One of the things I consistently see people doing is presupposing problems.
We’re all trained by our educations to look for problems. Mistakes were the most frequent things pointed out in our work. Follow any weekend warrior sporting event and you’ll plenty of folks beating themselves up over the shot they missed.
The simplest presupposition there is, is existence. When you talk about something, there’s a presupposition that it must exist or else your statement won’t make sense. If I ask you if you saw the frogglewomp, you’ll rightly ask me what one is. You’d be assuming that there is such a thing until you had a chance to check it out (Google says there’s no such thing if you’re wondering).
When you’re communicating with people, there’s a strong tendency to talk about what we’re noticing, what we think the other person might be noticing or what we’d like them to notice. If we’re noticing problems and talking about problems, that’s what the other person will notice too.
The thing of it is that if you’re the one sending the message, the other person is usually going to go along with your presuppositions. If you say call me if you have any problems, the person is then going to be looking for problems. If you say call me with any success stories or other feedback, the other person will be more inclined to expect good things.
If you want people to expect to have a good experience with you, it helps for you to presuppose greatness in as many of your interactions as possible. The way to form a habit of that is to notice things that are going right. Tony DiCicco, coach of the US Women’s Soccer team, wrote a book called Catch Them Being Good. If you get in the habit of noticing good things, you’ll notice more good things. You’ll communicate positive expectations more often.
In the interest of disclosure you’ll need to convey things that you can’t put as positive a spin on. At least that’s what my parole officer says (just kidding). When that happens, do your best to reframe it as a positive, talk about it in the past tense or nominalize it. All those techniques are covered in my “Be A Hypnotic Writer” course.
Instead of only noticing the shot you missed, notice what you did right in the approach and what you’d try differently the next time. Notice that you had the guts to try.
The point is to presuppose greatness more often. Talk about it and people will assume it exists. They’ll set their expectations accordingly.
Give it a try and see what happens.
This is definitely the attitude more people should try to have. This would seem to work in many different settings from professional to personal.
This idea could be built into something quite huge. Pre-supposing greatness in people can do wonders for them and us.
It is amazing that this is so simple. Now if only the media would use it.
I could not agree more with this post. People try to think they have problems or hope others tell them they have problems to give themselves some type of satisfaction. The whole sympathy card just does not work with me at all!
Jesse W.
http://www.subprimeblogger.com
I agree, that if people have problem in the past, they should forget about them, anyway it was a good experience, and in future we will no repeat our future mistakes.
Having a positive outlook on whatever you are doing and being in the mindset that you are going to accomplish what you seek is the first step in achieving your goals.
I was looking for some resources on personal motivation and achieving goals for a resource list I’m putting together for my readers and future blog visitors.
I’m glad I’m came across this post.
I’m going to be adding this as a good “read” for my visitors and what not.
Thanks for a great article! I posted a link to it on my website.
Sonia : )
Wow! I think alot of people need to adopt this mindset.
Staying positive with your goals is important to being successful in your endeavors. Thinking negative will only hurt your chances at success.
I would love to see any information about the secret movie. Do you have any? thanks.
That was really inspiring. Thanks for sharing.
That was really inspiring. Thanks for sharing.
I agree, that if people have problem in the past, they should forget about them, anyway it was a good experience, and in future we will no repeat our future mistakes.
I agree with Jean that lot of people should adopt this mindset!
What a great post!
This NLP Marketing has really a good reputation and it has been proven effective. More power!