affirmations and questions

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http://www.transformations.net.nz /trancescript/affirmations.html May 27, 2013

Affirmations and Questions - Transformations NLP

How Can We Do Better With Affirmations?

Dr Richard Bolstad

In 2009, those of us involved in personal development got a wake up call from researchers whodemonstrated that one of the most popular self-development tools of all time generally loweredpeople's self esteem and made them less likely to act. As with the repeated research showing thatan oversimplistic application of "The Secret" is one of the two most signif icant impediments toachievement (Bolstad 2010), this research on affirmations was almost ignored by NLP trainers aswell as other "personal development experts". Mostly, we just didn't think the research could havebeen done correctly.

But recently there have been several corroborating studies, and I believe it's time we took a newlook at a technique that was never off icially developed as part of NLP, was crit iqued clearly by thedevelopers of NLP, and now has been shown only to work in certain situat ions. There are goodreasons why aff irmations block success, when they do, and they are easy to understand so t hatwe can move beyond aff irmation.

The Initial Research Studies

Psychologists Joanne V. Wood and John W. Lee from the University of Waterloo, and W.Q. ElainePerunovic from the University of New Brunswick, first asked 249 research subjects to fill in a shortquestionnaire designed to analyse their self-esteem and to say how o ften they said positivethings about themselves, on a scale f rom 1(never) to 8 (almost daily). About 50% gave a rating of6 or higher. Subjects who already had high self-esteem said they already often said affirmingthings to themselves, particularly to help themselves cope with exams, prepare for presentat ions,

cope with problems, or even as part of their everyday routine. On average, they felt that suchstatements were helpful. Those with low self-esteem also claimed that such statementssometimes helped them, but they said that they more of ten made them feel worse. To f ind outwhy, the researchers did two follow-up studies.

First, they asked their subjects to write down anything they felt or thought in a four-minute period.The recruits included equal numbers of students with high or low self-esteem and half of eachgroup were told to say to themselves, "I am a lovable person", every 15 seconds, on t he cue of abell rung by the researcher. Afterwards, they completed several questionnaires. Two of these weredesigned to assess their mood, including questions such as "What is the probability that a 30-year-old will be involved in a happy, loving romance?" and "Would you like to go to a party?" Another

set o f questions rated their current self-esteem by asking them to say which of two adjectivesthey felt closest to -- eg valuable or useless, nice or awful, good or bad. As you might expect, thestudents with higher self-esteem had higher, happier scores on all three questionnaires than thosewith low self-esteem. In fact they actually felt slightly bett er than before, after saying theaff irmations (only slight ly though). But for those who already had low self-esteem, the effect ofthe aff irmations was dramatic and negative. They felt worse after saying these words, had morenegative beliefs, and had lower expectat ions of success. Their self-esteem scores were almosthalved as a result of t rying to use aff irmations.

The researchers explain the result by saying that everyone has a range of ideas they are preparedto accept. Messages that lie within this boundary are more persuasive than those that fall out side
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it - those meet the greatest resistance and can even lead to people holding onto t heir originalposition more strongly. If a person with low self-esteem says something that's positive aboutthemselves but is well outside the range of what they'll actually believe, their immediate reaction isto dismiss the claim and feel even worse. Statements that cont radict a person's current self-imageand basic model of the world, no matt er how posit ive in intention, are likely to trigger mismatchingthoughts. Of course, as an NLP Practitioner, you have several interventions that can change self-image and model of the world so t hat t hese aff irmations would work... and of course then theaff irmations may not seem so important anyway. Wood concluded that aff irmations only work in

situat ions where people make very specif ic statements that are impossible to argue with, or wherenone of their major beliefs are challenged. For example, people may be better off saying "I choosegood gift s for people" rather than "I'm a generous person". Put in Transforming Communicationterms, positive statements are bett er worded as sensory specif ic "I messages" rather than asjudgments. She cautioned that "out landish, unreasonably posit ive self-statements, such as 'Iaccept myself completely,' are of ten encouraged by self-help books. Our results suggest t hat suchself-statements may harm the very people they are designed for: people low in self-esteem."

In the third study, subjects were asked to consider the statement "I am a lovable person" andeither to f ocus only on ways in which it 's true, or to consider ways in which it is and isn't t rue. Afterthe task, people with high self-esteem benefited f rom focusing only on the posit ive side of thestatement, but those with low self-esteem felt worse about themselves if they dwelled only onpositives, and bett er if they were asked to t ake a more balanced approach. Wood suggests that ifpeople with low self-esteem are asked to think only positive thoughts, and f ind it diff icult to blockout negative ones, that merely cert ifies their belief that they aren't measuring up to standards. Asfar back as 1991, Norbert Schwarz at the University o f Michigan (1991) found that people whowere asked to remember 12 examples of being assertive rated themselves as being less assertivethan those who just had to remember 6 examples. He pointed out that it was not remembering the12 events that made the people feel bad, it was their own internal response to having dif f icultyremembering 12. When people had trouble in bringing 12 examples to mind, they decided that theymust not be very assertive aft er all.

NLP Approaches to Affirmation

Richard Bandler and John Grinder did not include "af f irmations" in their list of NLP techniques.Robert Dilts in the Encyclopaedia of NLP does champion aff irmations, saying "Af f irmation is amethod for creating, strengthening and encouraging posit ive 'self-fulfilling' processes."Af firmation" essentially involves the verbal assert ion and reinforcement of empowering beliefs.The process of aff irmation involves the repetit ion of a series of belief statements. In many ways,aff irmations represent a fundamental example of "neuro-linguistic programming". They employ theuse of language to establish and encourage positive mental "programming"." (Dilts and deLozier,2000) However, Dilts examples of affirmations are all current reality based. Put another way, Diltsexamples are all process oriented eg "It is possible for me to be healthy and well," "I have thecapabilities to be healthy and well," rather than outcome based "I am healthy and well." The above

research suggests that since his aff irmations don't challenge the client's "reality" they are morelikely to be received positively.

Bandler and Grinder did develop methods for transforming internal beliefs, and they seem to havebeen very aware of the risk of contradicting a person's experience of reality. Bandler, for example,describes creating a new belief as creating a new focus of attention, rather than contradicting theevidence that a person has collected about "reality". Describing the construction of new beliefs,Richard Bandler says (1985, p 105-109) "Do you know what belief you'd like to have in place of thebelief you have now?... Start thinking about it now, and be sure you think about it in posit ive termsnot in terms of negations. Think of what you do want to believe, not what you don't want tobelieve. I also want you to f rame that belief not in terms of an end or goal, but in terms of a


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process or ability that would result in you gett ing that goal. For instance if you'd like to believe thatyou know NLP, change it so t hat you believe you can pay attention, and learn and respond tofeedback in order to learn NLP.... We want to mobilize new abilit ies, not install new delusions!" Tothe extent t hat "Every day in every way I am gett ing bett er and better," (to quote one tradit ionalaff irmation) is inconsistent with reality, it is of course a delusion. No wonder many people in theresearch resist it.

I Wonder If Positive Questioning Works Bet ter Than Aff irming?

Recent research of fers hints of a technique that solves the aff irmation-kickback problem andconf irms an even earlier NLP approach.

Ibrahim Senay, Dolores Albarracn and Kenji Noguchi at the University of Illinois gave researchsubjects challenging tasks, and had them say one of two very diff erent type of comment tothemselves before starting. One type of comment was "I will do this" (an aff irmation). The otherwas "Will I do t his?" (a quest ion). In several different experiments, the results were the same.Those who asked the quest ion were more mot ivated, more focused and more successful.Furthermore, they reported dif ferent subsequent thinking about their goals. In one study, forexample, subjects had a goal of going to the gym regularly. Those instructed to say "I will" reportedlater that they felt mot ivated (for example) "Because I would feel guilty or ashamed of myself if I

did not ," whereas those instructed to say "Will I?" reported that they felt mot ivated (for example)"Because I want to take more responsibility f or my own health." In NLP terms, the aff irmations hada kickback effect o f producing away from mot ivation, whereas the questions produced towardsmot ivat ion. The researchers noted that questions open the person to possibilities whileaff irmations close the mind to o ther choices. Questioning invites you to explore; aff irmation tellsyou what is and ignores the ability to f ind unexpected or more useful results.

This questioning style of internal dialogue has been under-reported in NLP, but we can see it inMilton Erickson's work. Milton Erickson continuously quotes his own internal dialogue before anynew success as "I was wondering..." He does not use self-affirmations, he uses self-questioning.For example in his collected works, in a discussion with Ernest Rossi, he mentions how he

developed the ability to write whole art icles during his sleep, unconsciously. He says "I wondered if could write editorials. If I did not recognize my words on the printed page, that would tell me therewas a lot more in my head than I realized. Then I had my proo f that I was brighter than I knew."(Erickson, p 7) Later, he describes how he gave himself a t ranscendent personal experience: "I wasin the backyard a year ago in the summertime. I was, wondering what far-out experiences I'd like tohave. As I puzzled over that, I not iced that I was sitt ing out in the middle of nowhere. I was anobject in space....It was the most far-out thing I could do!" (Erickson, p 21).

One NLP process that installs a useful questioning style as a meta-strategy in a challengingsituation is the Core Questions Process described by Steve Andreas in his new book "Help WithNegative Self Talk" (Andreas, 2010, p 82). The basic idea of this process is that we are

continuously sorting our experience / deciding how to respond by asking ourselves unconsciousquestions. Sometimes these quest ions are structured so that they deliver only unhelpful answers(like, for example "Why does this always happen to me?"). You can identify such unhelpfulquestions and install more useful questions that are better designed to meet your intention. Myown version of this installation process follows as an appendix.

Conclusions

Self-af f irmation is a language pattern developed long before NLP, and research as well as NLPindicates some cautions about its use. Af f irmations work best when they refer to specif ic positiveelements of a person's current experience which are acceptable in their current model of the worldEven there, aff irmations state a f ixed idea, and self-questions may provide a more useful and


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forward moving replacement for unhelpful internal dialogue. Self questioning is explored in moredetail in Steve Andreas recent book "Help With Negative Self Talk".

Dr Richard Bolstad is an NLP Trainer and author, and can be reached by email [email protected], on the internet at www.transformations.net.nz and by phone inNew Zealand at (+64) 09 4784895

Bibliography

Andreas, S. (2010) Help With Negative Self Talk Real People Press, Moab, Utah (Available athttp://www.realpeoplepress.com/pages.php?page=selftalkebook)

Bandler, R. (1985) Using Your Brain For A Change, Real People Press, Moab, Utah

Bolstad, R. (2010) "The How Behind The Secret" Acuity the ANLP Journal, Issue 1

Dilts, R. and DeLozier, J. (2000) Encyclopedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming andNLP New Coding, NLP University Press, Scotts Valley, California (Available athttp://www.nlpuniversitypress.com/)

Erickson, M.H. The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson Vol I-IV (ed Rossi, E.L.) Irvington,

New York, 1980

Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991).Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, Vol 61, No. 2, page 195-202

Senay, I., Albarracn, D. and Noguchi, K. (2010) Mot ivating goal-directed behavior throughintrospective self-talk: the role of the interrogat ive fo rm of simple future tense PsychologicalScience Vol 21, No. 4: p 499-504, April 2010

Wood, J., Elaine Perunovic, W., & Lee, J. (2009). Positive Self-Statements: Power f or Some,Peril for Ot hers. Psychological Science (DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02370.x)

Appendix. Key Questions: Deciding what you'll ask of life!

From Richard Bolstad (adapted from the Core Question process, NLP Comprehensive MasterPractitioner Manual 1996)

1. Resourceful state; Rapport 2. Ask client what situation, or what context they want to find thecore question for. (eg. "at work" "my relationship with my kids" "dealing with a client/student") 3."As you think of that situation, imagine stepping back into your body there. Notice what you seethrough your eyes there, what you hear, and what you feel in your body. Be aware of how you aredeciding what actions to take." 4. "If there were a question that quietly guided all your behaviour inthis context, what would it be?" 5. "Now think of that question. Check that when you say thatquestion to yourself, it reminds you of the situation." (You're checking it has the samesubmodalit ies; ie feels like thinking of that situation itself). 6. "If you knew, what is yourunconscious mind's positive intention in asking this question in this situat ion?" If the person t ellsyou a negative intention (like "to get me worried") ask "And if it gets you that f ully and completely,what even more important thing will you get through that?" 7. "Is there a quest ion that would beeven more effective in gett ing you the posit ive benefits you want in that situation?" 8. If there is,say "I'd like you to step back into your body in that situation, and say the new question to yourself-actually say it aloud now, as you imagine being in that situation. Notice that when you're in thatsituat ion now, the new question is quietly at t he back of your mind, guiding your behaviour, andcheck that that feels much more enjoyable! Imagine a future time, when you'll be in that situationagain, and check how asking that new question changes the way it feels."
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