How to Gain Perspective and Power When It Feels "Too Close for Comfort"
Watch this 3-minute video tutorial of a simple and effective technique from NLP. Give it a try for:
✅ Self-advocacy jitters (when you feel nervous or stuck about potential pushback)
✅ Looping thoughts you want to let go (ie., when you keep hearing the thought, “I should keep doing what I did before,” even though you want to break out of the rat race)
✅ Disappointment or embarrassment from an interaction with Sullen Steve, and you’re done ruminating on it for the gajillionth time.
Not in a place where you can watch a video? Prefer to read the transcript? I got ya.
Below is the full transcript:
A client came to the session saying that she was having trouble advocating for herself at work because the issue felt like this -- she had no objectivity.
It felt so close that she wasn't able to see a broader picture and she felt stuck.
This is something that a lot of my clients experience when they go to advocate for their career growth or they're trying to move beyond a particular phase in their career into a new growth phase.
So sometimes you're stuck thinking about what had happened in the past or you're stuck fearing something that could happen in the future that you don't want to see happen.
Now I'm going to ask you if this is you, if this resonates with you, just take a pause and notice whether that image of either the past or the future is a short movie.
It's like a reel that is playing over and over and over again with a particular soundtrack. If it is, here's something that you can try—a really simple technique from neurolinguistic programming that my clients have all found very effective in helping them gain a sense of objectivity, neutrality, and therefore choice. And when you have a choice, you have power.
So here's what you're going to do: see that image whether it is a short movie or not, see that image, and now imagine that you can zoom out. Zoom out.
Imagine that your mind's eye is a cinematic camera and it can zoom out into the distance. And from that distance, see that image or short movie and see it gets smaller and smaller in the far distance.
As you see it smaller and smaller in the distance, now zoom out so much you can even see the version of you in that image, if you hadn't already been seeing a version of you in that image.
So as you zoom out and you see that image getting smaller from a distance, and you see a version of you in that image, now continue to observe the background.
What do you notice in the environment? And as you notice the environment, now put that image in a really pretty, or you know, a good-looking picture frame.
As you can see, I literally have a metal gold metal picture frame with this painting behind me. So maybe you put that image in a gold metal picture frame, or maybe it's a gold wooden carved picture frame with all the fancy details, the flowery details, or maybe you add museum lighting to it.
Now look at that image from a distance, framed in this picture frame, and notice what that's like for you. Notice if you gain just even if 1% more objectivity. Notice if you start to feel a shift around it. If you do, you've done well.
Now think about that event one more time and see if again it just feels different, you notice something more, you notice the nuance, you notice a different perspective that you hadn't been noticing because now you have distance, you have objectivity, you have neutrality, you also have a choice.
For the philosophy, FAQs, and more about my experiential coaching series for smart women who hate office politics, come on over to https://www.jamieleecoach.com/apply
