In our NLP Master Practitioner Certification course we look at Prime Concerns. This consists of two questions that can help you to know a lot more about a person, their motivation and their life. Here are the questions:
1. What are you best at – starting, changing or stopping?
2. What are you worst at – starting, changing or stopping?
The premise is this (and this is a generalisation, not a rule!):
- if you are worst at starting something, this might interfere or influence your see of identity. Or – you might not feel like you can BE who you really are.
- if you are worst at changing something, this might stop you from doing what you truly want to do. There might be old beliefs that don’t give you permission to do something new.
- if you are worst at stopping something, this might create a conflict of having what you want in life and you might often ask yourself “why can’t I have X?”
Personally, if I notice that there is a conflict within me and I am in-congruent about starting, changing or stopping something in my life, these are the first aspects I look at.
As a Coach, when working with clients – after asking these question we usually dig a bit deeper into the unconscious mind with Meta Model questions to identify what this might really mean for the individual – and of course, if there are any old or outdated patterns of emotion, behaviour or belief, we use a few NLP techniques to clean them out and update the system!