NLP: The Art of Reframing©

Frank Welzig, President
Welzig, Lowe and Associates L.L.C.
www.websitedesignanswers.com

The meaning that any event has depends upon the “frame” in which we perceive it. Perception creates reality.

A very old Taoist story describes a farmer in a poor country village. He was considered very well-to-do because he owned a horse he used for plowing and transportation. One day his horse ran away. All his neighbors exclaimed how terrible this was, but the farmer just said, “Maybe.”

A few days later the horse returned and brought two wild horses with it. The neighbors all rejoiced at his good fortune and told him how lucky he was, but the farmer just said, “Maybe.”

The next day the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the wild horses; the horse threw him and he broke his leg. The neighbors all offered their sympathy for his misfortune and said it was a bit of bad luck, but the farmer again said only, “Maybe.”

The next week army officers came to the village to take all the young men into the army. They rejected the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. When the neighbors told him how lucky he was he just said, “Maybe.”

The meaning that any event has depends upon the “frame” in which we perceive it. When we change the frame, we change the meaning. A runaway horse is seen as bad until it returns with two more wild horses. This event is seen as good until the son breaks his leg. The broken leg is seen as bad until the army shows up looking for “volunteers.”

This is calledreframing. You can change the frame in which you perceive events in order to change the meaning. The key point is when the meaning changes, the person’sresponses and behaviors also change.

You have an opportunity to put a new frame around your perceived job or career problems and obstacles. This is not a new idea. How many great innovations and inventions were conceived by someone viewing their “problems” in the frame of “opportunities?” Once the perception was shifted to opportunities then the behaviors changed. Energy was now focused on how to solve the problems and benefit from the opportunities.  

Reframing allows you to focus your attention on what you want and what you want to be. You can do or become anything you want, but you can’t be everything you want. If you try to be everything you will most probably end up with nothing. You don’t have enough time or energy to be everything. My course Escape the Corporation is all about how to discover exactly what it is you want and how to focus on that until you have it.

Your goal is going to be to aim higher than you ever have before. Your expectations for yourself and what you want to achieve will skyrocket.

In addition to believing that we can accomplish so much more, we must also believe life will offer us more. For example, when I was in the Navy I was assigned to the U.S.S. Ticonderoga, an aircraft carrier assigned to the Pacific fleet. Hong Kong was a port that our ship would visit from time to time. Now at that time in Hong Kong there were tens of thousands of poor people who lived along the waterfront in their small boats. I’m sure that a lot of these people believed there was just no opportunity for becoming successful. The sailors came and spent their money in the bars and restaurants and these people didn’t get to see any of this money.

Except for one woman who called herself Mary. Mary looked at the warships that would come into port and framed it as an opportunity. She started a business called “Mary’s girls.” No, not that sort of business. Mary and her girls would row out in their tiny boats and would collect the garbage from the ships. This was all the food that was left on the plates and then emptied into garbage cans. They would empty these cans into their boats and take it ashore. There they would sort all the food into containers of peas, meats, etc. They would then clean up this food and sell it in the markets. Mary became very successful simply because she “reframed” a problem situation into an opportunity to provide a needed service and to make money.

Mary’s perception created her reality. She focused on the possibility of making a living and found her golden opportunity in the Navy’s garbage. If you are to discover new job and career opportunities, you must learn to reframe your perceived problems and then act on what your new perception reveals to you.

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