Thought Pattern Management

HOW TO PASS EXAMS USING TPM
By Graham Morris

TPM, Thought Pattern Management, started out as an educational intervention. Very many TPM techniques are as much about teaching the mind, especially the unconscious mind, new and different ways of doing things rather than as therapeutic techniques.

In our current diseducation system we enable pupils and students to concentrate on the dread NLP word:

FAILURE

We have a situation where the teacher goes through the pupils’ work, correcting all the errors and then encouraging the same pupils to practise those errors.

How familiar is this to you from your school/college days?

You are facing an exam.

Interesting word – ‘exam’. One of those words (semantically dense) that requires little or no processing ; a word packed with meaning and sometimes just the sight or the sound of the word ‘exam’ produces an immediate, and often unpleasant, state change.

So you walk into the exam room and sit there for 45 minutes – 180 minutes trying to remember all the information that you spent so much time revising.

Then the exam ends and a curious thing happens. As you walk out of the exam room you suddenly remember all the information you revised, but it’s too late! The exam is over.

Put simply, this is what happens. The learning, the revision tends to occupy the left brain. Walking into the exam room occupies the right brain. There tends to be a shift over a period of 90 minutes – which is why the 45 minute exams are most disrupted.

I worked with someone recently who was about to take his ‘AS’ Level exams (exams taken at the age of 17).

After explaining the above I implanted a posthypnotic suggestion that allowed the thumb and middle finger to slowly move down a pen held in a vertical position and that action would facilitate the switch from right to left to occur in 30 seconds.
The exam result was an ‘A’ grade.

Here is the full story of how to pass exams using TPM.

First of all a clear and well-formed outcome.

Do a memory cleanse of all earlier school testing. The easiest way to do this is via the TPM Brainwash technique (see INLPTA News Number 6 pp 41-44, December 2003).
Now all negative/unresourceful memories about school testing and exams has been reframed.

Take the pupil/student through The Circle of Excellence.

Make sure that the ‘circle state’ is in the form of a ring or a bracelet that the person can actually wear as they will need to take it into the exam room with them.
If you can find a Circle of Excellence experience that has a connection with previous exams/tests, so much the better.

When you get to future pace the experience get the pupil/student to imagine, while wearing the ring or bracelet, that they can scan the next test, going down the list of questions knowing the full and correct answer to every question.
Anchor this

Take your subject into the TPM Wide Awake Trance (for reference, see above) and:

“I would like to borrow your arm and I’m going to ask your unconscious mind (you are unconscious, mind/obey!) to keep it relaxed and comfortable.

I am going to talk to the Education Specialist (metaphoric part) and I’m going to ask the Education Specialist to take all the information that’s been (phonological ambiguity) studied and package it in such a way that it will be easily and fully accessible during the test/exam.

I’m going to ask you unconscious mind to allow your arm to lower only as rapidly as your unconscious mind completes the process.”

Tell your subject to walk into the exam room and put the Excellence bracelet or ring on the chair and then sit on it.

How to Pass an Exam with No Revision

Working with the same 17 year old mentioned above, we got to talking about revising his least favourite subject, which in this case was French (apologies to our French readers – it was the teaching not the language).

I was a bit surprised when he told me he was going to do no revision at all when it came to French.

He was unconcerned about maybe getting a low grade or not even a pass.

After using the Iceberg Metaphor for the mind – the bit that’s sticking out of the water is the conscious mind, the much, much bigger bit below the water is the unconscious mind – I explained that everything his French teacher had said to him, everything he had read and spoken in French was stored in his unconscious mind. All of that French information.

So he decided to do no revision whatsoever when it came to French.

Using the sliding thumb/finger/pen technique (see above) at the start of the French exam with the added instruction to access the Education Specialist, all went well.
He got an A in French.

© Graham Morris
Contact Graham at
Training Changes
7 Spenser Avenue
Cheltenham GL51 7DX
Tel: 01242 580640
Mble: 07711 370980
e-mail: graham@trainingchanges.co.uk
web: www.trainingchanges.co.uk

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Not the L&D post you expected of this blog I'm sure, but L&D isn't just learning and development, it's about life and development. You don't get anywhere by standing still they say.

Self doubt?

Ever wondered about your own capabilities, abilities, talents and skills? Well, if you haven't, then I admire you!

I know where my talents lie, but I know I don't exploit them fully. Do I do too many different things? Jack of all trades, master of none?

It was once put to me in a Women's Development session that "what women call multi-tasking,men call lack of focus". I am focused! Just on lots of things. And who can be so gender-generalist anyway? I know some pretty unfocused men and some very non-mutli-tasking women.

But I am challenging myself - if I have doubts, what are they and why? Well, I know some of the answers (and they certainly aren't going to appear on a public blog), but mostly I know it's prioritising. Doing what I do well, well, and learning to do what I don't do quite so well, better.

And the stuff I am useless at? Well, if I can't delegate or dump, then I have to challenge myself further. Self-doubt only seeks to undermine my determination to succeed, to gain what I want for myself.

But, perhaps like many others (very much so I am sure), I won't do so to the detriment of others. Is that self-doubt, self-restraint or self-control?

I'd love to know...

Hypnosis and NLP

Using 'embedded commands' - is it hypnosis, NLP, subliminal suggestion? I'm not sure, all I know is that it worked for me!

Some years back I asked a hypnotist/NLP trainer friend of mine to help me with dieting. We didn't meet up for ages, until we chanced into each other at a leadership training session.

We had a conversation about a mutual friend - we discovered that we had probably actually met before some twenty years ago in a completely different environment! After the conversation finished (I was packing up the gear from the session) I had a sort of 'eh?' moment.

Then I realised that I didn't want to eat chocolate! I looked at the biscuit tin, looked at the choccy bars, and had no urge to eat them whatsoever! So, whatever my friend had said in that conversation he had managed to help me without my even knowing.

'Embedded commands'? I don't know! It lasted about a month, which was all I needed to kick start that change in eating habits (don't call it a diet - that's a sure fire way of setting yourself up to fail).

Whatever it is/was - it worked for me. And, as I may have mentioned before, I'm not the best hypnosis subject.

Self-hypnosis

I bought a 'stop nailbiting' CD based on self-hypnosis. I listened to it (in the car, but parked up waiting) and found the experience very positive.

OK, I only listened to it once so I haven't actually stopped nail biting yet (awful habit, isn't it?). But I intend to listen to it again and again - because that way I think it will really help me break this stupid and unpleasant habit.

The CD had a soft American voice taking you on a journey in a bubble and I delighted in the experience! It was a lovely feeling. Though I am not an easy hypnosis subject (I can testify to that through a completely different experience a couple of years back) I didn't feel 'hypnotised' by this but very relaxed. And the relaxing experience was very positive and left me feeling a lot happier as well as more determined to stop nail biting.

I bought some others too - one for overcoming fear of flying (for a friend) and one to help stop panic attacks (again for the same friend). I've not heard back yet, but as far as I am aware her trip to the US is still on for February!

There's a huge selection of CDs on the site and though I think any serious hypnosis therapy should be done with a qualified and registered hypnotherapist, as an aid for self-help and self-development, I think they are a useful tool to add to the weaponry.

The one thing you do need to give yourself though, and I've proved this, is time. You have to make the time to sit and listen to the CDs and be in a comfortable relaxed situation (the car isn't the best, and certainly never when driving!). You can gain benefit from these CDs, even if it's just a feel good factor for an hour or so, if you want. It's as much about your determination to change as about the efficacy of the technique.

Meditation

I bought a meditation CD to help me relax with my extremely busy, mad life at the moment. I played it one night as I sat in the car waiting for my daughter to finish her horse riding lesson. Not allowed to play them when you are driving, so as I had an hour to kill it seemed like a good idea.

It was a very simple CD and I found that it did relax me. There was not much else I would have done in the car for an hour, other than listen to the radio, but I took the decision to make practical use of the time. I got the CD and put it in my car CD player and closed my eyes. The driving seat isn't the most comfortable position to be in to relax, but it was good enough.

The CD wasn't expensive, and the voice was American, but it was smooth and comforting and I managed to follow the relaxation and concentration techniques very well.

I just need to find some time to play it again and practice the techniques further.

EFT - extremely funny therapy?

No, EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. Based on Field Therapy (which you may hear people like Paul McKenna talk about frequently), Gary Craig in the US developed the technique considerably further and called it EFT.

I like EFT personally because to my mind it partners up two very powerful techniques that I already practice. The first is Karate. Well, not exactly karate, but pressure points. We know that the Chinese use these meridian points and nodes for all sorts of therapies (particularly acupuncture) but martial artists also know that pressure points are extremely sensitive. The second technique is NLP (see my post about NLP on this blog). Part of NLP is about using language to reinforce positive messages. EFT partners the physical (meridian points) with the mental (positive language) to create results that are therapeutic.

OK, EFT isn't for everyone - different techniques work for different people not just because of any scientifically proven efficacy but because of what an individual is personally happy to believe.

I took a level 1 course in EFT here in the UK with a lovely lady called Alison Munro. I had the opportunity to use EFT very shortly after completing the course when I was in the US, visiting a friend.

I use it regularly to help myself with challenges and problems and difficulties or just to make myself feel better when I'm ill.

It is not a catch all, cure all for me, but it certainly is a great tool to have in my portfolio of personal skills. I'd love to do Level 2 at some point, but life is very busy running the business and all the many other things I do that occupy my time.

IBPDA Annual Conference

The following is a news announcement from our NLP friends at
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NLP secret - using NLP every day

A couple of years ago I went on a two day introductory diploma in NLP*. Why? I'm not a trainer or a therapist, I am in marketing, I'm a singer and a writer. So, I am a communicator. NLP as a tool is highly useful in many walks of life, not just sales, therapy or training.

I'll give you some personal examples:

Meetings with suppliers or potential business partners

I have learned enough NLP to watch for body language, listen to the language the person I am meeting uses, and to build rapport successfully.

Business Writing

I think about the people I am writing to - what sort of people are they? Just because I choose email doesn't mean they will. I look at the group of people I am addressing and try to amend my copy to reflect what they may be most comfortable with, and offer alternatives for return communication. I also look through my copy to eliminate negative language.

Creative Writing

I write fiction for personal satisfaction (some published) and find that I think more about the senses when writing. Are my readers going to respond to gustatory, visual, auditory, kinaesthetic or olfactory descriptions? I remember to include each style as appropriate or, for particular effect, use one very strongly. I actually wrote a story called 'The Ghost Sniffer' following the NLP course. Imagine being able to smell history!

Networking

I have to network as a business professional but it is not a natural skill of mine. Using the NLP techniques helps me to ease into social situations more quickly.

Well, those are just a few examples of how learning even the basics of NLP have helped me. Oh, yes, it also helps when talking to recalcitrant teenagers too!

If you'd like a really easy introduction to NLP, there's a dandy CD called The NLP Secret. It's from the US and if you don't mind the extremely effusive marketing, the actual product is very good.

There are some great books too, from the simple introductory pocketbook The NLP Pocketbook, through NLP for Dummies to a whole host of advanced books focusing on different aspects of NLP.

There are also many training companies out there offering NLP training (some even offer free taster programmes) and you can become a Master Practitioner for something in the region of between £1000-£2000.

Why use NLP? I have found two schools of thought on this - from a CBT therapist who is convinced it is pure bunkum and detrimental to therapy through to those who swear by it as both a communication and therapeutic tool.

If you do a search on NLP on the internet you can find many instances of misuse of NLP as well as the positive outcomes. If you are interested in NLP, try something like The NLP Pocketbook or The NLP Secret to get a taster. If you like it, then research the training or reading materials available and take action.

* the NLP free two day diploma I went on was from a great company run by John Cassidy-Rice. If you visit their website and say you are interested, make sure they know you came via Complete Trainer, they know us well. NLP Excellence