NLP Liverpool

Coaching Tips

Setting Direction.

Part 9 - What do you get to have or to keep by staying as you are?

“I suppose, if you cure my fear of flying …
I’ll HAVE to go to my sister-in-law’s wedding.”

– Anonymous Client, Who did NOT want to go to her sister-in-law’s wedding!

Have you ever wondered why sometimes the commitment to a goal simply isn’t there?

Have people told you they want to achieve a goal, yet made little effort to get it? Or have they found excuse after excuse about why they can’t do it?

What causes this block? Do they get something else from not achieving the goal, even though they say it’s what they want?

In our previous articles, we’ve examined ways to create a well-formed, attainable and tangible goal, today we’ll explore the questions to uncover “secondary gain” and ways to overcome it.

Returning to the TV show “Location, location, location” – where the presenters help people with their property search, there are some standout episodes where the guests have been searching for their ideal property for 10 years or more.

Presenters Phil & Kirsty explore what their guests want in their ideal property. Three different properties are viewed that meet (and often exceed) these requirements. Yet one or both of the guests will find something they simply don’t like about the property.

Sometimes the reasons are justifiable – distance to schools or work etc., sometimes they will seem irrational – “It’s too small” when the property is 40% bigger than anything they’ve seen.

So, what is going on?

In one episode, the couple had been renting the same property for nearly 10 years, and when asked “What does this property give you?” it quickly became clear the presence of family in the same street meant there was a huge support network that would potentially be broken by moving even just a few streets away.

The “secondary gain” of having three generations of family members living on the same street meant that there were free babysitters on hand and that the couple could be there for their elderly grandparents, whose health was failing.

The only location that would meet this couple’s needs would be a property on the same street – ideally, the property they were currently renting, so they had no real desire to buy a property anywhere else.

In the same way, I was asked to see a client who lived in a lovely neighbourhood and suffered from agoraphobia. She was happy and relaxed in her house and garden but suffered panic attacks if she stepped more three paces from the border of her property.

When I asked her “What do you get to have, or keep, by having this problem?” after a bit of discussion she replied, “Well, everyone comes to me, my family, my friends, it’s like being the queen, I can stay at home, do the garden and make the place look amazing and I don’t have to go out to work either”.

Of course, for some clients, there might not be a “problem”. For example, a lawyer in a large firm wanted to leave and set up her own firm.

I rephrased the question slightly to “What do you get to have or keep by staying where you are?”

Her reply – “Well, I keep the salary, the holiday entitlement, private health, maternity leave and my next promotion would be to head of department, oh and they have a really good pension!”

In these three examples, there are different things to be gained by not going for the goal, so how do we deal with these?

For the house buyers, they had been sitting tight, waiting for the right property to come to the market on their street. Their possible options were practical – leaflet each house in the street to let owners know they were looking to buy. Then, to offer the asking price or pay a small premium to ensure they have the best chance of securing a house on the street.

For the agoraphobic client, I amplified the negatives of not being able to leave the property – what would happen if a family member was ill, or a friend needed her. If she continued to restrict herself to the property, she might as well be confined inside a razor wire compound. How would her house look with bars on the windows? What would happen when her children went to university? How much of their experiences would she miss out on? What were the opportunities and experiences out there for her?

For the lawyer, we began by exploring where she was in her career and life and re-examined the questions we had originally explored. In the end, she knew now was the right time to set up her own firm, with all the flexibility and potential this would offer.

So, today explore any potential secondary gain with the question “What do you get to have, or to keep, by having this problem (or, staying as you are)?”

If you’d like any help exploring your own goals then get in touch – call us on 0151 931 5184 or email us at enquiries@nlpliverpool.com

Next time we’ll explore the question “How do you know your goal is worth getting?”

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