EDUCATION

Rosie’s supervision, Jenny was invited to for many youngsters, and it must boost their revisit the Skills Level. ‘Her goal now became: confidence and self-reliance for the students “To gain confidence in exams.” Asked, “Do to learn how to coach each other, rather than you know how to gain the confidence you waiting for an authority figure to help them. need, and where and who to go to ‘They can support each other, for help?” she wailed, “No!” So we and learn from each other; and of asked her, “Do you know anyone course, teaching someone else is HOW TO GET WHAT YOU REALLY else who is confident in exams?” a great way to learn for yourself,’ WANT USING THE LOGICAL LEVELS “Yes – Aidan.” Aidan agreed that Rosie points out. FOR GOAL-SETTING Jenny could model him for his Rosie has some advice to offer confidence in exams. “Is there regarding taking NLP into schools. Having identified what you want and stated it positively: ‘I want to ....’, anyone else you could go to for ‘It’s important that staff attending set out a card on the floor for each of the following Levels. help?” “Yes – my Mum!” Jenny’s the training sessions with the Step from one card to the next, considering the questions at each Level mother is an English teacher who students are interested in learning as they relate to your achieving your goal. helps other students with exams – it the skills themselves so they can just hadn’t occurred to Jenny to ask her Mum for help for herself.’ Now fully congruent with her revised outcome, Jenny was able to work through the rest of the Levels easily. However, there was more to come. ‘During the confidence coaching, Jenny’s old strategy emerged: “Feeling sick when I wakeup, Mum and Dad feeding me breakfast; me feeling sick in the car, knowing I can’t do this exam, knowing I don’t have enough time.” Jenny was fascinated to discover what had been going on in her own mind and body that she simply hadn’t been attentive to until now.’ Rosie taught the students the NLP Circle of Excellence exercise as a means to summon their confidence whenever they wanted. ‘They loved that,’ says Rosie. ‘Aidan said, “That makes it easy,” Louise said, ‘I can do that!’ and Jenny smiled and sighed with relief and said, ‘I’m much calmer now.” And the next day, Jenny’s mother reported that Jenny came home from the session, went to sleep for three hours, and then talked non-stop for longer than she’d ever done!’ Confidence is clearly an issue

ENVIRONMENT In your environment, can you make a start on the journey to achieve your goal, and can you keep it up? How will you do that? BEHAVIOURS What do you get out of what you’re doing now? What do you get out of your present behaviour that you want to keep? SKILLS What do you need to do to achieve your goal? If you don’t already have the skills you need to do that, do you know how to get these skills, and where and who to go to for help? BELIEFS AND VALUES Is this goal appropriate for you? When and with whom do you want it? For how long do you want it? IDENTITY Is your goal in keeping with who you are? Does your mind agree with your feelings? WIDER WORLD How will you know when you’ve achieved your goal? What are you seeing when you’ve achieved it? What are you hearing? What are you feeling? What will others be seeing when you’ve achieved your goal? What will others be saying?

Now, what will be your first step towards your goal?

support the pupils subsequently. Ideally, staff need their own basic training in NLP and also to have follow-up access to an NLP professional – a Master Practitioner or Trainer – who can help with anything arising that’s beyond their current NLP competency.’ So why does Rosie love working with teenagers so much? ‘I remember only too clearly what it’s like to be a teenager,’ she says. ‘I understand how frustrating it is when adults won’t listen to you or acknowledge that you have something intelligent to say. And then you have hormones and exams at the same time! NLP is great stuff. It’s helped my own children so much: my son was 13 when he came to NLP; he became a Practitioner at 17 and is now a Master Practitioner; while my daughter is also now a Practitioner. Our teenagers are on loan: treat them with respect and they’ll treat you with respect. Treat them with NLP and who knows – maybe we’ll get a better world!’ For more information about Rosie O’Hara and her work with teenagers please visit www.nlphighland.co.uk

rapport - Summer 2008

| 17