In an interview with NLP Life, Richard Bandler reveals the secrets of motivation.
NLP Life: Okay. And, finally, what would you say to help people to become more motivated?
Richard Bandler: That would depend upon the person, I would think and the situation. I don’t want them to become more motivated unless they have something to do. Most people need a better, more precise plan in their mind to become more motivated. They need to start feeling better, each thing they get done rather than worse about how much they haven’t, and a lot of it just has to do with where the pictures are in your head, how big they are and what’s in them and how it affects your endemic nervous system.
I think what psychologists call feelings is that there are cortical connections between all the hollow and solid organs in your intestines. They go right up the brain stem and connect with the rest of your brain. There’s an overlap between your visual and auditory cortices and all these things connect in a way where you feel knots in your stomach and rotating and all these sensations.
People go “My heart is beating, how can I make it stop” and I don’t think they really want the answer to that question. It’s not about stopping something once it starts, it’s about conditioning yourself to make these things work towards you. When people feel hesitant, their feelings are going one way and when they feel motivated they’re going the other way. Everybody who tells me they can’t get motivated goes out and does other stuff which means they can be motivated. Everybody who tells me they have insecurity, I always look at them and go “Are you sure about it?” and they go “Yes”. So it’s not true that they’re not capable of certainty, they’re just aiming it in the wrong direction.
People who are not motivated are doing other things and they need to push this stuff around in their mind so they start getting this stuff done that they want to do so they feel good about themselves.
When you reorganise your mind you become more efficient and more adaptable as an organism. If you give yourself a purpose and a mission and you keep realigning that mission so that you’re adaptable to your environment, your family, your friends, your jobs – you become successful as a person and you will feel great.
The more you just whine and whinge about it and sit around and hallucinate yourself failing, the more you’ll be wasting time. And I know that there are psychologists that say you should accept yourself but I think that’s selling yourself short. I think you can be much more than you ever suspected.
