In today’s article you’re going to learn everything you need to know about how to learn from your past.

One of the most critical principles in NLP is that people have all the resources they need. This means that only by drawing on your own experience can you solve every problem you encounter along the way.

Self-modelling is a unique way to make lasting changes and grow without the help of any books, articles or external advice. This article will teach you how to reach for your most valuable resources by discovering strategies that have already proved successful for you.

The subject I’m going to write about here is called self-modelling. You don’t need to know the concept of modelling to use the knowledge contained here.

I will tell you about an exciting experience that happened to me a few days ago.

I received an offer of cooperation that would help me to promote my training. Although the proposal seemed to be quite attractive, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to enter into this kind of cooperation. All-day long I was thinking about it, and still, I couldn’t decide.

In the evening, when I wanted to get this matter out of my head, I started thinking about the issue of making decisions. Why was it so hard for me to do that?

What do I do to decide and get it out of my head? I finally asked myself – when was the last time I made the right decision that seemed difficult at first, too?

I found such a situation in my memory a few months ago. I sat down with a pen in my hand and started to discover the strategy I used then.

It turned out that the situation was very similar – I had a distinguished professional decision to make (but not cooperation-related), and I walked around all day trying to choose the right direction for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t do it until the evening.

So I decided to postpone the decision until tomorrow, and in the morning I will determine two things: first, to what extent a given action will bring me closer to achieving my goals, and second, to what extent it is consistent with me and my value system.

So I did the next day. I wrote down all the pros and cons of the paper. I thought about it in terms of how I acted. And in the end, I made a decision that turned out to be a bull’s-eye.

This memory was the precious resource that I had access to all the time; I just had to pay attention to it consciously. Without noticing it, I could helplessly search for solutions or browse through books and the Internet in search of a good idea. And the answer was always in me.

You, too, have a whole lot of different, useful experiences in your life. Each of them is a unique resource that can be used as a key to solving any issue you are currently dealing with.

Even these unpleasant experiences can be a great resource, although it will be much harder for you to see it if these types of memories evoke negative emotions in you.

Often, the coaching sessions that I give consist only of asking the right questions. Then the person I work with finds solutions in herself, learning by the way how she can do it later alone, working with another issue.

SEE ALSO: What Is Social Programming And How Does Social Conditioning Work?

The fact is that you use your resources all the time because your subconscious always tells you based on what you have experienced before.

However, when you start to consciously use the most effective strategies with your knowledge of modelling, as I did, looking for a way to make a right decision, you suddenly gain the ability to find much larger decks of possibilities inside you.

This will teach you to solve problems and achieve your goals without outside help. Such full independence is a beautiful feeling – when you know you can trust yourself no matter what!

Self-Modeling recognises your strategies. It’s discovering what has been vital in past situations, that you have managed and received the desired result. It’s taking a handful from the ocean of life’s experiences and applying your resources here and now.

Why is modelling yourself more valuable than modelling other people’s strategies? Because your resources are your experience. And as we know, something you’ve experienced on your own is much more accurate to you than just a theory about what another person has experienced.

Who will have a stronger motivation to buy ice cream – someone who has had the opportunity to try it once and felt its fantastic taste, or someone who has never eaten it but only heard that its feeling is amazing?

Therefore, when I was thinking about my right decision a few months ago, I wrote down a strategy for making the right decisions. Thus, I modelled the way I did it once and decided to apply this strategy this time too.

So I postponed the decision to the next day, and as soon as I woke up, I sat down to my desk and started to analyse the whole thing. And indeed, the strategy turned out to be extremely useful, and I made a decision that I am now satisfied with.

So how to model yourself step by step?

Every time you encounter a challenge in your life (1), a situation you want to deal with effectively or a problem you want to solve, follow these steps:

1) Remember the same or similar situation from your past, in which you have obtained the desired result by acting concretely.

2. Close your eyes and remember the situation. Imagine it very carefully, as if you were there. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?

3. Go through the whole situation in your mind, remembering precisely the steps you’ve been through. Start with what’s going on in your head. What were you thinking about then? Then see what you’ve done in turn.

4. Open your eyes and write down the whole strategy on a piece of paper in short and understandable points.

5. Ready, now use your strategy!

SEE ALSO: How To Do Awareness Meditation To Change Your Behavior: 4 Step Guide

As I wrote in the first point, you can model the same or different situations from your past. You won’t always find identical cases, but you don’t have to.

For example, if you are looking for a way to build a lasting relationship with your girlfriend, you may recall a moment in the past when you made friends with a good friend. Think about what was the critical factor in having a good relationship so quickly, and then apply it to your relationship.

Remember that when modelling, you don’t have to take the whole strategy, because it may turn out to be partly inadequate. Considering the above example, one of the factors for building a good friendship could be doing crazy things together in your case.

However, if it turns out that for your other half such an option is not fun, then the thoughtless application of this strategy may be a failure. Always take what you think is right and watch what results you get.

Another example of modelling when you don’t remember the same situation can be the desire to find a good way to motivate you to learn. If you have never had much motivation to learn, think about what you were motivated to learn.

Perhaps to train football? If you played football, set your training goals (2), imagined yourself at a world championship or did other things, start doing the same in a learning context. The results may surprise you!

This way, you can draw on your experience and catch resources is another skill that allows you to develop entirely independently. You have all the resources you need, and you can achieve the results you want.

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Always remember this – you will find the answer to every question in yourself.