Have you ever had a conversation with someone and all you want to do it ask more questions because they are leaving ‘bits out?’
One of the many things I have recently cemented in my learning is a component in my NLP training called Meta Model. Not to be confused with the name of the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, but a model created my one of the original thinkers in the world of NLP.
When we communicate, we often do up to 3 different things and those are:
- Deletions
- Distortions
- Generalisations
We are prone to doing some or all of these all of the time depending on our map of the world. When you understand you are doing these you can adjust your thinking to reduce the frequency of these for better communication and more success in both work and personal relationships.
Let’s start with Deletions: “He’s an idiot” That comment deletes a lot of information that you are not sure what to say next! You could respond with – “How is he an idiot?” or “how specifically is he an idiot?” We will find the shortest route to what we want to say but out map of the world will have us cutting corners to get to the point. We can then identify in others where they naturally do this and question them to fill in the details that are missing.
Distortions is another classic! You may have friends who are keen fishermen. They will come back from a day on the ocean and have a story about the fish they caught, and the size of the size is <THIS BIG>. But the next time you hear the story the fish has now grown to <<<THIS BIG>>> and so the distortion continues. Again, we naturally do this in our language to help ourselves in some way. Our map of the world will determine how we distort, and our motives are very much our own. We them need to question these distortions with language like, “How long exactly was that fish in cm?” This removes the wiggle room for our fisherman friend and allows the truth to surface. What are they gaining but distorting the truth is the questions we must ask ourselves.
Finally Generalisations. “Everybody loves pizza.” “Nobody loves you.” You’ll often hear these kinds of sentences being spoken and realised that people are making massive assumptions and huge generalisations. This kind of language is efficient but not specific or insightful. When people use generalisations in their language again you have to ask yourself how this is helping them are they trying to be efficient or is there a secondary gain somewhere by using this kind of language. The questions you would ask of these people “everybody loves pizza?” Emphasising the word everybody because that’s where the generalisation sits.
Now you know the three big language cheats look out for them in both your own language and other people’s language and where you see it in others you can pull them up on it by asking questions.
If you’d like to know more about NLP and how it can help you in everyday life specifically goal setting and removing the barriers of your old thinking hit me up for a free chat, I’d love to explain it to you and how it has helped lots of people already in their daily lives.