These articles are written to be equally useful for the beginner of NLP and the NLP Trainer although some of the articles may be more advanced than others. If you find yourself reading an article that’s too advanced, give us a call or send us an email. We will be happy to clarify the issue for you.
Marketing Tricks: Article No. 13
One of the most important aids you can offer in coaching is to get somebody out of being incongruent. Incongruent means that they say “yes” when they mean “no”, or vice-versa. It also means that they could profess out loud something positive about a certain person or thing and in the next breath they would say exactly the opposite. They could have difficulties in making a decision because they cannot choose between this or that.
The technique to use is of course Parts Integration (in some schools of NLP it is known as the Visual Squash). In our NLP Coaching Trainings (at both levels Practitioner and Master Practitioner) we take a special approach to this pattern. If you learn nothing else from NLP, come and join us for learning this one. It is probably the most important pattern you can learn (aside from Time Line Therapy® of course).
Look around you!
People are so fragmented, they cannot even find themselves – where is the wholeness inside? What happened to it? Most people are ravaged by inner conflicts, and this at least can rob the body of (a lot of) energy, and at worst it can become so bad that it could even lead to disease.
Somebody really incongruent has a hard time at work and maybe also in his/her relationship. It is a wishy-washy person. Always uncertain and insecure or always appearing like s/he has a secret agenda. Not fun to be around!
However, it bears mentioning that incongruence, since it is a human weakness – as you can see in our next PR linguistic pattern – can also be used extremely successful as a technique for directing someone’s IR (Internal Representation) toward a predetermined objective.
I like to watch when two parties argue against each other and they must first begin by acknowledging the good things about each other. You can notice from a hundred yards that they don’t believe what they say!
I also love to see interviews, and notice the incongruence (or congruence) of the person being interviewed. Interestingly, you can notice their voice going up in tonality and the words are being emphasized in positive support for an idea or a 100 percent yes answer to a question… but at the same time the head is shaking “no”. What fun!!!
Pattern No. 13 – INCONGRUENCE – this pattern involves the arguing and analyzing from an incongruent position. It is similar to setting double standards.
Here is an NLP example: you can see sometimes on YouTube, videos where somebody argues that NLP is a wonderful tool for self-development and to increase in personal performance, but afterwards proceeds to explain why NLP techniques don’t really work…
That’s an argument coming from an incongruent point of view.
To learn how to use this technique, choose any technique in NLP and write about it using incongruence.
Example: Education is very important for everyone. We need more education and more training for people, but everybody should work and make money rather than taking time off for training.
Good luck!
Until next time, be well.