Welcome to Episode #189 of NLP Around You.
🧠 Thoughtful Thought
“Cherish your past. Nourish your present. Flourish into your future.”
For your daily dose of Thoughtful Thoughts, get your Thoughtful Calendar here.
💬 NLP Quote Corner
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Søren Kierkegaard
⏳ One Minute NLP – Borrowing From Your Best Moments
Have you noticed how easily the mind replays its worst moments? The meeting that went wrong, the words you wish you could take back. Rarely do we replay the moments when we were at our best.
In NLP, we call those moments resource states, and your past is full of them.
Your nervous system does not file confidence, calm or courage under a date. It files them as experiences, and experiences can be revisited. When you step fully back into a moment of strength, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, feeling what you felt, your body begins to produce that state again, here and now.
Do this today: before your next demanding moment, recall one time you handled something well. Step into it fully for thirty seconds. Notice where the feeling lives in your body. Then carry it with you into the room.
Your past is not only a record.
It is a resource.
🔮 Meta Magic – Coaching Chronicles
The Man Who Lived in Two Tenses
He arrived exactly on time and sat with his hands folded as though waiting to be called in for a review. A capable man by any measure: a business he had built from a single rented room, a family he adored, a calendar that never had a gap in it.
And yet, within ten minutes, I noticed something about the way he spoke.
“I should have expanded when the market was good. I should have taken that partnership. I should have spent more time with the children when they were small.” And then, almost in the same breath, “One day I’ll restructure the business properly. One day I’ll take a real holiday. One day I’ll get fit.”
Should have. One day. Should have. One day.
He was living in two tenses, and neither of them was today.
So I asked him to pause and point to his past. Not to describe it, just to point. He didn’t hesitate. His finger went straight out in front of him, a little to the left, at eye level. Then I asked him to point to his future. He paused, then waved vaguely over his shoulder, somewhere far behind.
“So your past sits right in front of you,” I said, “and your future is somewhere you can’t see.”
He laughed. Then he stopped laughing.
In NLP, we know that each of us stores time somewhere in space. We call it a timeline. Most people never notice theirs, yet it quietly shapes how they feel. His past was not in the rear-view mirror. It was stuck to the windscreen, and every decision he wanted to make had to be seen through it. The old CFO in me could only think of a balance sheet: he had been provisioning for old decisions like a bad debt, year after year, long after the lesson had been paid in full.
So we moved things around. I invited him to let his past drift gently behind him and a little to the side, close enough to draw from, far enough to stop blocking the view. Then we brought his future round to the front, nearer and brighter, where it could actually pull him forward. And the spot where he stood was the present.
Then I asked him three questions, one for each place.
Looking back: “What did those years teach you that you would never want to give back?”
For the first time, he spoke about his past with warmth. The rented room. The first client who believed in him. The mistakes that had made him careful.
Looking ahead: “When the future you want is up and running, what does an ordinary day look like?”
And standing right where he was: “What is one thing you can do this week that the future version of you will thank you for?” He chose something small. A conversation with his business partner that he had been postponing for months.
A fortnight later, what I noticed first was not what he said but how he said it. “I spoke to him. We agreed a plan. I’ve started.”
Spoke. Agreed. Started.
He had found the third tense, the only one in which anything actually happens.
The past is a place to draw strength from, not a place to live. The future is a place to aim at, not a place to wait. And the present is where the two meet, the one place where knowing finally turns into doing.
So let me ask you…
Which tense have you been living in most this year?
📖 Hook from the Book
“And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
🎬 Movie Motivation
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.”
This dialogue from the movie Kung Fu Panda reminds us that the past and the future only become useful when they serve what we choose to do today.
📢 Announcement of the Week
100 Days | Season 2: RECODE Your Life
One tiny experiment a day, every day until 31 December 2026. A simple way to nourish your present, one small step at a time. Join in from today.
👉 Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mehernoshw3?sub_confirmation=1
Missed the past issues of NLP Around You? Find them all here: https://w3coach.com/nlparoundyou/
Thoughtfully Yours,
Your W3 Coach
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