Working With Clients – 10 Common Traps to Overcome as NLP Practitioners [Part 2]

[This post is part 2 of 2 of 10 Common Traps to Overcome as NLP Practitioners. You can find post 1 here.]

In this post I detail five more common traps NLPers and NLP change agents commonly make that limit their ability to do even greater change work.

Trap 6: Lacking Belief in their ability to create the change

One of the more common experiences I’ve seen when talking to both new and not so new NLPers is a lack of belief by the person in their own ability to create change. Depending on where you learn NLP, it can seem like a complicated and somewhat daunting field to learn.

For starters there are so many new terms, concepts, techniques and not necessarily obvious overlapping areas. How does the Meta Model connect with the Milton model? When should I use this technique or that?

Even figuring out which training school is right for you can be confusing. And when the moment of fresh faced training room euphoria wears off and you are faced with a real person who wants a change it can be a fearful response. Your heart begins to race, a flush of hotness rushes through your body, breath shortens and hesitation spins all round your mind. You can be left gasping for breath.

OK, STOP.

If you found the above description evoked a negative change in your state, take a big breath in now .. exhale as you r-e-l-a-x.

During my study of Richard Bandler and other expert change agents over the years, the one consistent thing that is present is their belief that they can help their clients make a change. They have that deep believe imprinted in every fibre of their being.

And you know what is relieving and also surprising … many times these top change experts when working with a new type of change request also had no clue what to do their first time! And there change work doesn’t work perfectly every time.

When the “early days” NLPers were first trying stuff out and seeing what worked many times they had no clue what to do. It was a time of pure exploration … as it can be for everyone when you working with a client doing change work you have never been taught a specific NLP technique for.

Remedy:

If you experience hesitation or confidence in your ability to create change for a client then take the time this January to alter your own beliefs. Get outside your own head and examine how your view the situation (using pen and paper or a dictaphone will help). Once you have unpacked the strategy you use and the pre-suppositions implied by your beliefs and thoughts you have a whole raft of NLP tools to quickly and permanently alter your beliefs and design a new way of being for your life.

Trap 7: Not defining the problem in solvable terms

A client comes to you deeply panicked and says “I want you to make my wife stop being so angry”. Many new change agents will automatically start working with the client without ever defining the problem in solvable terms.

If the person wife is always angry then you should be working with his wife (assuming she wants assistance and assuming it actually is some kind of “problem”) as the change requested is not in the clients ream of direct control.

Sure you can teach him some strategies about influencing her state etc but a much better place to start if you wanted to help this person is define the problem in solvable terms. For example you could help him change his association of what his wife anger means. The meaning is key.

It may mean to him that

Anger = She doesn’t love me.
My wife doesn’t love me therefore she will leave me.
Hence the behaviour of panic.

Yet for all we know his wife may be justifiably angry and simply wants her husband to be more present to the family’s needs.

If you worked with the client without understanding the 1st and 2nd order outcomes the client was seeking you would be solving the wrong issue and secondly would not help the client be able to direct themselves to feel the thing they want which in this case was safety and control.

Remedy:

Always listen to the literal way the client speaks about their problem and their request. Is the problem defined in solvable terms (e.g. I want to solve world hunger, I want my mother to love me). If not reframe the issue and request to be in solvable terms. Fully understand the structure of the clients problem and their 1st and 2nd order outcomes before you do any change work.

Trap 8: No Congruency

Ever had a client who a change didn’t stick for? Before you take on a client to do any work, make sure the client is really congruent about wanting to make the change and is ready to have the change work. Many times clients may say they are ready for the change but are not. The believe they will be giving up too much and so are no congruent with the change. Make sure these issues are addressed up front.

Remedy:

Make sure you client is congruent about wanting the change. Pay attention to the non verbals to see if they match up. Have them explain to you why you should help them make the change. Look for any side-benefits they get by having the particular behaviour or likely resistance forces in the life (e.g family, colleagues, or friends) who may undermine or undo you change work. Where necessary help the client develop the congruency they need and if they aren’t congruent or don’t want the change really, then don’t work with them.

Trap 9: Not following instructions

Much of the overt change technique work we do with NLP requires the client to follow the instructions we give them. In the early days when I was learning NLP I was dealing with a client who had a phobia of flying so I used the phobia technique with her. To my concern the technique didn’t seem to work. 10 minutes on she still was terrified of the thought of flying and would have board a flight in 12 hours time.
I changed my approach and ran a different change intervention which worked perfectly.

Reflecting on the event afterwards I realised an important distinction that would stay with me for all my change work ever since … the client wasn’t following my instructions, I wasn’t paying close enough attention to her to notice tell tell things that could of alerted me and I had let her state effect mine. Her emotional response was leading me. It was a lesson that is something that I always check for now when I work with a client and am much slower to jump techniques until I know I have mis-calibrated to the persons structure first.

Remedy:

Pay close attention to your clients. If you are giving conscious instructions to your client about doing some change work (such as changing sub-modalities) make sure the client is following your instructions to the letter. If you are giving unconscious change work, make sure you have calibrated well to the unconscious signals of the persons body and either have setup IMR responses (e.g. finger signals) or have staged tests built in at each stage of your work.

Trap 10: No Testing

Testing is key to NLP. It’s not enough to hope that your intervention(s) has worked. You must test. Test, Test, Test again. And I am not just talking about future pacing.

Future pacing is important and useful for installing future memories but at each stage of the change process test your work to ensure each part is working as expected so by the time you are done you know the client has the change. Then test to confirm. Put the client in the situation or context that bothered them and look to see a different behavioural response.

Perhaps where they got angry now they laugh or where they were anxious now they feel totally at ease. It is essential and beneficial that you test your work. It will give you greater confidence in your ability to do great change work and also give you an opportunity to learn something new if it didn’t quite work completely yet. Perhaps there was some small piece you missed off. If so re-do your work to make sure you have addressed it all.

Remedy:

Test, Test, Test your work. Do so at each stage of the change process and again and again at the end. Make sure you’re intervention worked.

Closing Comments:

In these two posts I’ve covered ten of the most common traps to overcome as a NLP change agent. If you follow and implement the suggested remedies outlined above you will notice great increase in your confidence, skill and fun in doing NLP change work. Feel free to post a comment if you'd like to share any useful change creating principles you have learned while using your NLP.