Monthly Archives: August 2014

Intention

Strategies won’t work if you don’t believe that the outcome is really possible.

In my last post I introduced you to Lia, an exceptional young lady with an exceptional mom who believes that her daughters can do exceptional things. When Ashly works with her girls, she does so with the expectation that they can and will do exceptional things. As obvious as this sounds, the lack of such intention presents one of our greatest challenges.

Strategies won’t work if you don’t believe that the outcome is really possible.

Whether I’m giving a parent yet another strategy to address their child’s behavior, or a motor development program for their developmentally delayed child, or you try another diet or a new exercise program, or as a nation our government is trying yet another approach to solving some international issue, our intention, which is a reflection of our belief, can determine or undermine all of our efforts and strategies, affecting the results. As an example: Mom says “no” for the five thousandth time to Johnny for an inappropriate behavior; but her expectation is that he is going to do it another five thousand times and that he really can’t help it, or that she can’t really stop it. Her intention is to do her job and give him the feedback that his behavior is wrong; but Johnny reads the part of her intention that is that she really doesn’t believe that it is going to stop. Whether she has a consequence that goes with the “no” really doesn’t matter, because her intention will affect her behavior and Johnny’s. And to compound the issue, Johnny is going to fight and resent the consequence because he knows it is really only punitive and that mom doesn’t expect him to stop regardless of the consequence.

A number of years ago I created “Visceral Response Technology,” a system/protocol to change perception, increase awareness, and change responses and attitudes by changing a person’s visceral/gut response. Education alone often does not significantly affect our visceral response, attitude, belief system, or expectations. Changing all of that requires creation of a new perspective, a new conceptual construct.

Bottom line: if you don’t really believe you can do it, you probably won’t.

Believe it and make it so.