NLP Tips on Successful Goals:

NLP says of Successful peoples’ goals:

• They have positive contents.
• They point to a ‘towards’ direction.
• And they have a high degree of self-help spirit.
• They are ecologically sound: That is, they include family members, and does not exclude community, by adhering to existing laws
• Goals need to be ‘thought of’ or imagined as a visual, auditory and kinesthetic sensual experience, now.

Such ‘Valid’ Goals inspire/ignite one from inside, and help one to access one’s inner powers,
and also help seize any externally available resources to achieve goals]

This slide captures the confused and dissipated ‘feeling’ when one wants to escape/eliminate poverty. “Going away from’ misery does not inspire. It does not provoke one to act.

A valid goals leads one ‘towards’ something. Set your goals like winners,articulating ‘contents’ to be achieved, and visualizing them ‘in front of’ you. Your style of pursuing goals too must reflect a sound ecology: Strives to take the family along; and avoid illegal activities.






Also, taste success in imagination, once a while:Experience ahead the joy awaiting you as visions filled with sounds, smell, taste and feeling you would get when you reach the goal. Then, your goals will acquire a power of their own to lead you.

Limited exposures to opportunities could limit our visions. In an earlier training, trainees described such limited vision as “the vision of the frog in a well.”

Unless women get a larger canvas to paint their dreams on, they run the risk of creating a tunnel vision. [When they see opportunities to develop, they could be expected to dream better Return to Top.
If they proceeded with the mindset of ‘have-nots’ then they might only look forward to doles]

I try to create an awareness of available opportunities by:

1. Building sensory acuity to see what one missed. [NLP tells us that we protect our brains from an overload of information, by ‘deleting’ much of sensory inputs]
2. Plugging any drain on available resources.
3. Doing better what you are doing well: increase productivity.
4. Telling success stories of other SHGs elsewhere to let them know what they all can achieve together.

Trainees did an experiment, exercising their imagination:
They saw trees in the empty space around their houses. The end result astonished them all.

This is the exercise they did:
They imagined full grown teak wood trees in any vacant space lying idle around their houses.
(This District has natural forests of teak wood highly valued for its timber that has a golden yellow glow)
They imagined the trees to be as old as their houses. Next, they gathered data:

1. How many such trees each could see around her house?
2. How many years since her house was built?
Of the twenty five who did the exercise, except four,
(marked value ‘0’ under column (3) – refer to following table) all had space to grow trees.

They found that, if they had used the wasted water and lands each of them, today,
– on an average – each should have wood worth more than rupees 283,400.

They made a frequency table and calculated value of missing trees:

S.No	Groups By Age of houses	Total Number of Trees Missing Per Household	Total No. Trees	Value Per Trees in Rupees	Total Value of Trees in Rupees
(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
1	0 - 20	13+5+10+10+20+20+20+30	128	0	0
2	20 - 30	5+15+30	50	25,000	12,50,000
3	30 - 40	3+20	23	35,000	8,05,000
4	40 - 50	10+15	25	45,000	11,25,000
5	50 +	5+0+20+11+0+0+10+20+5+0	71	55,000	39,05,000
		GRAND TOTAL	297		70,85,000

 

They arrived at the total value after giving zero value to all trees less than twenty years old, just to make their estimates truly conservative.

[As trainer I take care not to let a sense of any ‘guilt’ or ‘despondency’ creep into trainees during and after this exercise.
Rather, I carefully, worded the exercise as a discovery of our tremendous resources available readily to us, just for the grabbing.]

When I ask them how they felt after the exercise, they replied: “We feel like planting trees now.”

Looking at trees that are not there, you feel motivated.

Also, they are now more aware of the importance of imagination:
Imagination could have helped our forefathers to plant trees. It can help us now.

How sane is it to dream things that are not there?
Richard Bandler and John Grinder, co-founders of Neuro Linguistic Programming, have a wonderful comment on imagination:
“That’s what civil engineers do for a living, you know.

They go out and look at valleys that have nothing in them and hallucinate freeways,
and dams and then they measure them…Seeing a freeway where there isn’t one is “natural,” it’s called “work.”³

The exercise of imagining trees that where not there could be called ‘work’ that our managers did,
just like engineers who would hallucinate freeways and dams and took measurements.

We, too, measured the money we would have in our pockets, from imaginary trees!

Are there any more vital resources around that the poor can’t afford to let go waste that could become a resource?

Discuss and share your answers to this question:
“What is your husband doing when you are saving money? Does he assist your thrift activity?”

Trainees held group discussions and found that husbands are a drain on family income.

Sharing on what needs to be done, they concluded:
Group 1: We need to stop the habit of consuming liquor.
Group 2: Need to stop drinking habit is the main issue.
Group 3: Besides stopping this bad habits, men, too, must form Sangams start thrift credit activities.

The money that men squander could be thought of a great resource to progress.
The women already thought out ways to tap them: anti-liquor campaign.
[Trainees are moving into ‘designing’ stage so soon]


That productivity could be increased may be an obvious fact to those with greater exposure. But those cultivating lands using traditional methods may not have that much of an idea.

Besides, the deep rooted idea that ‘the poor cannot’ needs to be broken thoroughly, before leading them to dream. Hence, asking what we can do to enhance production is quite relevant.

“Team Learning” about increasing productivity:
When there was a trainee who had information on a thing others needed to know,
she was asked to share. This helps trainees feel that they could acquire knowledge, share and develop.

One woman present narrated what she had seen in a vermi-compost farm.
She explained how, using earth worm and farm wastes, they could produce bio-fertilizers.

Another Staff from GRAM explained how with little water,
using drip irrigation one women successfully raised a horticultural garden
in a village not too far away from where we were getting trained.

[Making those having information take the chair and share with others
speaking into a microphone produces many good outcomes:
It teaches each one to value others and value ‘learning’
– a foundation to build ‘learning organizations on.’

It shows ‘team learning’ as value. Such group activities build ‘mental models’ of themselves as ‘capable teachers, learners, and managers’ than just dependent beneficiaries of doles. It builds a sense of ‘personal mastery’ particularly in the one who shares – stretching her capabilities to limits, to come forward, shedding her inhibitions and to share, holding a microphone and to lead others. These are vital to make an organization successful in the 21st century: A “Learning Organization” as described by the “Fifth Discipline”]


One of the trainees shared about her visit to Mulkanoor Milk Cooperative operated by women like them, living in the neighbouring Karimnagar District. GRAM had arranged that exposure visit, with a view to help the local Cooperative to start a dairy in this district.

The women there procured and sold around 20,000 litres of milk each day. They had invested Rs.35,000,000 in their venture and doing good business.

I narrated how Amul Cooperative at Anand, Gujarat, exports fresh milk and milk products to foreign countries.

Concluding remarks by Chair person:
I was asked by someone in village,
“Why you are not caring for your children but leaving them to themselves,
you go to attend training?”

I replied “I am going to learn development”.

But my own children encouraged me to come here and learn.
I am happy to come here and learn so many things.

Lakshmi Narsu volunteers to lead next as chair person.

There are two areas needing to be addressed adequately, for any one to achieve development in the Indian Context. One is establishing dignity of labour, and the other, the sense of equality of gender/caste in the minds of those wanting to develop.

Self-Help and Cooperation are proven strategy to break through such obstacles. I narrated from the history of Nadars of Tamil Nadu,
a caste that was considered very low, some two hundred years back.

Their story proves that caste/gender disabilities could be broken down with a thrift/cooperation strategy:
There was a customary law forbidding Nadar women wearing blouse in 1800s.

And soon after their starting of thrift program, they fought for their rights to cover their breasts.

Also, they went up to London, appealing before the Privy Council, to demand their right to enter temples, a right denied to them.
They had a Self Help Movement built on small community savings in the early 1800s. By 1885, they had their first high school offering free education to any one willing.

Today Nadars are free of the kind of disabilities they suffered earlier.


We discussed in groups on how much time women worked and how much time men worked on a day when they both got wage labour employment.

Result: On a working day, trainees discovered, a man had 5 hours of free time, even after he helped with some work in maintaining the mini dairy (usually made of just one or two buffalos) at home.

If these five hours were included in our efforts to develop, how much will we be able to progress?

Imagine the husband went to visit drip irrigation farm or vermi compost venture we just heard about, how much strength it will give for our progress?

Will your dream plug this leakage of energy or wastage of time?

To make it possible, we need to practice gender equality.
May be, you will do well to train children to learn to respect and cooperate with each other – boys and girls.


We had a slide showing the husband of a group leader serving tea to her group gathered in her house.

Such pictures made them laugh. They are seeing something strange and funny a man serving tea to women engaged in a discussion.

If this man were to be shown collecting the cups after they drank tea, and washing them, then they may revolt! How can a man do that?

We reflected how a man has to kill time: Five hours of leisure on a working day; and the whole day when he was not employed.

Will he not corrupt his mind out of sheer laziness?
He frequents tea shops, discusses politics, smokes, drinks and gambles.

If he wanted to share work at home, are you prepared to allow him?
Will he ever be ready to share work?

That raises the question: how do you bring up children.

We find through dialogue that these trainees too, like women elsewhere in this part of the world, don’t allow their male children to sweep the floor, wash utensils or clothes, or to cook etc.
These they consider to be girls’ tasks. And the boys are free to play the whole evening when their sisters work at home.

The woman is a victim and perpetrator of this unjust division of labour:
all work related to dirt and cleaning, she allots to girl child only.

As victim, she feels angry at this injustice and does want to break through. That is the sign of hope: wanting to change. But, towards what? To where?

I next project a picture of a Sri Lankan Puberty Ceremony and explain how the family celebrates puberty:

The girl is given center stage, seated on a high chair in the front room decorated as a bride - parents in the background in the kitchen any visitor meets the girl first, who welcomes them then she orders for tea to the visitors, who were given low chairs.

Slide closes with a question for trainees to mull over a cup of tea during the break: What do you teach your girl child to ‘feel’ about her body at puberty? What feelings you learnt at your puberty about self: good or bad ones?”



Leading towards change of ‘belief’ about oneself through a meditation
that reverses learnt feelings about self.

Reflection on God/Brahma the creator; how Creator shares power to create with women at puberty – An NLP meditation that gives an experience of being God’s Daughters – Being made in God’s Image and Likeness: Aham Brahmam (I am Creator).

 

 

This meditation helps them gain a new self understanding.
It establishes a new self-image in them. And they break free of any inferior feelings they reported after tea break that bound them all these years in chains from dreams fitting a true child of God.

Thus, the women are ready, now, well prepared from the deepest level of identity and spirituality, to dream to full capacity.

Spend a few minutes in silence: Visualize, in five years time, how you want to see yourself, your children, husband, elders at home, any handicapped persons around, your homes, your fields, your SHGs and Cooperatives?

The areas to be visualized are:
1. Self.
2. Children/husband.
3. Elders.
4. The Disabled.
5. Homes.
6. Fields.
7. SHGs.
8. Cooperatives.

Share with each other your dreams, in your groups.


Trainees were next provided with charts and pens to give shape to their dreams. Smaller groups of five members were made. We ensured that the groups had members drawn from both the Government promoted SHGs and Voluntary Organization promoted ones. The trainees kept drawing their dreams till dinner time.

9.20 Recap: Reminding each other of the previous day’s experience/learning.

NEXT, A GRAND EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS.
The women leaders arranged their drawings on the wall.

Each came up to explain what she wanted to achieve in next five years through her painting. Each held a microphone in hand and spoke words that expressed self confidence:

“Now I am in this hut. In next five years, I will build a house like this.” and so on. The collected list of items from their dreams goes like this:

 

 

 

• Build a better house
• Purchase land for agriculture
• Build a school building
• Put up a building for their organization
• Plant trees
• Establish a hospital
• Educate my child to become an engineer.
• Purchase an auto, a bus…

These are not items that they are asking for free from any one.But, it is their plan to achieve them. This is true Planning for Development by the poor, for the poor. The poor have obviously decided to move towards prosperity Their eyes are set on a bright future.

Women will hereafter decide if they will need assistance from outside; and if so, whom they will approach and under what terms they would receive any support. This is a long way away from leading people to participate in Government sponsored development projects. [Most Projects have an allocation of funds to encourage “people’s participation” in the project]

Mr. Samson responded to trainees’ display of dreams with a DVD show. It was on a Sand Quarry Business,
a joint venture of four cooperatives belonging to a total of eight thousand women in SHGs.

Women secured the license to quarry sand from the Government in an open bidding. They bid the contract for Rs.901001.

This development project gave them good returns. But the Government was not able to participate in their project.

Women faced obstacles. They went to the High Court of the State seeking help to continue in business.

He shared of how in another instance, when women of Nandipet wanted to purchase a bus, they sought assistance from a local news paper reporter. He took them to the city where they were making buses.

The company people did not allow them in, thinking they were trespassers into their campus. But coming to know that they came to buy a bus, they were given proper reception.

When women designed their development project, they will be accompanied by many well wishers. They will also face obstacles.

He suggested they chunked their goals into small pieces that they could reach in three months time.

He also explained the concept of chunking, asking:
How do you eat an elephant?
First, you make a manageable beginning.
Find, what you want to achieve in the next few months.
Then proceed further after you have reached that milestone.

To achieve goals, besides the qualities trainees built within them,
they needed money and information.

Money:

Avoiding wastage is something within our reach.In Lokeshwar Mandal, GRAM made a study and found that on an average,
women spent three times more money on medicine than what they saved every month.

Can trainees save more if a trained volunteer took care of their health? One trained in preventive medicines, treatment for simple ailments and in midwifery?

Build up borrowing capacity:
Women could build their credibility with bankers: That comes with strong SHG practices: regular savings, prompt repayments, unity among members, good record keeping etc.

[Interestingly, though this trainings is often accused of failing to talk to women on core issues: “the importance of savings, repayments, record keeping etc.we invariably reach a point – after setting goals - when the importance of all these thrusts itself into trainees.

These ‘fundamentals’ become extraordinarily clear to trainees, and they make decisions on their own to strengthen their movement,
as will be obvious in a moment]

Information:
How to get knowledge (E.g. on health): Knowledge is core to wealth creation today. How do we get information on improving productivity in farming; in dairy; for starting new ventures?

If you learnt from Jamkhed experience, how to preserve health, you could save money and achieve health.

There, women could achieve very high standards of health by one from a village getting trained by highly committed and very able doctors.

In fact, trained village women achieved what even doctors could not achieve directly by hemselves.

Hence plan well to acquire the resource called knowledge.


Chunk your task into manageable pieces: what you could achieve in three months? It is good management practice, once dreams are in place, to plan the first manageable chunk: Plan for the next three months.

Discuss in Groups:
“What do you want to achieve in next three months for your self/family and your groups?”

Results of Group Work as Reported in General Session:

• I will purchase land for Agriculture
• I will do vegetable production/business
• I will dig a bore well
• I will take care of my aged mother-in-law and father-in-law.
• We will grow trees: Neem, Teak, guava, mango
• I will Purchase a buffalo
• I will give nutritious food to children.
• I will expand business I am already doing.
• I will find a job for my daughter in three months.
• I will send my son to Dubai
• I will learn stitching clothes
• I will build my house
For SHG/COOPERATIVE


• Securing Loans; Revolving Funds;
• Ensuring regular Repayments
• Membership drive; more Groups to be formed
• Groups taking up planting trees
• What we learnt we will inform every member
• Unity: VOs and MACs; and between SHGs Regular meetings; attendance; record keeping.
• Skill development training for Dais for each village, Sewing
• Follow up training to this camp
• Training for member education to strengthen SHGs
• To join every woman into Cooperative.
• Establish a flour mill
• Buy and sell Saris
• Training to develop skills some women already have.
• Gathering Health information
• Health programs for adolescent girls through groups
• Anganwadi (Kindergarten) schools where there are none
• Build Toilets
• Lessons on prevention of diseases during rainy season.
• Collect maize from whole village and sell it when price go high.
• To learn how to do agriculture with less water (drip irrigation)
[In spite of quite a few inputs about doing business in large scale, like Amul Dairy, they have not come up with any massive plans but only with what they found practical in the short run. One decides to take care of her aged in-laws as the first phase of her development plans…]



WITH TASKS ARTICULATED, LOOKING AROUND FOR PARTNERS
DIALOGUE WITH VELUGU STAFF:

Trainees first grouped their short term plans related lands, trees and agriculture Velugu Staff Mr. Chinthaiah, (District Resource Person) informed they have an Agriculture Officer with Velugu who could help them with technical inputs.

He told of a provision of funds for purchase and distribution of lands for the poorest of the poor women under Velugu Project He talked of a private person’s vermi-compost production unit in Dharmaram Village, nearby,
they could visit.

Velugu gave loans to poorest women in Morthad Village for drip irrigating 89 acres of land at a cost of about Rs. 500,000.

He also informed about Community Investment Fund available with Velugu, which could be disbursed through Cooperatives.


Mr. Stan, Project Executive, an observer from SERP spoke:


You discovered what you want, where you want to go and how to reach your destination, all in the three days. I liked the last session where you were able to raise questions. When you know where you want to go, and to raise appropriate questions, you will surely find your way.

Only when you don’t know where you want to go, any way will be the right way!


Participants' response:

Pushpa: Learning of what other women do in other States from Arulraja and to learn of the business they do is very encouraging. The coming together of women from GRAM and Velugu is joy to me.

Yadamma: I learnt a lot in three days. It was like a sleeping person waking up.

Satyagangu: What I learn in three days, I want to tell all the members.

Mumtaz: I am happy with these three days. I got chance to go up the stage and speak,
leaving my fears – Now, I will not stop. I am a new member, but I learnt a lot.


CONCLUSION: LOOKING TOWARDS FUTURE:

Once the women spelt out their dreams, information that was not available to them all these years started pouring in, even from the Velugu Staff who were with them all along! On their own, the women may not know who could give them information or how to access them, given the maze of Government Departments and bureaucratic culture that prevail there. One thing is clear: whoever wants to serve these women, will do well to listen to them; pay attention to their dreams and match their services to their demands. Failing that, service providing agencies, be they the Government or Private Organizations will become irrelevant.

The interest of these leaders to take this vision building exercise to all their caders in the villages inspires GRAM and this Trainer to design a two week long trainers training.

This training will be imparted to veterans in the Cooperative Movement, who are ‘retired’ and not holding any more responsibilities.

They will be chosen and trained, and their services placed at the service of the movement.

---

End Note:
1. For more info on GRAM, kindly visit: www.gramacs.org
2 Kindly refer to: www.jamkhed.org for details about the Organization
working from Jamkhed, Maharastra, India, for more than 33 years.
3 “TRANCE-formation” by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, edited by Connirae Andreas, p.26