Few things are as easy or as satisfying to make as a pizza.
The perfect anecdote for those times when you get fed up with the same old meals. It can be anything you want it to be.
Simply make your pizza base, and then top it any way you like. Add cheese, vegetables, pepperoni, bacon, chicken, meatballs, spaghetti… It’s almost impossible to go wrong.
Grease a pizza tray, crank up the oven, and within 15 minutes you can be savoring the flavor over a nice glass of your preferred beverage.
If your goal is to cook up something different – in a hurry – then pizza makes the ideal choice.
Yummy. But what’s it got to do with NLP and hypnosis?
Well, believe it or not, making (and eating) a pizza is basically a small-scale version of what it takes to turn your goals into reality (i.e. becoming a master hypnotist).
Because you can dream all you want about taking your skills to the next level, but unless you’re willing to work at it, those dreams will just stay, well… dreams.
Interested to learn how ?
Set Goals And Reach Them The Smart Way
If someone comes to you with a problem, they want answers. As nice as you might be, they don’t just wanna shoot the breeze. They want solutions so they can change their life for the better.
Hypnosis can do that. It can sneak in under the radar and tap into the unconscious. It can implant suggestions that will help people stay on track.
On its own, it’s pretty powerful stuff. When you add a bit of NLP into the mix, the whole thing gets seriously more impressive.
You’ve probably heard of the SMART acronym for setting goals, which stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
Before breaking it down, ask yourself this: what is a goal?
Is it some half-baked idea you might like to explore someday? Is it a dream you think you’ll never be able to turn into reality?
No. An idea is not a goal, and a dream is not a goal. They’re just ideas and dreams.
You may have been to a job interview at some point in your life where the interviewer asked the following question:
“Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?”
You want to say “What’s it to you?” Or “Mind your own business.”
After all, even if you get the job, you can’t predict the future, can you? There might be a lot of variables that need to be taken into account. You might not know what you’re doing next weekend, let alone 5 years down the road.
So why do they ask it in the first place?
Simple: because you should know.
If you don’t, they might assume you’re just wandering from one job to the next, looking for an easy ride.
They want to know that you’ve thought about where you’re going. They want to know that you’re in it for the long haul.
They want to know that you’ve set goals for yourself, because people who set goals are the people who succeed.
Back to the kitchen…
Take the SMART acronym and see how perfectly it fits in with pizza making.
- A goal needs to be specific – making a pizza
- A goal needs to be measurable – making just one pizza
- A goal needs to be achievable – making a pizza, perhaps following a recipe
- A goal needs to be realistic – making a pizza is humanly possible
- A goal needs to be time-bound – making a pizza you can eat soon
In other words, it’s possible to make one pizza from scratch following a recipe within about an hour. It’s doable.
Same goes for any goal you set yourself. You have to be specific, so you know exactly what the goal is. Like a favorite pizza recipe, it helps if you write your goal down. And once you’ve done all that, you have to take action.
How To Make Goals Work Okay
Making a pizza won’t set your world on fire. So how can you apply the SMART system to goals that will improve your quality of life?
Suppose someone told you they wanted to be able to buy their own home. Renting is fine in the short term, but you don’t get anything out of it.
You might have a roof over your head, but you’re throwing good money down the drain. You’re paying someone else’s mortgage.
Buying your own home means those monthly payments have a purpose. They’re an investment. In a number of years you’ll own the place.
That’s all good stuff. But just wanting to be able to buy your own home is not a goal – it’s an idea.
It’s a dream.
It’s not specific enough, so it will never amount to anything.
What you need to do is break it down. What processes can you follow that will enable you to buy your own home? What do you need so you’re able to do that?
The answer is: a down payment.
How do you get that? By saving money.
So your new goal will be something along these lines:
“I want to save X number of dollars every month.”
That’s better.
It’s specific. It’s doable. It’s measurable because you’ve set yourself a target figure. It’s achievable, as long as you’re realistic about how much you can put by. And it’s time-bound.
But even now, it’s just theory. There’s still nothing lifting your goal out of the “dream or idea” phase of owning your own home. To go the full nine yards, you need to do something.
That’s what makes goals work.
Anyone who’s ever reached a goal will tell you the same thing. They had to work hard to pull it off. They wrote it down so they could keep it in the forefront of their mind. They did something every day that would help bring it closer. And they kept going until the goal was achieved.
Imagine saving 1000 dollars a month. In six months that turns into $6000, and in one year $12,000. Plus interest. In a few years your modest monthly investment will become a pot of gold. What other action could you take?
You could make a budget.
Keeping a record of your daily expenses and hanging on to your receipts. Doing away with any frivolous spending. Making small sacrifices now, so there’ll be more to enjoy in the future.
If you want to be the world’s most effective goal-setter and goal-getter, just do this:
- Refine your goal so it’s as specific as it can possibly be
- Write it down on bits of paper so you’ll see it often throughout your day
- Take some action every day to bring that goal closer and closer
Helping Others Meet Their Goals
The SMART system is a formula that can help people stay on course. To make it easier to implement, begin by asking them questions. Questions are the perfect way to find out what somebody really wants to achieve… because they need to be answered.
Suppose Rachel came to you and said she wanted to lose weight. You get her to answer a series of goal-defining questions such as:
- What do you want to achieve? (e.g. to lose weight and get my figure back)
- How much weight do you want to lose? (e.g. to drop a dress size, x number of pounds)
- Why do you want to do it? (e.g. to feel better about myself and feel more attractive)
- How can you tell if it’s working? (e.g. by weighing myself on a regular basis)
- What steps can you take to make it work? (e.g. by sticking to my diet)
- When do you want to achieve it? (e.g. within x months, in time for x occasion)
- How will achieving it make you feel? (e.g. happy, confident, sexy etc.)
- How will you know you’ve reached your goal? (e.g. when I can fit into a smaller dress size)
If she’s thought about it seriously the answers should be obvious. Once she’s given the answers, you’ll have everything you need to put the SMART system into action.
Remind her that if she slips up, it’s okay. It’s just a temporary glitch. Instead of punishing herself, she can get right back behind the wheel and keep ongoing.
The System Only Works If You Do
No matter who you are, achieving anything (especially when it comes to mastering hypnosis) takes effort and dedication. If you don’t put in the work, you won’t reap the rewards.
Some pizza recipes call for a tablespoon or two of oil to be added to the flour and yeast. You might also need to splash some oil on the baking sheet to make sure the pizza doesn’t stick.
You shouldn’t put too much oil on the tray because it could make the finished product taste too greasy. Remember there’s grease in the mixture, and grease on the baking sheet.
But where your goals are concerned, the most important grease is…
Elbow grease.