Our Modeling Year. Karen Marshal.
 
To help Karen set up for this session I gave her all the flip charts used over the year and she downloaded all the reports from the web-site. We then spent some time together discussing the year. I was really pleased to notice how well the theme of “modeling” had produced varied and useful sessions through the year. In re-reading my own reports I was able to consolidate some of the learning’s I had made at each of the sessions.
On the night Karen set up the room to display the flip charts of each session with blank paper for us to record our learning’s.  So having told us what to do, we then did it! In checking on the people who attended the meetings it emerged that only one person was there for all sessions and so the prize for maximum attendance goes to Nigel Heath!
Here are some of the learning’s we shared.
(The sessions do not appear in chronological or any other logical order!!)
Modelling Happiness. Teresa Reay.
“Teresa showed us how to make fundamental changes for the better and shared with us the beliefs and values of naturally happy people.”
Modelling Leadership - Paul Bridle. “Helped me to assess and re-line my own ‘leadership’ values and strategies.” “Leadership comes from within, you can’t lead others if you don’t lead yourself.”
Emotional Freedom Technique and personal modeling. Linda Hamilton -Ross.
“It was useful to make the time to gather the resources I knew I had to sort out the ‘problem’!”  Insight- make more time to model my own excellence.” “Being able to laugh at what seemed previously to be an overwhelming problem.” “The point when you choose to give something up is when you realise whether you really want it.” “The power of self acceptance.”
Modelling change. Alastair Olby. “Helped me to identify a ‘genius’ state and confirmed my existing strategy of avoiding ‘crap’ tasks, or reframing them to at least ‘OK’.” “The Goal is part of the journey, what is the journey part of?” (I don’t understand this either!).
Your Modelling style. Jenny Heath.
“Helped me understand my own ‘natural’ way of learning, and discover some of my ‘blocks’ to learning.” “I realised how important it is to model only what I want.”
The ‘Modelling’ state. Joe Pritchard.
“A breakthrough for me in defining a system to design the ‘ideal’ state for whatever you want to achieve - including a ‘modelling’ state.” “Please re-run this one! Seems an unthreatening way to make steady progress.”
Using Logical Levels in Modelling. Karen Marshall.
(Actually from the previous year but the start of our modelling process.)
“Logical levels, helps to keep a broad perspective when modelling.” “A very good ice breaker when meeting new people.” “Identity and mission are very beneficial when often revisited and challenged. Clear identity leads to confident decision making.”
Modelling Mozart. John Cassidy-Rice.
“Break out of boxes - how we represent experience.” ”Suddenly realised why I had been taught this 10 years ago in order to introduce music notation to children.”
Modelling excellence through metaphor. Penny Tompkins & James Lawley.
“The questions are ‘BRILL’ and I did a really illuminating modelling session with my friend, and she loved it.” “The richness of ways to represent experience.” “This was one of the sessions that caused me to challenge our possible cultural reluctance to admit to genius.”
Cultural Barriers to excellence. Nigel Heath.
“We can recognise the genius in people we model.” “Culture seems a very big chunk. NLP works with smaller chunks.” (Does it?)

We gathered back together and reviewed our insights and our memories of the year.
The second half of the evening had been set aside to ‘play’. This was all about  “Modelling using our key learnings of the year”. and we voted on a new flip chart for our preference. This came down to two topics,
1) Stalking a resourceful state (as demonstrated by Joe Pritchard in October) chosen by some and
2)“Being in NOW”.  Several people in the group are interested in “Being in the Now” so the other part of the group got together and used modelling techniques and great questions to discover what being in the now means to each of us, and to discover new ways of being in the now. From this we learned new perspectives from each other to enhance our own lives and those of the people we work with.
Working in smaller groups is where the ‘real’ NLP happens and we reluctantly gathered back together to share our new insights and finish the evening.

My learnings in reviewing the year revolved around the opportunity that each new session brings for growth. Also how much I get from attending all the sessions. In our busy lives it‘s easy to get caught up with other agendas and leave our own development to the end of the list, from where it can easily fall off! I know as the organiser I need to be at every session, however in this end of year review I discovered just how much the combination of ‘modelling’ styles and approaches had helped me both personally and professionally.
Thank you Karen for pulling the year together and to those of you who have given feedback throughout the year.

Return to NLP-South main site