Start At The Finish

NLP Fusion Founder Orlando Zucchetto on how to answer a sometimes difficult question: what do you want?

Know where you will be

Walking into a travel agent, the first question I am usually asked is “Where would you like to go?” If my answer is “not Spain,” it is quickly followed by “I understand that sir, but where do you actually want to go?”

Many of my client sessions have a start very similar to this. Perhaps it is not always as blatant, but the sentiment is the same: they know what they don’t want, but are less sure of what they do want.

Work-Life Balance

Since the pandemic, many people have found themselves working and living very differently than they did before. They have experienced what life is like with less commuting, more time with family, and a faster transition from work to play. They are also, however, missing the benefits of going to work, being at work and then leaving work.

My first question to clients when we start working together is usually “What do you want from this session?” and with increasing regularity the answer is “I don’t want to go back to working and living how I was, I want a different work/life balance than I had.”

So we proceed to identify how they do want to be working and living, and how they want their work/life balance to be. We transform the statements into questions, and in this way we change the entire direction of thinking. We stimulate an answer that will finally answer that difficult question: “what do you want?”

Reverse engineer from the solution

It is often very useful to create some time and space in mind, by looking into the future and imagining what you would like life to be like, in 2 years for example. From there, the process of reverse engineering your own life can begin to take shape.

Of course, as questions are asked and the path to the future becomes clearer, skills may need to be acquired, locations confirmed, other changes made and timelines may also be adjusted to bring into reality what was once just a desire.

Plan For The Future

It is extremely useful at this point to check that the goal for the future AND the process of getting to that goal, are going to work well for all areas of your life. Your family, friends, sports, hobbies – every area of your life is potentially affected by changes you make. Having a future plan that is congruent with your values and other parts of your life is MUCH more likely to be supported and completed successfully!

If you are looking to make significant changes in your work or business, choosing to invest in yourself and gain clarity before taking the leap may save you time, money and heartbreak in the future.