This one is a reminder that sometimes making things slightly less sh1t in the short term may make things a lot worse for you in the long term, with some tips about looking deeper into the changes you want to make so that you can make them stick.
The great thing about working in the wellbeing space is that we get to, hopefully, inspire people to start or accelerate their journey back to being their true self, best self or whatever label works for them.
The challenge with it is that, unless you are working one to one with people, you are always at risk of losing them before you even start. There is a concept that sits at the centre of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), that I've touched on before, called match, pace and lead. If you want to help someone change their view of life there are three phases to go through:
Match - You need to show them you understand where they are by matching them and building rapport.
Pace - You need to keep the matching going until you have sufficient rapport that they are willing to look at your viewpoint.
Lead - When they are ready you can show them the alternative that would probably work better for them.
In reality it looks more like match, pace, pace, pace, lead, pace, pace, lead, lead, because humans are complex beasts.
With a blog like Out Beyond Ideas, or an Art of Brilliance keynote or workshop, it's far from a one to one relationship. So you have to decide what level of energy and attitude you start at. Too low and you won't inspire people to change. Too high and you'll lose them before you start.
I wrestled with this when I first started the blog and my answer was to post about it early on and leave it pinned on the front page. That way, if someone found their way here but wasn't in a place yet where they could act on the advice, I acknowledged where they were and gave them some things they could implement.
I called the post Slightly Less Sh1t and put forward the proposition that, if you are in a really bad place, talking about happiness, joy and changing your thinking may sound impossible. But, doing something to make life slightly less sh1t was probably achievable. And, if you make enough incremental changes you may find yourself in an ok place and you keep on building from there.
A few weeks ago something popped into my socials feed that made me realise that sometimes, slightly less sh1t may not be a good strategy for you. It's been on my mind ever since and after chatting with the Art of Brilliance team about it on our monthly catchup, I decided it was worth posting about.
