Three Levels of Change

When I first began studying NLP, in the late '80's, it was generally taught as an eclectic set of therapeutic techniques. Despite the fact that I was simultaneously training to be an actor, it somehow made sense to me to become an NLP therapist as a way of putting what I was learning into practice. After eighteen months of foundering, it dawned on me that I really didn't want to be a therapist, but I still wanted to use what I had learned, particularly with friends and family.

One of the first distinctions I made in developing models for Conversational Change™, or "Coffee-Cup Therapy" as I called it then (i.e. changing someone's life over a cup of coffee), was to categorise any type of change that someone wanted in their life into one of the following three categories:

Level I - Change in the Moment

This is the "quick-fix", band-aid type of change that is often poo-pooed (boy, that one looks different written down, doesn't it?) by people who charge by the hour. Funny thing is, sometimes a band-aid is all your body-mind needs to get a little piece of quiet and heal itself.

Level II - Change in a Context

Sometimes, we're less concerned with a specific event than we are with a whole category of events - we don't just want to feel differently about going to work today, we want to feel differently every time we go to work. Most studying is an attempt to create contextual change - i.e. if we study a language, we don't just want to change what we say in one conversation, we want to change how we handle all conversations.

Level III – Transformation

Sometimes, change in a context or in the moment is less important to us than changing who we are and how we perceive the world. At this level, it is not enough for us to develop a skill or change a feeling - it is our intangible "selves" we want to change, and in so doing change our experience of everything.

People heavily into the personal development movement sometimes get fixated on Level III solutions - they've got a headache, but instead of taking an aspirin they want to analyse the beliefs and lifestyle changes they need to make to become the kind of person who doesn’t get headaches. It's not a bad idea, but it's a lot easier to do when your head’s not hurting!

Let's take an example to make this simpler. "Bob" is about to enter into a negotiation and he comes to us for help...

At Level I, we would help Bob to prepare for the negotiation, work with him so he could feel confident and resourceful during it, and help him strategize for all the possible consequences of success and failure.

At Level II, we wouldn't just want to help Bob change the way he felt about this negotiation, we would want him to learn the skills to feel and act differently in any negotiation. We might do this by helping him change his beliefs about negotiation, teaching him some universal strategies, and if we know NLP, anchoring powerful feelings to the process of negotiation.

At level III, Bob wants to become the kind of person to whom negotiation simply isn't a problem. We would probably work with his beliefs about himself, and others, and whether or not people were out to get him, and does he live in a friendly universe? By the time we were done, Bob would not only be a better negotiator, he would notice changes in almost every area of his life.

So how can you deepen your understanding and begin to use the 3 levels of change?

As a general rule, it is simpler and faster to put a band-aid on a bruise than to alter your diet and nutritional intake to help prevent bruising than to alter your lifestyle in such a way as to build the kind of super-immunity and moment-by-moment awareness that makes bruising a near impossibility. So it is with the 3 levels of change. The basic dictum is this - put the band-aid on first!

1. Find an example of 3 changes you want to make - one for each of the 3 levels.
Example:
Level I - I want to perk up before a dinner party tonight
Level II - I want to feel more at ease in job interviews
Level III - I would like to be a more loving person.

2. Think of at least one change you would like to make, and imagine what it would entail at each of the 3 levels.
Example: I want to become a better actor. At Level I this might mean that I spend an extra hour working on my scene for class tomorrow, at Level II it could mean that I create a daily training program to develop my voice, movement, emotional expression and script analysis skills, and at Level III it might be that I work on being more authentic in the way I live my life on a daily basis.

3. The next time a friend, colleague, or client presents you with a problem, goal, or change they would like to make, notice at what level they are currently thinking about it. If it's appropriate, make suggestions or guide them into a Level One "Band-Aid" change that will free them up to take on levels two or three if they still want to when whatever is "bugging" them is taken care of.

Have fun, learn heaps, and change your life!

With love,
Michael Neill

©2008 Michael Neill all rights reserved

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