How to Set Goals for a Hypnosis Session Hypnosis is an art that goes beyond just something that you do. In Conversational Hypnosis you are working to change people’s lives. Whether you are serving people who want to be healthier, happier or improve a certain behavior you are reaching to help people to enrich their lives, make them more fulfilling in some way. Because this is such an important and large thing to do you really must know how to set your goals for each session? If you go into your sessions without any goals it is likely that you will get nowhere as that is where you set out to be. Without goals you really don’t have much direction. Setting goals for your hypnotic sessions can be made simple by following a few important steps in order to obtain the results you and your client is looking for. It is well documented in many studies that those who are successful in their business are those who had goals, they wrote them down and put them into action within their unconscious mind. One way to look at goal setting is to remember the PACE Formula. PACE is a formula used for success and can be used in goal setting. If you remember it stands for purpose, adapt, calibrate and engage. Purpose, this is one of the most important parts of goal setting. You must know what it is you want. If you don’t know what it is you want to get out of each session with each of your clients then you are doing you both a disservice because you will likely go nowhere or end up somewhere that you are not wanted. If you know your purpose, where you want to go you will be helping your mind out a great deal. You mind is constructed in a way that is goal oriented making the focus you have become your reality. In other words if you know what you want and you focus on it you will have the power already instilled in your mind to make it a reality. Now this doesn’t mean it just happens right away. You can’t focus your mind for a few minutes and then presto all your wishes are granted. But by knowing what you want and writing it down puts the wheels of the unconscious into motion, helping you to recognize the natural opportunities that arise that will assist you in some way to reaching your goal. If you don’t write down what you want or actualize it in some way your unconscious will float on unaware of what it is you want and continue to skip by those natural opportunities because it is unaware that they would be helpful in goals that you have. PACE is one of the goal setting systems that many other goal setting systems are based off of, the general concept of these four steps are a good place to start with setting goals. Any other system you choose will be a refinement of the PACE formula, it doesn’t really matter what system you choose as long as it is a complete one and works for you. The biggest pitfall of the PACE formula is that people tend to follow it until they reach the final step which is to engage. You must always take that last step, without engaging or taking action you will never reach the full potential of your goals. Engagement is necessary for completion. Another set of rules for setting your goals is the SMART Goals system. In this you have the steps of specific, measurable, affect, realistic and timed. In this acronym you have a perfect lay out of the information that the brain needs in order to get the goal setting process under way. The first step is to be specific. Having a vague goal is like saying you want to be liked. Well there are many people who may like you, but if you get down to it and the only person who likes you is the axe murderer down the street then technically your goal has been accomplished. You never said who you wanted to like you only that you wanted to be liked. Once your goal is achieved your brain will look at it as complete and file it away in the ‘I did it!’ file. You must be specific for you unconscious to continue until the true goal is met and to pick up on the best natural opportunities for actualizing your goal. The next rule is measurable. This is the way of knowing when your goal is complete you will want to make goals that are measurable. This rule is closely related to the first rule in the best way to make a goal measurable is to be specific. Not only do you want to finish the race but you want to finish in under thirty minutes time. This is measurable it gives a limit and a turning off point for your brain to acknowledge whether the goal has been met or not. Another great item to add to measurement is to use sensory rich specific terms about what will take place when your goal is complete. This means to let your mind know what you will see, hear, smell and feel when the goals is accomplished. If you finish your race in less than thirty minutes you will probably see other runners finishing with you, taste the water at the end of the race, feel the sweat of hard work and a job well done. Let you mind know what success will look like for you. The third rule in SMART is the affect. This is simply the emotions or feelings you get when you think about your goal. This is what motivates you, the stronger the emotion you feel when you think about your goal the stronger the motivation you will have. This means you unconscious will also be driven by that same motivation and will put more of the resources it finds available to work for your achievement. Next is realistic. This means you should simply be realistic in your setting of goals. This can be a hard thing to judge but the goal needs to be realistic in the real world and realistic for you. This is not an excuse to not go for the highest goals you have it is simply asking that you step back and check the realizations of those goals before you embark down a path of predicted failure. Finally the last step in SMART is the step of timed. You need to be sure to set a time frame for your goals so you have a deadline. If there is not cutoff point then there is no rush to complete your goals. Your timeline should still be realistic but if you don’t have one you could spend your entire life trying to reach one goal and never accomplish it only because you were again not specific enough when you set the goal in the first place. One last note to leave you with on goal setting. Now that you know the rules or at least a set of rules to go by, remember that you can sabotage yourself simply by trying too hard. As with anything else you can cause conscious interference that will inhibit you ability to reach the goals you have set. Be sure not to try too hard, let your unconscious take care of the things it knows how to do and you just focus on the bigger picture of bringing the goal to mind and making wise but relaxed choices. For more information please visit http://www.conversational-hypnosis.com |