6 steps to explore your mine

6 steps to exploring your mind and how it affects your behaviour

Human behaviour is intriguing and sometimes complex to understand.

Bjork, one of my favourite artists in the world has a beautiful song called Human Behaviour.

She sings:

If you ever get close to a human and human behaviour

Be ready, be ready to get confused and me and my hereafter 

Getting more understanding and clarity on what you are thinking, how feelings and your behaviour is connected to each other is helpful

NLP is focused on communication. The communication you have with yourself and the outside world.

Every person views the world in their own unique way. That means that how we process information is also personal. We perceive information through our senses. From there we show behaviour. We can see and hear what people do and say. We behave according to our internal processes(thoughts and beliefs) and our emotional state.  The values and beliefs we find important are big drivers of our behaviour.

A way to explore your own thought processes and why you do what you do is by looking at the structure of the subjective experience. (in NLP language the index computations).

In a more easy way: the think, feel, do model. In every situation and experience, we have thoughts, feelings and we act in a certain way. Often we are not fully aware of why we do it or where the behaviour comes from. We are sometimes aware of our thoughts, without knowing the emotions. Other times, we are being overwhelmed by an emotion.

To explore what’s happening, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Think

What are my thoughts at the moment? What are sounds I hear, things I see, What am I telling myself? Its information coming from our sensory awareness.

2. Feel

What is the emotional state that you’re experiencing? These are the feelings that you have, your body sensations and your mood. This is why you do things.

3. Do

This is the behaviour that is coming from what you think and feel. It’s what you do. Your external behaviour is the only thing that people can see.

4. Context

Where is it happening? All behaviour is context bounded so become aware of the context.

5. Beliefs

If you have explored your thoughts, feelings and behaviour, ask yourself what do I believe about myself? What is true for me?

6. Values

Values are the unconscious drivers of behaviour. What’s important to me? What is the value that is driving me?

In this way, you can explore your mind and even build a bridge between your conscious mind and subconscious mind. If you become aware of what is blocking you or what is not working for you, you can see what you can change in your thoughts, beliefs, dealing with emotions or behaviour that will bring you to the desired result.

And of course, there are many good coaches around that can help you with uncovering this.