About the Programme

The most important question to ask yourself: What state do I want to be in to make the most of what is happening and what state will help me get what I want in this situation? Then ask: What can I do to produce that state?

NLP gives us choice and some tools to deal with the negative states and create more of those we value - happiness, fun, love, safety and health. A state is your way of being at any moment - sum of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, mental and physical energy. Your emotional state affects your body and how you use the body effects your emotions. So, what can you do to choose your state rather than be pushed into one? The place to start is your habitual state, where you spend the most time. Is it healthy, comfortable and balanced? If you become very used to one state it can seemed to be the only one to be, instead of just one of many possible choices. We often model states and take them on when we're young and forget they are not really us.

When you track your emotional state throughout the day you'll notice you return to some favourite, habitual states often. Our state shifts and changes, sometimes at random, sometimes as a reaction to what happens. This is fine when things are going well but when they are not, day-to-day living, people and events, may get on our nerves, we may get depressed, bored, irritable, or miserable and experience little choice in the matter.

Seldom do we deliberately put ourselves in the particular state we want to be in . Why not? Because as a general idea that moods are not under our personalised control but moods and states are reactions to others. When did you last ask yourself: I wonder what state I'd like to be in now? And then proceed to enter it. Wouldn't this be a useful skill.