Specifically what we were talking about with this filter was how people are motivated. Now the context can change, you could be talking about a career, buying a car or relationships. But the concept it self is easy. People are going to be motivated (in this context) in 5 main ways. They will be towards motivated, towards with a little bit of away motivation, both towards and away from motivated, away motivated with a little bit of towards motivation or away from motivated.
What is meant by towards motivated is, some one is motivated by where they are going, motivated by possibility, by the end outcome. Away from motivation is where you are trying to get away from a feature, getting away from something you don’t want.
To get an idea on how you are motivated, comment what your answer is to one of these two questions:
- What is important to you in a car; or
- What are you looking for in a career?
I will pick question one, as I am going to start looking for a new car next year.
I want to make sure it has good cup holders, it has to be all wheel drive, it has to be automatic and it has to have large boot space. It cannot be manual, it cannot be 4 cylinder and cant be a holden (only jerks drive holden’s).
So when a NLP coach is analysing a business and their staff, they will do a full analysis of peoples filters to enable management the best chance of communicating clearly to their staff, in each persons model of the world. If I was to be the one analysing the response above I would note the the first half of what ‘Rob’ is looking for in a car is towards motivated, looking for all the things he wants the car to do. The second half is what he does not want, the things he wants to get away from.
I would then note down that Rob’s motivation filter is Towards with some Away from.
The real trick with know this comes with how you communicate to a persons motivation filter, if I was going to sell ‘Rob’ a car (knowing what his motivation filter was) I would say something like “Have a look at this new car, it is a automatic 6 cylinder vehicle with excellent internal lay out and big boot space, and it is important to note that it is not a holden and you cannot get it in a 4 cylinder so we wont even have that conversation”.
Some people are going to read that and say that is not how it works, the reason you think that is that this is not your motivation strategy it is mine. Everyones will be different and this is just an introduction to what could very easily become very complex. As there are many more contexts to how we use our motivation filter, buying a car is just one. This blog is about a start point that enables you to hear how people are thinking and begin communicating how they think, not just how you do.
So in simple terms it looks like this.
Motivation Filter:
Towards Motivated = “Here are our goals and objectives…”
Towards with a little away = “Here are our goals…here’s what we want to avoid…”
Both towards and away equally = “Here are our goals..and just as importantly, what we want to avoid is…”
Away with a little towards = “Here’s what we want to avoid, keeping in mind we also want…”
Away from motivated = “Heres what we want to avoid…”
Rock and Roll
Rob
PS. What’s the one thing you don’t do, that would cause the most positive change in your life?
