Self modelling and Re-modelling - Reverse Engineering

I am presupposing some knowledge of NLP in the reader of this article. I would recommend Introducing NLP by Joseph O'Connor and John Seymour ISBN 1-85538-344-6 if you would like a more detailed description of any terms mentioned i.e. ecology, sub-modalities.

Modelling is the process of unpacking the building blocks of a particular behaviour. This enables one to discover the competencies skills and abilities required (strategies, states and beliefs in NLP speak) to produce the behaviour.

Generally modelling is about making explicit the behavioural pattern of excellence. It is recommended when a person wants to improve a particular behaviour. They find someone a 'model' who can do this particular behaviour well and then use NLP skills to model out how the person does this.

Coaching has also begun to get the credit it deserves with thanks to Daniel Goleman and the work he has done on Emotional Intelligence. I find managers in business much more open to addressing how they feel about things now than they were five years ago. The Goleman, Hay McBer Emotional Intelligence Competencies have done a great deal to assist managers with the realisation that soft skills are even more important than the 'hard skills' probably in the ratio of 80% to 20%. The Goleman Hay McBer model groups twenty competencies under the following four headings.

• Self Awareness
• Social Awareness
• Self Management
• Social Skills

I have recently become interested in 'reverse engineering' modelling, particularly when a coaching client is stuck with an unhelpful behaviour.

Engineering can be defined as a structured physical representation of science and technology i.e. putting something together in a structured way. Reverse engineering is therefore breaking something apart in a structured way.

I became curious as to how one could use modelling both with oneself and when coaching, to change an unhelpful behaviour. I was reminded of a child's toy, a truck, when you roll it's wheels quickly on the floor to rev it up, then you let it go and it travels across the room. However, if it hits
an obstacle it bounces backwards and keeps running into the same obstacle.

If we look at (model) what is going on, we can see that, unless something changes, e.g. change the direction or remove the obstacle, the toy will behave in the same way over and over again until it runs out of energy.

These same principals can be applied to the human behavioural equivalent of this e.g.

• Procrastination
• Work/Life Balance
• Lack of focus

I think self-modelling can add value to both self-awareness and self management and help to identify the processes leading to a repeated unwanted behaviour.

This led me to develop a self-modelling process that you can use for yourself and or with coaching clients.

SELF MODELLING PROCESS

Become aware of the repeating unwanted behaviour  

Check your ecology around changing this  

Ensure you have twenty minutes of uninterrupted time, a suitable environment and the ability to make notes  

Ask yourself the following questions:
 

• What does this behaviour mean to me?
• What is important to me about doing this behaviour?
• Why do I do this?
• How do I feel when I do this?
• What am I picturing?
• What do I say to myself?
• Explore the VAK sub-modalities
  What are the steps and stages in this behaviour?
• If I were to coach someone else to do this behaviour, what would they need to do; believe; feel?  

Having modelled out how you do this unwanted repeating behaviour ask yourself; At what point in the behaviour pattern could you make the smallest intervention, which would have the greatest impact?

Run your answer through a NEW Behaviour Generator (see below). Go experiment with the new behaviour and congratulate yourself on the results.

 

NEW BEHAVIOUR GENERATOR

• Think about the behaviour you want to change.
• See it how you want it to be and not how it is.
• Be the director of the film you are watching, stay disassociated as you listen to the soundtrack
• You are the star as well as the director, so edit and replay I. scene as many times as necessary until you are satisfied with the result.
• Step into the scene and run it through as though you are doing it. Pay particular attention to both you and the responses of people around you. Does this new behaviour fit with your values and personal integrity?
• If it does not feel right, step back out of the film and change it before going back in again.
• When you are totally happy with your imagined performance, identify an internal or external trigger that you can use to generate the behaviour you want.
• Mentally rehearse noticing I. trigger and going through I. new behaviour

 

Copyright 2001 Anne-Marie Halliwell.

 

With thanks to John Seymour for introducing me to this process and to Judith DeLozier who I believe was its originator.