Don’t hold too tight
November 12th, 2010 | 
Author: Arriving at our offices this morning after a night of gales I discovered that 5 fence panels had blown down overnight. I had arrived very specifically to finalise preparations before travelling to London to attend a conference where Fran is presenting and I am representing our professional association.
Then I noticed that the leaves had been blown into huge piles, a job that would have taken me hours! I had big gardening sacks in the back of the 4×4 and I could not miss this opportunity. I spent an hour gathering the leaves and taking 2 large loads to the local recycling centre we may arrive in London a little later but still in good time.
So What?
Gathering the leaves gave me a great chance to reflect ‘why was I doing this when I had come down to the office for a very different and specific purpose.?’
Well here is what I gained
- a little exercise.
- an opportunity to see which of the fence panels needs replacing.
- I saved at least 3 hours from a job that had to be done next week.
- I had a chance to reflect.
- I had a topic for a blog post for the writing course that I am doing.
- I gained a lot of perspective.
My reflection is that when we become outcome driven, we can hold them too tightly. This can create a blind spot for the natural bounty that life offers when we remain flexible within a direction of purpose.
What do you think?
Posted in General thoughts
How tight the outcome is held may probably less the point than the structure and the underlying assumptions supporting the “holding tight” or what the impacts of the tightness on Identity may mean.
Let’s explore and model a bit, shall we?
First question: structurally, how does “hold tight” work? .. What does the “tight” modality aim to do?
One answer could be: maintain the form whatever is being held.
In other words, “hold tight” makes it possible to keep the structure of the outcome the same as when it was set when the outcome was defined.
If “hold tight” was let gone of, the outcome would change and, potentially, become less valuable (the point of the story being that it can also become more so).
Second question: who or what is doing “hold tight” and where is it doing that from?
Answer: the part holding tight has to be at identity level. Think about it: could an outcome be set from any other whereabouts than from the place of “I”? Highly unlikely. In fact, “I” is implicit to the definition of well-formedness (e.g.: be in control of the goal).
Third question: what has to be true about “I” for it to be able to do “hold tight”?
Answer: to competently produce the modality, the part must hold it within its own structure.
Yes: to hold tight, ”I” must know “tight”. And to do so, “I” has to be tight itself.
So, what’s the lesson here? Well… That the tightness of an outcome’s form can only correspond to the tightness of the identity setting the outcome.
Simply said: our outcomes and their flexibility –or lack of it– directly reflect how flexible we are ourselves.
It all comes down to a simple, single question: what do your goals say about you?
- Do you need to earn so many thousands per year, only wear designer clothes, have so many gazillions friends on FaceBook, have pairs of shoes in the 3-digits in your cubboards, live in a castle near Del Mar, California (wink!), get a call or SMS from your beloved one every day, preferably around 11am or Gordon Bennett knows what else to have the sense that you are achieving your outcomes?
-… or can you do thrive with whatever life offers / sends / throws at you? Are you a “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade” type of person?
For who thinks about it, the above may seem like a pretty sharp elbowing to several operating beliefs of the NLP practitioner: well-formedness, modality tuning for outcomes, “driving the bus”…
In some ways it does. In some others not.
Depends on how tight you hold on to it.
Hi Em
Thanks for your comment and the time you have given in considering this.
The metaphor of ‘tight’ is refined with the comparative deletion implied by ‘too’ and yes the point is that in a positivist world I believe that we are blinded from synergistic opportunism, which for my money is a more systemic approach which allows for emergence of the unexpected.
O.K.
I am that! A blatant opportunist!
I sincerely hope so! It is always good to review fixed ideas. I do believe that the mind responds more to directional and purposeful thinking, as many of the more New Code NLP processes imply. I think that the outcome driven culture promoted by some positive thinkers and NLPers has done a great deal of harm to the notion that living a life on purpose and being mindful is a more balanced and healthy approach to achievement
You know Derek…that’s a really good point. This is something that I do all the time…get all uptight and make such a ‘big deal’ of everything in my head. Then occasionally when I’m preoccupied with something else the words will come to me and the article/piece will write itself. I believe this is why we should write every day and then it becomes so routine that we can’t make the big deal…and then the words flow! Thanks Rosemary
Hi Rosemary
Thanks for your point, I have also experienced the insights after giving myself up to being distracted. Entirely worthwhile – except when there is a bus to catch!
Be Well
Derek