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Getting Ready to Learn 45

from the old division associated with Descartes and his famous say-
ing, “I think therefore I am.” For someone experiencing low self-
esteem, “I feel therefore I am” will be much more helpful, validating
as it does the emotional reality of their situation.
Brain science increasingly seems to support this view. For
some people, music helps at this stage. Music can lift the mood or
perhaps support and draw it out. It depends on individual taste and
mood.
One of the most powerful ways of improving the way you feel
about yourself is through the support you can receive from friends
and loved ones, who, in Maslow’s terms, can make you feel that you
“belong.” Choosing to spend time with people who make you feel
good about yourself is an important decision. As a result of starting
to think differently about things, you begin also to feel differently
about yourself and your mood changes for the better. You have
changed your mental model of the world.
The second approach, NLP, was the idea of linguist John
Grinder and mathematician Richard Bandler. It draws ideas from a
number of disciplines and combines them. NLP involves increasing
awareness of the way your mind processes experiences—the
“neuro”—being aware of how the way you use language affects the
way you see things—the “linguistic”—and creating new models or
ways of doing things—the “programming.”
A key concept in NLP is the idea that there is no such thing
as failure, only feedback. This is an uplifting and important element
of learning to learn more effectively. Not surprisingly, an NLP
approach to improving self-esteem would involve reprogramming
your feelings so that you do not see a setback as a failure.
NLP is always looking for a positive slant on behavior. So, as
part of NLP, it will be important for you to take clear positive steps
toward sorting out whatever it is you have decided is the cause of
you feelings and affirming how you feel at each stage. Using sen-
tences beginning “I can…” and “I am…” works well. Creative visu-
alization is another beneficial technique. You imagine you are an
onlooker observing yourself. In your mind’s eye, you rehearse what
it would feel like to achieve your chosen activity. This technique
helps you to learn what it feels like to be competent at something.