Christmas is coming and will be here after 2 sleeps. Exam dates in 6 months seem a lifetime away to a teenager, whereas for an adult it comes around all too quickly.

Often, young people are unable to put off immediate pleasure for long-term gain. In fact, there is evidence that teenagers lose the ability to delay gratification due to the changes in their frontal lobes during adolescence and in some cases don’t regain this ability until they are in their early twenties.(2) Many students will choose a short-term benefit such as going out with their friends over the long-term benefit of passing their exams or graduating from college. One solution to this problem could be just to wait for them to grow up a bit, but this won’t get them through their exams or motivate them to do their homework. The answer is to bring the pleasure of the success into the present state. Timeline work is an easy and rewarding process, useful for both one-to-one work or with a whole group.

Some applications of timelines in a learning context include changing the way the learner experiences things from the past, such as unhelpful experiences and decisions, so that they can experience what they want in their future in more resourceful ways. You can also use timelines to build propulsion into the experience of the learner, and timelines can also convince students that they are capable of achieving their goals and help them to build well-formed outcomes .

Timelines are a way of spatially organising time in our internal representation of reality. There is no way for our brains to conceptualise time, so we use space to represent time. The timelines that most people adopt can be described as either Through Time or In Time , although there are other cultural variations.

In time: This is where the sense of time is experienced as inside the body, (associated into the experience). Often, this is the perception that the future is in a line ahead of you, and the past in a line directly behind you. The present is experienced as ‘within’ you and is therefore known as in-time . This is the best state to be in to enjoy the moment. Being in time, you are also less likely to be aware of time passing, less likely to plan or stick to a plan and you may become side-tracked very easily.

Through time: This is where the sense of time is experienced as being outside the body (disassociated from the experience). Often, the timeline is perceived as laid out from left to right in front of you so you can see it. In this state, the past, present and future is ‘available’. Being through-time is to be conscious of time passing, to be aware of the interaction of events, have time to attend an approaching lesson, to be able to plan, work to a plan, and multi-task.

By using the imagination to travel back and forwards along a person’s timeline, we can create the experience of bringing future feelings of success into the present moment. This has the effect of making the gratification immediate. We can also travel along the timeline and gather resources that are necessary for the success.

Preparing for exams and tests
A simple and easy way to prepare students for exams or upcoming tests is to take them on a timeline journey. Making elegant use of the Milton patterns, allow your students to fill in the details of the experience for themselves while stacking positive suggestions along the way so it is perfect for them. You can experiment using the following process:

Have your students push back on their chairs away from their desks and close their eyes. Play some quiet relaxing music and weave a pleasant and relaxing journey into the future to a moment of success. Encourage the students to really appreciate the good feelings and amplify the state. Ask them to turn around inside their heads and look back at all they have achieved to get to this point of success. Mention here all the steps that lead to successful exams, like preparing a plan, organising time to revise, making notes, remembering and recalling easily. Take your students through each day and each exam, letting go of any doubts and moving on to the next confidently.

Next ask your students to move along their timeline inside their heads back to the present whilst gathering all the resources, skills and behaviours they have observed so they can bring them all back into the present with the feelings of success. As you ask them to open their eyes, explain that using your imagination in this way feels like remembering an experience and when we do something once it’s much easier to do it the second time, even if it is in our imagination, isn’t it?

Appendix E has a full transcript of this journey for you to use in your classes.

This process can be easily translated into a physical classroom activity, and this is often preferred by active and energetic learners. To do this, create a timeline on the floor across the room with three flipchart paper ‘islands’.

Write NOW, EXAM and SUCCESS on the separate ‘islands’.

Start with the group on NOW and create a great anticipatory state about the future for the students and anchor it with a sound and gesture. Devise a game with the students where they fill in the timeline with Post-It notes with all the activities and stages necessary to get success. Take the group to the SUCCESS island and build a really great state of what it feels like to succeed and anchor it.

(Check back to Chapter 11 for a reminder of how to do this). Have the group walk back to the EXAM island, taking the great feeling with them. Move them back to the NOW island while gathering all the resources they have from the future, bringing them into the here and now with the great feelings. Fire off the ‘success’ anchor in the present and connect it to the resources they have collected.

These two examples are designed for structured sessions. However, often a student becomes stuck or fearful in the middle of something else. In this situation, changes to the perception of time and success can be done conversationally to change the student’s perception and feelings. By changing the tenses of the verb from future to present and from passive to active the experience of time changes too. Teachers tend to overuse the word ‘will’, which has the effect of pushing the experience into the future. It is more useful to push the resources into the past, so the student has them at their disposal and can bring the sense of achievement into the present.

Consider the effect of the following questions and statements:

The first question places the experience in the future. The second sentence places the experience in the future past and the third sentence brings the achievement into the present.

When a student is stuck or saying they can’t do something it can be useful to physically move them away from the place where they are stuck and use a timeline conversationally to create a more resourceful state, as in the following example:

Ellen declares in the middle of the class that she just can’t do the exercise. The teacher agrees with her, saying ‘yes that’s right Ellen, you can’t do this yet’ . (Notice the teacher gains rapport by not arguing with the student or trying to convince them they can do it!) ‘So come over here for a moment’ and the teacher leads her a few steps away from Ellen’s seat. She then says, ‘now just imagine for a moment how you would feel having completed this exercise; what a sense of satisfaction you now have, feeling really good that you have done it.’ (Building a feeling of confidence and success in the present) ‘Just look back at yourself (pointing at the chair) and now that you have completed the task give the other Ellen some advice as to what she needs to do to succeed. What do you think would help first? After that what is next?’ Very quickly Ellen is finding the resources within herself to complete the task and it really only takes a minute or so. There are some other factors at play here too. By discussing ‘Ellen’s problem’ in the third person, the student can disassociate from the unpleasant ‘stuck’ feeling while she thinks about the resources she needs to succeed.

It’s worth stating that a person doesn’t actually have a timeline! It’s a useful metaphor for representing time to ourselves as a construct, so we are able to help our students overcome difficulties. Students find timelines great fun as well as a great resource. Once they understand the process a little, we often find that they begin to make use of the process for themselves.

Putting things in the Past
A similar process can be used to help students put in the past those experiences that have led them to believe that they can’t do something, or are stupid, or will never be able to do something. Often, these beliefs come about because of a silly suggestion made by an unthinking adult with no intention of causing a lasting effect. However, sometimes they become limiting beliefs. If a student has failed in the past and believes they will fail in the future, it’s a good idea to help them to understand that the best thing about the past is that it’s over, and that just because they once believed something they don’t have to now.

During a lesson observation, a very caring adult education tutor said to a group of nervous adult learners, ‘now I know that you find exams difficult and stressful, don’t worry though I am here to support you and no matter how hard you find it, it really isn’t as hard as you think it will be’ . Even if the students had not been worrying, stressing and finding it difficult previously, they were now! The tutor meant well and really cared, but the meaning of the communication is the response you get! All this tutor needed to do was to put the past behind her students by saying, ‘I know that some of you may have found exams tough in the past, but as you look back you can realise that it is over now that you are here with me you can find the experience easy and even enjoyable as you begin to learn how clever you are’ .

Spinning bad feelings into Good Feelings
Many students have unpleasant feelings about school and college and some may become anxious or stressed by past experiences which they worry will recur in their lives. Neuro-Hypnotic Repatterning® (NHR) is one of the most powerful ways of changing long-held bad feelings into good ones. It works directly with the kinaesthetic , rather than using the other representational systems to change a person’s experience. You will by now be familiar with this process from the chapters relating to state management.

To begin, ask the student to pay attention to the unpleasant feeling and notice how and where it moves in their body. Watch any hand gestures they make, as people often indicate with their hands where a feeling is and where it moves to. Notice the direction and ask the person to spin the feeling in that direction just for a moment so they become aware of the movement (often the feeling will intensify so only do this for a second or two). Next ask the student to take the feeling out of their body, put it in front of them and watch it spin, then begin to spin it in the opposite direction. Ask them to move the feeling back into the body and notice that the feeling has changed (often to the opposite feeling). Ask them to spin this good feeling faster until the student finds just the right intensity of feeling and starts to imagine carrying out the activity that they used to be anxious about in this new and comfortable state.

Here is the process illustrated:

There are a number of storybooks for younger children which use the NHR process in the story to help little people change bad feelings into lovely ones. Some of these books are listed in the bibliography.

Inappropriate behaviour can sometimes be a result of a lack of confidence or inability to deal with feelings. Here is how one NLP-trained tutor decided to work with a student whose swearing was getting very out of hand. The young man wrote about his experience and these are his words. When he first went to the college his literacy level was extremely low and he would not write anything, so we are reproducing his letter here to show you just how far a young person can progress personally and educationally with the right skilled teacher:

“At the beginning of the course of painting and decorating I was all right with my language but as the course progressed and I got to know people, they started taking the Mickey out of me and calling me names and I just started swearing at them… When Ivan [his tutor] took over he noticed me swearing a lot. One day he took me into his office and had a quiet word with me, saying I needed to calm it down or else I wouldn’t get onto the next course and he helped me by saying change your swear words into fruits and vegetables. He did some stuff with me about standing in Wembley Stadium being Kaká [a football hero of his]. It made me feel really good and made me feel I could do lots more things than I could before. When my mates try and take the Mickey now I use the things that Ivan made me think about how good I am. It’s working and I feel he has helped me to calm my swearing down. 5 weeks ago every other word I said was a swear word and now I hardly ever swear.”

From stuck to motivated with a Visual Squash
This is a great technique to help students to stop procrastinating. You can use this activity on a one-to-one basis or for a whole class. It can provide an alternative to the motivational speech teachers often feel necessary before an activity starts. You can experiment with this process in the following way: Have your students think about something they are really motivated to do and enjoy. Ask them to amplify the feeling (using spinning the feelings in the right direction) and notice where the image of the activity is in space. Suggest some of the submodalities of the representation, such as ‘is it in colour’ and ‘how big is it?’ Ask them to hold up their right hand and put the picture on the hand. Next ask them to make an image of the activity that they want to be motivated to do but aren’t yet and put this image on their left hand. As they hold up their hands in front of them have them imagine pictures of all the steps they need to take to get to feel motivated about the activity. When they have all the steps laid out in sequence, have them slap their hands together and bring their hands to their chest to bring the good feeling inside.

Swish for Change
The Swish technique is very useful when people feel compelled to act in ways they don’t want to. Try this for yourself so you have the experience and can help the students to change the way they feel and act. Make one image in your head of a behaviour or feeling you don’t want to have and notice the submodalities of the image (see the list in the appendix if you want a reminder of the submodalities). Next make an image of the behaviour or feeling you do want and shrink it down to a small dark image and put it in the corner of the first image. Now shrink down the unwanted image to a small dark dot while you simultaneously bring up the wanted image, bright and bold so it completely covers the first image. Making a ‘swish’ sound helps!

This process can be adapted in many ways. Students can do this on their computers by creating images and manipulating them. Small children can put the images into balloons and send them off into space while making big bold pictures of new ways to be and pinning them to the walls. Here is an example of how activities can be adapted for younger children. Charlie is a 5-year-old whose mum thought he was school phobic. When Kate went to work with him, this turned out not to be the case; he just really wanted to play his favourite computer game in the mornings rather than get ready and go to school. He found the mornings very chaotic and he felt he didn’t have any control over his little life, with everyone telling him what to do and what to eat and rushing him in the mornings. Once he was at school he settled very well, but the process of getting him there literally involved carrying him kicking and screaming. The first step was to encourage Charlie to draw what it was like in the mornings now. He said he didn’t like that picture and so we screwed it up and put it in the bin. Then we asked him what he would like it to be like. Charlie decided that it would be good to get up 20 minutes earlier and have time to himself on his computer game, then he would feel ready to get himself ready to school. He felt that he was big enough to take responsibility for getting ready for school. Kate suggested he drew another picture. He immediately divided his page into 6 sections and drew each step of his perfect morning. It was bright, detailed and had timings on it. His mum agreed to leave him to his own devices for two weeks, even at the risk of being late for school. We colour copied the picture and laminated the sheets and Charlie placed them around the house to remind himself of his new strategy and the timings. The next morning Charlie was at school on time happily and with no fuss. Peace reigned again and continues to do so.

summary

During this chapter you have explored using timelines to motivate and engage learners by using the resources of the future in the present. You have discovered three other processes to adapt for use with your students to change states, feelings and behaviours and to boost motivation. We are sure that as you start to use the techniques of NLP you will create many more opportunities for your learners in the future.

references

1. Attributed to Nelson Mandela President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999

2. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd (2007) Emotional and cognitive changes during adolescence. Curr Opin Neurobiol, Apr; 17

activities

Activity 1
Create a timeline with a group, adapting the method to suit the age group.

  1. Start with the goal, and ask the students to create a poster and draw what success will be like for them (what pictures, sounds, feelings etc?). They all then stand with their poster and you ask them to ‘look ahead’ and imagine the future is in that space in front of them. Have them go and stand where the ‘deadline’ is (notice how many of them go a long way off!).
  2. They can then place their ‘success poster’ in the place where they saw the deadline.
  3. From the point where we have the present, ask them to consider bringing the deadline space closer and place the poster there. Ask them to notice the difference. For some students this is enough to get them wanting to make a start on steps towards achieving the goal.
  4. Now have them walk to that space. Suggest that they are now reaching their goal.
  5. Now ask them to go back to the present and look at the future again; the place on the timeline where their success poster is. Ask them what they need to do in the space that is between them and the poster. Let them suggest first steps. Use Meta Model questions to support their thinking at this stage and check for a well-formed outcome.
  6. Now ask them to locate action steps on the timeline and anchor each ‘step’ to the timeline. Have them return to the present and re-connect with the goal, at each step looking back at the ‘future past’ and firing off the ‘success’ state to maintain motivation towards the goal. Remember: Build a state of success and confidence (or other required resourceful state) in the present and at each ‘step’ along the way.

Extension activities
What other whole class activities can you create around the techniques we have explored in this chapter? Which obstacles to achievement can you help your students to overcome by adapting and applying these ideas?

This eBook is licensed to Dominic Luzi, dluzi@managementalchemy.com on 10/18/2018