Keeping Resolutions...for the new years
or any other time of the year...-
Part II, Creating an effective oath... Finding what's sacred...
by Roy Kim. rkim@changework.com
Copyright 2000 by Roy Kim.
Greetings.
The last time we covered how resolutions are really oaths and
how these oaths were used effectively
to bind people towards action. We gave an example of the Hippocratic
oath and the five elements
that all oaths have.
You may have taken several oaths during your lifetime, or perhaps
you haven't taken very many
at all. In either case, you may have said to yourself after reading
about oaths...
"Well, just because they have me say some words doesn't mean
I'll keep my word or feel compelled
to do so!!! I can lie!!! So, how can an oath affect me? "
This is true. Most of the oaths that people take will not be compelling
enough to affect them
towards action. Keep in mind, in the case of the Hippocratic
Oath that many of the Ancient Greeks believed
in the powers of their deities and held these beliefs that are
written within the oath. On the other
hand, most people today do not believe in the gods or hold the
beliefs of the Ancient Greeks
so such an oath would not be effective.
However, this simply means we need to structure our oaths a little
differently to affect change in
others and especially in ourselves.
What's "Sacred" to you?
There are certain things that you do or certain things you wouldn't
do. This is because of experience
that gave you either pleasure or pain. Things that give lots
of pleasure, you do often. Things that
give you lots of pain, you do rarely or you will do an activity
to prevent the pain.
Finding the core thing that motivates you, the thing that gets
you to take action because of the power
it has over you is the key to finding those "Sacred"
things.
This is what is called a "propulsion mechanism" in NLP.
Something to move away from and something
to move towards. We'll use both in our case.
Exercise 1: Moving Away From.
1. List 10 things that you would NEVER do again.
2. Take the top five things you wouldn't do again and ask the
question:
"What's important about not doing X?" -> "Y..."
3. Take the answer and ask the question again.
"What's important about Y?" -> "Z..."
4. Do this until you find the top five words or statements when
you can't take the questions any
further up. Write these answers down.
Exercise 2: Moving Towards.
1. List 10 things that you would do again AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY
possible.
Take the top five things you wouldn't do again and ask the question:
2. "What's important about doing X?" -> "Y..."
3. Take the answer and ask the question again.
"What's important about Y?" -> "Z..."
4. Do this until you find the top five words or statements when
you can't take the questions any
further up. Write these answers down.
Once you have a couple moving towards and moving away values,
you have the basic tools
for building a propulsion mechanism within an oath.
We'll cover this in our next article.
For more information, send e-mail to info@changework.com