Category Archives: Articles

Making a Good First Impression 

Make sure you’re on time. For many people, lateness is a real annoyance. If somebody shows up late for particularly something like an interview, then it causes a question about how badly they want to be there. It plants a seed of doubt about whether they’re going to be motivated enough to bother showing up to work on time.

You must be at ease with yourself. You need to come across as confident within yourself but not a smart arse with it. You don’t want to come across as being arrogant in any way but you do want to come across as somebody who is comfortable within your own skin.

If you are somebody who comes across as being not happy within your own skin, then that could be seen as a negative quality and that perhaps you might have some underlying issues that could get in the way of the relationship that you’re trying to create.

Remember to smile and show off your skillset. The reason why you’ve been asked there is because they think that your qualified to do something that they want you to do or that they need someone to do. You have to really present yourself as somebody who can fill that gap that they have. You have to be completely at ease with showing off a little bit.

Be presentable. It relates to your self-worth. Make sure you iron your shirt. Somebody once told me to make sure that your shoes are always clean and shiny. You can’t make a good first impression with muddy manky old shoes.

So be confident and chatty and have some kind of uniqueness about you. It could be something that you wear that is slightly unusual that will help to stick in their mind. It could be something to do with a special hobby that you have that’s a bit unusual that you managed to bring up into the conversation. Something that will help you stand out in making that first impression.

There are lots of people that make good first impressions but are still forgettable and you don’t want to be forgettable. You want to be memorable. So, remember to be positive and have a good attitude. Now when you do that you have to know if you’re going to be funny that a). it’s in the right context for you to be funny and that b). it really is funny.

If you say something that doesn’t quite fit in with the other person’s humour then you could end up just really miffing them off a bit. So, if you’re going to make an effort to be jovial in some way, make sure that it’s the right context for you to do that and be very certain that the other person is going to find humour in it.

You can work with an NLP coach to get yourself interview and dating ready. We have practitioners based in Hertfordshire and North London who are highly specialised in this area of work and will help you to always make a good first impression.

By Gemma Bailey
www.peoplebuilding.co.uk

Anxiety and Panic, Panic, Panic

Excessive anxiety is often associated with other mental problems such as depression and anxiety is only considered to be a mental health problem when it’s long lasting, severe and is interfering with everyday activities.

Anxiety attacks usually last for only five or ten minutes. Now if you’re someone who has ever had anxiety (and I think we all have at some stage) you’ll remember then the feeling passed but anyone who’s had any kind of prolonged issues with anxiety, whose had a period of anxiety attacks or anything like that, would probably say that it starts to envelop all of their world. It forms the basis for their day and I think what that tells us is that the feeling is so strong and so intense that even though it’s just a tiny, tiny fraction a tiny fragment of what might be going on in any twenty-four-hour period that the intensity of the feeling is so strong, even those five or ten minutes seem like an absolute lifetime.

If you ever have or you know anyone who has experienced the feeling of being anxious and it’s causing them a problem, ask them to make it worse. Now that sounds a little bit evil and twisted but if you can make the feeling worse, then you can also make the feeling better. If you can intensify that feeling and make yourself feel worse is that you are controlling that feeling. You are doing it. You have control over it if you can make it worse and we can also then presuppose that if you can make it worse that you can make it better, just by doing the opposite to what you’re doing already.

So, if with that anxious feeling that’s inside, you can make it worse by spinning it faster and making it seem bigger and more intense or tightening your muscles up further collapsing your lungs down and shrinking down your breathing so you’re getting less oxygen into your body, if you can do those things to make it worse, then you just have to do the opposite to start getting the feeling under control and making yourself feel better.

So instead of spinning the feeling fast you see what happens if you slow it down and spin it back the other way. Instead of shrinking down into your body and collapsing those lungs down so they don’t get much oxygen in, instead you sit yourself up and have them open and lots of air going in. If you notice that you can imagine in your mind making the feeling bigger and it makes it worse, then imagine in your mind making it smaller to make it better.

You brain doesn’t forget memories and experiences. Unlike a computer where you can delete files that you don’t want, you can’t do that in your brain. They’re always stored in there somewhere so in order for us to be able to go through life without continuously referring back to negative memories and negative experiences we need to know how to program our mind in such a way that it always refers back to positive memories and experiences.

If we’re having an experience where every day there is a negative thought that’s being replayed then actually what we want to start training our brain to do is to refer back to positive experiences and memories instead. If you have a negative memory that you consistently referring back to, be it any kind of negative thing or be it related directly to anxiety. If you’ve got something like that all you have to do is create for yourself a new memory to put on top of the one that you don’t want to keep referring back to.

An NLP therapist and hypnotherapy are both useful ways for you to be able to get rid of anxiety and stop having anxiety attacks. Speak to one of our qualified therapists in Hertfordshire or North London.

And here’s something else. How much fun are you having? Do an evaluation of how much fun you consciously make an effort to go out and have and the chances are it’s not nearly where it needs to be. If you don’t do what you like in your life you can expect that you’re going to end up feeling bad about it.

By Gemma Bailey
www.hypnotherapyandnlp.co.uk

Using NLP to Get rid of Anger

The best thing about NLP is the way in which one can covertly weave it to an everyday focus and conversation and spin it into something more resourceful. You can talk to people and be NLPing them, without them even knowing it is happening.

I was out with a friend of mine in Hertfordshire, North London who had recently separated from her boyfriend. We knew that on this particular evening out, there was the possibility of bumping in to the ex-boyfriend so she was in a bit of a wound-up state. As we sat with our bottle of wine in the pub, a song came on in the background as my friend began to tune into it aware of the familiarity of it, she started to cry. Through the blubs and wales she explained that it had been their song – her and the ex-boyfriend’s and that she still loved him so much. It’s a good job I’m an NLP therapist and not a counsellor because sympathy just isn’t my thing. I reached over and touched her on the shoulder and said “It’s all going to be fine and I am sure he was an idiot anyway.”

This was closely followed by a snot-filled rage in which she exclaimed how she couldn’t believe how he had treated her, how could he do this etc and how much she hated him.

When this stage kicked in I quickly withdrew my comforting hand. Those of you who know NLP would have identified that I had accidentally anchored her melancholy state to her shoulder. You might think this was a bad thing. The truth is it would have been if I had not utilised it resourcefully later on. Really, I should skip the part where I tell you that this all happened by accident, and make out this entire event happened completely on purpose as a result of my marvellous skill set, but that wouldn’t be totally true!

Later on, we went to a Hertfordshire night club and guess who showed up? At this moment in time, there were several reactions she could have gone for and I thought she might go for blubbering wreck but to my surprise and his she launched into straight into snot-filled rage.

As she catapulted herself towards him, I spotted an expression in his face. In NLP we like to be very clear about the difference between a sensory observation and a hallucination. A hallucination is when you think you know what you have seen in the other person. The sensory based observation of the ex-boyfriend was this: His eyes widened. His jaw lowered. His skin tone became more pale. His forehead began to sweat. He became short of breath. The hallucination of what I saw, I will call ‘man having fear of ex-girlfriend’.

At this moment I grabbed her shoulder, yes, the same one as earlier and said something like: “I know that this isn’t the real feeling you are feeling towards him, isn’t it?” The snot-filled rage fizzled and vanished and the melancholy of earlier returned, though without the crying.

They had a conversation about staying friends and it was all okay. When she popped to the loo a little later he came over and spoke to me. He said: “I have no idea what strange therapy you did to her but you did something. She was ready to kill me and you diffused her somehow. How did you do that?”

At that point I realised what I had done. I realised I really could help others using NLP.

By Gemma Bailey
www.hypnotherapyandnlp.co.uk

7 Things That Will Stop You

Thing Number One – you tell yourself you do not have enough of something, fill in the gap with whatever the something may be. Now that gap could be time, money – it could be support or intellect or skill. A very talented speaker said to an audience of six thousand people if you suddenly had to find an extra 10,000 pounds in the next two weeks, could you do it? Most of the audience said no or didn’t really respond. Then he asked “could you find it if not getting that money meant that you would die, or one of your children would die?” and of course the response was suddenly very different from that audience. So, it’s not the thing that fits in the gap of why you can’t do it, it’s the fact that you believe the excuse is true, so stop telling yourself this rubbish. A good NLP Coach will help you to get your mindset int he right place to that you can do this. We have NLP coaches located throughout Hertfordshire and North London who can assist you with this.

Your real truth is that you can do and be better than that. That same person once told me the difference between successful people and failures, is that successful people do not believe their own excuses. It’s not that they don’t have them, they just choose not to believe them.

So, thing Number Two that will stop you – you do not focus for long enough. You flip from one idea to the next without giving them enough time to grow and develop. In fact, in the movie The Secret there is a scene where there’s a little seed that’s just about to burst through the soil and they say something along the lines of “You give up right at the point where it’s about to come up through that soil”. This is a good metaphor. If you give up on your hopes and dreams because they didn’t reward you quickly enough you will find yourself consistently looking for the next best thing. I know people who do this but if you want it badly enough it is worth nurturing and waiting for.

A key skill from NLP coaching in Hertfordshire and north London is our ability to help you create well formed goals.

Number Three of the ‘7 things that stop you’ – you give your power to others. It surprises me that there are so many smart intelligent people in life who seem to have everything sorted but in one area of their life which is not causing them the happiness that they desire. For example, they may have a successful job, but be totally unfulfilled in their relationship and be reluctant to do anything about it in the hope that the other person will instead, hence giving your power to others. Giving your power to others and having them make decisions for you will ultimately prevent you from stretching and growing yourself. Failure to grow will hold you back from having what you really want. You are a powerful beautiful thing. Embrace that and start taking control of your life. All of it.

NLP is a great tool for self empowerment. Our coaches in Hertfordshire can help you realise that power.

Number Four of the ‘7 things that will stop you’ – you blame others. Again, we have something outside of yourself as the cause of what is stopping you from doing what you should, could and want to do with your life. It’s easy to justify other people as the reason why we are prevented from doing what we want to do. Be it parents from childhood, bank managers who won’t give us overdrafts or bosses that don’t listen. We can easily believe that they have some sort of magical influence on our lives that holds us back but you and I know the real truth is that we are here for just a fraction of time on this beautiful planet and your life is your own to do as you please with it. Now is the time to fully begin to live your life without letting others get in the way. Our Hertfordshire and North London NLP Coaches can help you develop the resilience needed to say ‘No’ whenever you feel others are diluting your will.

Number Five of the 7 things that will prevent you and stop you from living the life you want – you don’t believe it should be easy. You operate from the philosophy that life is hard, as such, that is the experience you have repeatedly create. There may be problems that stop you from getting what you want or from going where you want to go. These problems may appear to be very real but of course they are all made up. They’re totally fictional and they are made up of your perception of them and your fear of them is the thing that gives them energy and keeps them alive. When you say ‘whatever’ or ‘bring it on’ to your problems it causes those problems to begin to behave differently. If you can continuously do something differently, eventually it becomes easy. Perhaps you could continuously live your life differently until your perception shows you that life can be easy. It really can.

It begins to get easier with support too, which is why an NLP coach can be so valuable to you.

Number Six of our ‘7 things that will stop you’ – you lost your faith. This doesn’t mean religious faith, though it could, but knowing that you are loved cared for and that something greater than yourself is watching over you and guiding you in the right direction can make all the set backs a little easier to take and the rainy days a little easier to tolerate. You absolutely should believe in, if nothing else, your own ability to do in life what ever it is you want to do.

And last of all Number 7 you just don’t want it badly enough because if you did you would never give up.

There is a more detailed version of this article that has been previously published on www.peoplebuilding.co.uk. Go to the article section and you will be able to find it there.

By Gemma Bailey
www.HypnotherapyandNLP.co.uk