If you display more kinaesthetic tendencies than visual or auditory, you may find the swish more effective when you keep your hands far apart at the start of this exercise. Then, as you swishhhh, bring your hands together quickly.
Submodalities Worksheet
Visual Submodalities Describe What You See
Location
Colour or black and white Associated or dissociated
Size
Two- or three-dimensional
Brightness
Still or moving
Shape
Framed or panoramic
Focused or fuzzy
Auditory Submodalities Describe What You Hear
Location
Words or sounds
Volume
Tone
Pitch
Mono or stereo
Constant or intermittent
Rhythm
Tempo
Tune
Kinaesthetic Submodalities Describe What You Feel
Location
Shape
Pressure
Size
Quality
Intensity
Still or moving
Temperature
Constant or intermittent
Texture
Working with the Logical Levels
In This Chapter
▶ Using a core NLP model to achieve alignment
▶ Discovering your own sense of purpose
▶ Being more centred in your career, your life, and yourself
In this chapter, we introduce you to a favourite model in NLP, one that shows you how to make sense of your experience, work out the most flex- ible approach, and achieve the NLP ideal of understanding the outcome that you want. NLP developer and trainer Robert Dilts developed this model – known as the logical levels – and it has become extremely popular in NLP work.
This model is particularly helpful in several ways:
✓ Understanding what makes you tick as an individual.
✓ Comprehending how other people and organisations function.
✓ Seeing how to break an experience into manageable parts.
✓ Working with your current reality and making adjustments confidently.
The logical levels model can help you navigate a route forward during confus- ing times by identifying any areas of your life that aren’t aligned.
Understanding Logical Levels
NLP logical levels allow you to think about any experience or situation in its component parts (check out Figure 11-1). (You may also see logical levels referred to in the NLP literature as a series of neurological levels.)
Figure 11-1:
The logical levels of experience.
Purpose
Identity Beliefs & Values Capabilities & Skills
Behaviour Environment
Although we present the levels to you in Figure 11-1 as a hierarchy, looking at them as a network of interrelationships or a series of concentric circles is also helpful, because all the levels relate to each other. The visual of the model simply creates some structure and understanding about how it works.
In many instances, gathering information at the lower levels on the diagram is easier than at the higher levels. So, for example, a company would find doing an audit of the buildings (environment) easier than measuring whether the values of the organisation are being realised by the leaders and employees (beliefs and values), or assessing its image in the marketplace (identity). Each level impacts those above and below it; the key value of the model is that it provides a disciplined way to unpack the structure of your experience, which is the essence of NLP.
The French have an expression to describe the feeling you have when you’re comfortable in yourself and everything is running smoothly: ‘elle va bien dans sa peau’ (literally translated as ‘she goes well in her own skin’). Similarly, NLPers use the word congruence to describe precisely how you are when you’re truly being yourself. The term means that you’re comfortably on track, and consistent. The logical levels of environment, behaviour, capability, beliefs and values, identity, and purpose are all lined up. Look out for this alignment in organisations as well as people. When companies or individu- als are going through periods of change, some misalignment is likely to exist.
People may behave in unpredictable ways that aren’t a true reflection of what they really believe is right or fits with their true identity.
Asking the right questions
As you begin to gather information about a person or situation, consider asking questions that apply at these different levels, beginning from the base of the pyramid illustrated in Figure 11-1:
✓ Environment refers to the factors that are external opportunities or constraints: answers the questions ‘where?’, ‘when?’, and ‘with whom?’.
✓ Behaviour is made up of specific actions or reactions within the envi- ronment: answers the question ‘what?’.
✓ Capabilities and skills are about the knowledge and skills, the ‘how-tos’
that guide and give direction to behaviour: answers the question ‘how?’.
✓ Beliefs and values provide the reinforcement (motivation and permis- sion) to support or deny your capabilities: answers the question ‘why?’.
✓ Identity factors determine your sense of self: answers the question
‘who?’.
✓ Purpose goes beyond self-consciousness to relate to the bigger picture about your mission: answers the questions ‘what for’ or ‘for whom?’.
Taking logical levels step-by-step
The logical levels enable you to think about what’s happening in the world around you. These stepping stones help you to understand the structure and pattern as well as the content of different issues, events, relationships, or organisations, as we explain in this section and the next.
Why is ‘why?’ the hardest question?
In her early career as a business writer, Kate spent many happy years of corporate life inter- viewing chief executives and leadership teams, interpreting their vision, and publishing their words of wisdom in an easily digestible format for employees to understand.
The ‘who, what, when, where, why, and how’
questions form the essential journalist’s weap- ons. Yet, only when coming across logical levels in NLP did Kate realise just why some questions meet blank stares, even hostility, while others receive a warm welcome.
When you want to know something about a sub- ject, work up the logical levels. Start with gath- ering information that relates to the environment – the where, when, and with whom. These ques- tions are factual and so easier to answer. Then move through the what and the how. Leave the why question to last. Answering ‘Why did you do that?’, which rushes headlong into the realm of beliefs, is harder than answering ‘How did you do that?’, a much gentler approach; or even
‘How did that happen?’, which disassociates the person from the question.
We now look at how you can apply this model when you’re facing a dilemma that needs a solution. Imagine that you’re in a relationship that isn’t working.
You can use the concept of logical levels to help you find the best way for- ward. Here’s how the process works: