By recognizing excellence in others we can be more true to ourselves

Modeling is at the heart of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It is essentially the process of recognizing excellence in others, identifying the model of how they achieve this excellence, and then adopting that model so that this excellence becomes available to us.

A friend of mine recently said that he thought NLP would be dangerous for him, because at the moment he's trying to work out who he is, and the idea of modeling other people would undermine this process. As if by modeling other people, he would in some way be less himself.

I've reflected upon this concern for a long time, because it raises some interesting questions. Are we being true to ourselves when we're modeling the behavior of others? At first, this seemed to be a difficult problem to answer. But of course it's not. It's really very simple, provided you approach it from the right perspective:

Self realization is not about discovering who you really are. It is about deciding who you want to be.

NLP helps us to do this by giving us more choices. When we see excellence in someone else, this is in fact an internal realization. We recognize an aspiration within ourselves - what we value as being excellent. In fact, the very best way to discover what our values and desires truly are is to look at others who we aspire to be like. To ask ourselves - what is it about this person, and what they do that represents excellence to me?

Spotting excellence in others is like discovering a seed of potential excellence within ourselves. NLP is simply the fertilizer than can help us to nurture that seed. And that's what self realization is really all about.

What would you do for fashion?

I saw someone today who appeared to have a form of cerebral palsy. She had difficulty in walking, and yet she chose to wear high heel shoes. At first I thought that she was making a mistake - sacrificing mobility for vanity, and avoiding coming to terms with the reality of her condition.

But as I reflected upon her choice further, I came to realize that it was very inspiring. You could see from the clothes that she was wearing that she was interested in fashion. The fact that she chose to wear high heels, regardless of how much more this complicated her walking, was simply a sign of how important fashion was for her.

For some people, fashion is as easy as buying expensive clothes and thoughtlessly pulling them on every morning. For this woman, fashion was a great effort, but one that she found rewarding nonetheless. I don't think I've ever seen anyone putting more effort into their outfit.

She was providing the perfect model for how we can prevent disease from limiting us. How through bravery and courage we can live with disease and still pursue our dreams, inspiring others in the process.

In a more perfect world, she would be on the front cover of Vogue.

The fear/courage paradox

Here's a strange paradox. Admitting that you feel fear takes courage.

True identity theft

The other day, I was talking to a friend who reproached me for overdoing my training, arguing that I shouldn't be running seven days a week. I pointed out that it didn't seem to do Lance Armstrong any harm, to which my friend responded, "yes, but that's Lance Armstrong, he's a top athlete". The implication being that I'm not a top athlete and therefore I'm not capable of enduring such an arduous training regime.

I replied that, while I may not be a "top" athlete, being an athlete has become a part of my identity. Of course I don't expect to match Lance Armstrong's physical prowess, but that's never going to stop me from trying.

After all, what made Lance Armstrong Lance Armstrong? For that matter, who am I? Who are you? And what makes us what we are? Our own sense of identity can limit us, or it can empower and challenge us. The choice is ours.

The Red Queen's Race

Last week, I ran the Bath Half Marathon. It's the first big competitive race that I've ever run, and it represented the culmination of over a year's training, as I built up my fitness and stamina after coming off chemotherapy.

By a strange twist of fate, just days earlier, my doctors had discovered a new lump, and I was booked in for a scan the day after the run. So even as I was at my peak of physical fitness, I knew that I could be back on chemotherapy in a matter of days.

Before my cancer treatment, I had never been interested in sport, and I never ran anywhere. I simply did not consider myself to be athletic. But my experience of cancer treatment and recovery forced me to challenge a lot of my presuppositions about myself. I discovered that I possessed greater strength and emotional stamina than I ever imagined. And I realised that my negative self image had been seriously limiting my potential.

So, even as the chemo had been reducing my physical stamina, it was also like an incubator for a new me. It forced me to raise my game, just to stay in the game. Sometimes being held back is precisely what we need in order to ultimately be propelled forwards. It's like the Red Queen says in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." Like running on a treadmill. Imagine what happens when the treadmill stops, but you don't. You start moving forwards… fast.

And since the chemo, that's exactly what I had been doing. Moving forwards fast. But the looming possibility of a return to chemo threatened to bring my journey to an abrupt halt.

This uncertainty could have cast a cloud over my run, but that's not how it turned it. In fact, the scan served to heighten the intensity of my experience on the big day. Since my future was clouded, and all of my past year had led up to this point, it caused me to focus entirely upon the day itself. To reside in the moment. The experience was all the more vivid, intense and exhilarating as a result.

As it turns out, the scan results delivered good news. And upon reflection, I realised that I was glad the scan had coincided with the half marathon. It made me realise that I had never left the Red Queen's treadmill, and I never will. We're all on that treadmill - it's just life. Sometimes it's going forwards, sometimes backwards, sometimes stationary. That is outside of our control. All that we can do is to keep running.

Time

Let go of the past,

Take care of the present,

And the future will look after itself.

Smile

If you are a writer, you write.
If you are a runner, you run.
If you are happy, you smile.

If you write, you are a writer.
If you run, you are a runner.
If you smile, you are happy.

If you want to be a writer, write.
If you want to be a runner, run.
If you want to be happy, smile.

It really is that simple. We can't control our thoughts, but we can control our behaviour. And our behaviour exerts a powerful influence on our feelings over time. If I've learned anything over the past two years, it is this: if you seek true happiness, then smile. It is as simple as that.