Making a Choice With NLP - Career Counseling
When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I gave them the most random answers like being an actor, a zookeeper or an astronaut but the truth is, I had no idea!
Of course people kept asking me what I wanted to be but I just didn't know.
When I got to the 9th grade I was 15 years old and my school asked me that age old question:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
And I said:
“I don't know”
And they said:
“Well you have to, because you have to decide what you are going to study the next year!”
Wow! I had no idea! I was terrified of having to choose what I was going to be for the rest of my life! I was so scared, I had been walking on a road my entire life and now I had come to a crossroad with 4 different routes… I wasn’t scared of going on one of them, I was scared of not going on the other 3! That was the first time I felt stress.
So the school counselor talked to me and said: “Don’t worry, let’s do a couple of exercises and figure out what you’re good at!”. And so I did some psychometric tests and the answers were quite interesting.
They told me I was good at being a doctor, they told me I was good at being a musician and they told me I was good at being in the military.They also told me that I was terrible at gardening. But I knew all that already, I knew I Iiked helping others, I knew I loved music and I knew I liked discipline, what I didn't know was what I wanted to be! I had a very clear idea of what I didn't want to be but absolutely no idea of what I wanted to be! And so because I had no option but to choose, I chose economics. Just because...
For 3 years I studied economics during high school and then the question came again:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I said:
”I don't know”
And they said:
“Well you have to pick something, it's time for you to go to college” and again I was paralyzed, panicked about even thinking about it!
But I wanted to make something of myself, I didn't want to stay at home and it was time for me to choose! But the fear, the fear of deciding what I was going to be for the rest of my life, of compromising my every choice was absolutely paralyzing. I felt stressed, I felt lost, I absolutely felt terrible for throwing away all the things that I could become. If only I knew then what I know now...
I can’t tell you what career I think you should follow or what you’re good at. I mean, I can, but I won’t. I’m not here to tell you that it doesn’t matter what you choose now, and that that doesn’t determine who you are because even though I know that to be true now I didn’t believe in that when I was 15, 18 and 20.
What I want to tell you is that fear that is paralyzing you doesn’t need to be there! That the stress and the worrying can be vanished and that they will! For me I it took 6 years to overcome my fears. I did it without any professional help, so I’m not saying you need NLP to be able to let go of all the fear and the stress. I’m just saying that if you’re in the same position I was some years ago, I believe NLP can help you!
For those who don’t know, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is "a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them" and "a system of alternative therapy based on this which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective communication, and to change their patterns of mental and emotional behaviour.” (Dr Richard Bandler, Co-Creator of NLP). In other words, how to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve our desired outcomes.
If you’re in a position like the one I was, here are some ways I think it can help you:
Your values are a crucial part of your personality. By finding out what values you have in the context of your career and ranking them in terms of importance, you can easily find out which career path is more likely to allow you to live and experience those values. And so when you face that crossroad with 4 different roads you will have a tool to make a more confident choice and feel excited about taking THE road.
Perhaps you’re feeling divided, torn apart by two options that you just can’t decide. Every time that you try to decide but you can’t, that problems gains weight, it becomes harder and harder to decide. Because nothing happens for no reason, especially in the human body, we know that there is a purpose to that inner conflict. Using techniques such as Parts Integration we can find out exactly why there is a conflict and make both parts of the conflict come to an agreement, therefore allowing you to make a choice.
NLP can also help when procrastinating. In the context of this text, if you’re procrastinating on making a decision or if you keep postponing your applications you can use a technique called Chaining Anchors to get from that state where you just feel stuck to a highly motivated state.
Maybe you are in a place like I was, just absolutely terrified of making a choice. The belief that what I chose would define me for the rest of my life and the fear of making the wrong choice were limiting me in ways I didn’t even know. I was stuck, everyone was moving and I could do nothing but watch. NLP handles this kind of problems as well, using techniques like Time Line Therapy™ to help you let go of that paralyzing fear and those limiting beliefs.
These are just some of the many techniques that I believe can help you! And trust me, everything's gonna be alright!
For more information you can contact us at nlpresearchinstitute@gmail.com
Duarte Reis
NLP Practitioner