Some NLP

Before I start, let me make something very clear. I have NEVER studied NLP. I have just read a couple of articles and a couple of points here and there. I would love to know more.

The following is based on an article by Steve Andreas. You can read it here: http://www.nlpanchorpoint.com/aAndreasMO.htm

He talks about some strange objects knows as MOs. OK, I'll be honest, they're not objects at all, they're a kind of words. Like verbs, and nouns. MOs are a type of adverbs - words that are used together with verbs. Steve groups them into the following categories:


These two categories are to do with our motivations:
Necessity: eg should, must, have to, ought to (and shouldn't, mustn't)
Desire: eg wish, want, would love, (and hate, disgusted)

These two categories are to do with our options:
Possibility: eg can, could, able to, capable of (and can't, unable to, couldn't)
Choice: eg prefer, choose, select, (and spurn, unselect, don't choose)

As will be pretty obvious to you, none of these words are very useful on their own. They all need another verb to be used together with them, eg "I choose to go out", "I must do the laundry".

What I find really captivating about these little words are how they show up our thought patterns! They can teach us so much about how our thinking is stuck! And they can teach us so many other things about the patterns we are living through!

I don't know quite how to explain this, perhaps you'd better read the article yourself. But I'll try. Steve Andreas writes about how these MO words are often used two together. So you might say: "I should be able to" or "I will choose that if I want to". There are 512 ways in which they MOs can be combined, and each person will find some of these combinations hard to say - and live with!

You probably have guessed by now, I straight away tried out some of the options. As I went through my day, I talked aloud (to myself) saying which MOs I was using: "I wish I could" "I must, but I won't!"

I found out so much about my motivations, and my imagined and real limitations. I was also able to address some of them: "do I actually agree with this? Is it true what I'm believing? Is it changeable? Can I live with this, for a while at least?" These were patterns I hadn't even noticed before!

I also did something else he recommended: I observed my interactions with others, while mentioning to myself the MOs:
eg "She keeps wanting the opposite of what I choose!"

I tell you, it was fascinating!