The Christmas season is well upon us. I love Christmas and am reminded of a different Christmas 7 years ago with my twin nephews in Florida (who were 18 months old at the time). It was very different on many levels – sitting on the beach covered in suntan lotion on boxing day, eating a full roast when it was 22 degree outside and spending Christmas day in shorts! This is not the usual tradition in our family! We’re usually sat around the open fire at Christmas in Devon and snuggled in our warm jumpers, the chocolates being handed around and usually the rain lashing down outside. Traditions around the world are different at Christmas and can be very different from family to family too. We are all creatures of habit. For example, when do you put your Christmas Tree up? When on Christmas day are you ‘allowed’ to open your presents? Are you a Quality Street or Roses family (or both to keep the peace!)? Most of these decision are made automatically, unconsciously.
Do your Christmas Traditions cause you ‘pain’ or ‘pleasure’?
As many of our delegates know, most of the automatic decisions we make (called patterns or programmes) don’t cause us a problem – in fact traditions passed down the generations create a sense of belonging and connectedness – traditions no-one challenges because we all know and love the way we do things ‘around here’. However what happens when your rules or decision making patterns are different to the next person (eek!) – the reality however is that we are all different and run our lives by different ‘rules’ – and this can be exposed at Christmas. It’s not always fun when Christmas traditions clash!
Christmas is a great time to practice NLP …
So you’re sat with people on Christmas Day that you may not see regularly – Great Aunt Joy who you’ve not seen for years, the relative that just has to look at you and you get that reaction (you know the one!), or indeed Uncle John who just blurts out what he thinks as he watches the TV and you find yourself trying to get him out of a hole that he’s totally unaware he’s even dug for himself! Students on the NLP Practitioner courses will recall we talk about how, when we’re with people we like and know well, we ‘click’ with them – usually because we’re naturally in rapport with them. If you’re NLP trained already, and know all about rapport building, Christmas is a great time to notice how people are building and breaking rapport unconsciously and often unknowingly! You can see how different people build it with different people – people like people who are like them. You could set yourself a challenge of going out of your way this Christmas to build rapport with people that you find difficult (you can access an introduction to rapport via this blog).
While Christmas should be great fun and a wonderful event that draws the family together, it can sometimes have its problems too. If your concerned about how you’re going to get through the Christmas period and already trained in NLP, why not set your intention to use it as a time to practice your NLP skills and make it beneficial for you as practice time! You could use works parties, Christmas gatherings and more to practice your skills on lots and lots of people – see it as an opportunity rather that something to dread!
You could have a bit of fun by doing the following (don’t take me too seriously, but I hope I make you smile!) ….
- Make and break rapport with even the most belligerent relatives
- Reframe even the most bizarre behaviour to something interesting and amusing
- Use specific questions to help people get to the root of the problem when they generalise that everything is wrong or not going right (Meta Model questions for those trained in NLP)
- Understand and appreciate personal differences that would drive others nuts
- Practice managing your emotional state if you become challenged
- Simply be more at ease with yourself and have more fun…
- … what else can you think of?
Wishing you and yours a Wonderful Christmas …
Whatever Christmas brings for you, set your intention to make it magical, continue learning, growing and sharing the love with those close to you during the festive period.
We would like to take the opportunity to wish all our delegates, customers and clients a wonderful Christmas – may you have a fabulous festive break when you get there and wonderful start to the New Year.
Not attended one of our courses, yet? – check our online courses now and implement NLP over Christmas
If you’ve read this blog and are interested in attending one of our two day introductory diploma courses to gain some great foundation skills in NLP, I’m sorry to tell you there are no courses running over Christmas – HOWEVER, you can access our NLP Business or NLP Coaching Diploma NOW on demand! How? because we recorded it when we delivered it back in 2018 and now they are available as online courses, which you can gain instant access too!
So if over Christmas you’d like to develop yourself, you can complete the course from the comfort of your own home (and have a legitimate excuse to avoid anyone you want to avoid – you’ll have a 10.5 hour course to do!). Although called the Business Diploma or Diploma in NLP Coaching, don’t be fooled – it’s content that is useful in all sorts of areas of life! Click the image below to check out the courses:
