We all have days where we don’t feel 100%, days we know are going to be unproductive and dissatisfying. Here’s how to turn them around.

It’s common to put times like these down to ‘one of those days.’ We tell ourselves “Tomorrow will be better. “ Doing this means you are teetering over what is known in the NLP world (Neuro Linguistic Programming) as the ‘Cause versus Effect’ line, and allowing glimpses of ‘effect’ to take over your day.

When you are on the ‘effect’ side of the equation, you are allowing other factors to take over and rule your productivity. Most of our society is brought up to think in terms of effect. There is always a reason why something cannot be done or why something is not working out as it should. It is also known as the blame factor.

However, if you embrace the NLP way of thinking, (which for the most part soloists tend to do, be it consciously or unconsciously,) you can only be on the ‘cause’ side – where only you can control and dictate what happens.

So when you have one of those under par days, consciously shifting to ‘cause’, will empower you to snap out of it and get on with it. Easier said than done, I know. Society always tells us to ‘be positive’ – but it does not actually tell us how. This is where the ‘N’ of NLP comes in, the ‘how to’ have a ‘cause’ mindset, which is the ultimate state of productiveness.

The following classic Henry Ford’s quote sums up the ‘cause versus effect’ theory very aptly: ”Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.”

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Here’s a quick exercise to get yourself back into ‘cause’. Pick a quiet spot where you will be uninterrupted for the few minutes it will take you to complete it:

Think of what state it is that you would rather be in, for example, would you rather be feeling totally capable, totally powerful, totally successful or totally decisive? It may be a combination of positive states, so just choose the ones you want and then run through the following with yourself and allow yourself to get immersed in it.

Can you recall a time when you were really, really (insert desired state here)? Can you remember a specific time? As you go back to that time, can you step into your body and see what you saw through your own eyes, hear what you heard, and feel the feelings you felt when you were really, really (desired state)?’.

Repeat this and recall as many times as you need to until you feel a shift inside yourself and harness those new states – you’ll get yourself into ‘cause’ and march forth into your now extremely productive and successful day!