Recently I was asked: why provide this information for free? Doesn’t your living depend on it?
As an evolving ape, I am beginning to realise that there is an alternative to short-term profiteering from other people’s hardship and distress.
To explain what I am getting at here prompts me to comment on my motivation for writing up this extensive website.
For a start, I am writing it for me; I am gathering my thoughts at the tail-end of my career.
That said, I am confident that my story will help me talk to a different kind of ‘client’ or, indeed, a non-client (as well as old clients). There are people out there who are able to change themselves with minimal professional guidance. I will be happy enough if just one person makes a safe change in the direction of their life without consultation with me or anyone else!
Furthermore, in practical terms, my approach may increase the flow of business to professional therapists. Some people reading this material will do some experimenting and come to the conclusion that some professional advice may help. That is a ‘good thing’ as the first step along the path of change. It recognises that something needs to change. The individual can become more confident about how, and where, to find the help that will move things on. In the jargon of my professional world, this is termed resource-building!
By becoming more aware of what we need to do, and the obstacles to getting things done, we can identify our own conclusions and act on them. The most successful clients I have ever worked with are those who meet me for the first time after they have already started to make changes. By the way, the other factor that sticks out is CURIOSITY; a willingness to enquire and listen to the results, rather than love or hate them. You know who you are!!
One obstacle to change arises when we are told what conclusions to draw, and how to behave, based on those conclusions. For example, our families and life partners do this to us with the very best of intentions; they may well want only good things for us. Even so, their behaviour can have the unintended consequence of stopping us in our tracks – prompting some of us to rebel against what we are told! My wife will tell you that I am one of them.
There is a lot of difference between information that directs us toward something, and similar comments that simply point out, or guide us. Once we had spiritual teachers directing our behaviour from the pulpit, or its equivalent. Today we are much more able to assess information and make judgments for ourselves. Humankind has not been around so very long, but we are still evolving from a reactive being into a thinking self and, thereafter, to an increasingly self-directing human being.
Sadly, I am aware that this comes at a cost as some people initiate large and unsafe ‘experiments’ that endanger themselves and others around them. For the present, we still need laws to contain those disorganised individuals.
When you find that my material is interfering with your move toward self-direction – drop it! I am sure you will find something that does not work, just as there will be things that DO work.
Please let me know so I can review content. When I do help, I want it to be sure that I am only supporting you to devise changes that you want to make.
Return to:
How to do safe experiments for yourself
A light-touch history of nudging