Think Your Way Into Work

In 2006 Mark Crawford, Director of Think Your Way Into Ltd, was made redundant.  He can recall the feelings of shock, denial and despair flooding his whole world.  He looks back and sees the drive home, thinking about how he was going to break the news to his wife and family.  He can still hear the conversations he was having with himself and the questions about what he was going to do next. Drawing on his life experience, both professional and personal, Mark set up his first business  having been made redundant, which focused on helping individuals find employment with the retail sector.  This drew on the previous 18 years of his life, 13 years of retail management and 5 years of pre-employment training.  Mark has now set up Think Your Way Into to help individuals build their confidence in a wide spectrum of areas in their lives.  Think Your Way Into Work is the first module for the new company. Mark says “We have an amazing tool in the shape of our brain or as we like to call it our ‘Necktop Computer’ - but someone forgot to include the instruction manual! Our aim is to help people use tools and techniques to construct their own instruction manual in order to make them confident and more effective in their lives.  This is particularly relevant to the world of work.  It’s not always the best candidate who gets the job, but the one who is the most effective at communicating.  That is where the techniques I am sharing here can help” “Communication is both internal and external.  We do talk to ourselves – this doesn’t make us mad, it’s a fact.  We need to master both our internal and external communication in order to put ourselves in pole position to get that job.  I just want to share 5 areas which can make a difference with your employment strategy” 1.   Know What You Want In the context of work this may initially be simply to find a job.  However if you don’t know exactly what you want this uncertainty will be communicated to potential employers.  Learn how to set well-formed goals – goals which are not only SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Timebound) but which are also crystal clear in your mind, giving you focus, direction and momentum towards employment.  Your unconscious mind works 24 hours a day on your behalf and through telling it specifically what you want to achieve, your unconscious mind will constantly reaffirm what you want for yourself and will create heightened awareness of how you can get what you want using the world around you.  It’s a bit like when you decide to buy a new car. Once you choose the make, suddenly you see that make of car everywhere.  Once you choose the model, again you are suddenly more aware of all those same cars on the road.  They were always there but now your unconscious mind is actively looking for them.  It’s the same when looking for jobs – know what you want and your unconscious mind will start looking for it for you.   2.   Unlocking the Toolbox Be open to new ideas and approaches to communicating with yourself and others.  There is a well known quote which says “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.  I would encourage anyone who is looking for work to be prepared to really believe in their potential.  If an employer has a vacancy then they want to fill it, and quickly – therefore they are on your side.  If our internal communication keeps telling us that we are not going to be successful, then there is a high probability that that is exactly what is going to happen.  Be aware of your self-talk - make sure it is positive, in tone as well as words, and that it is on your side. 3.   Build Rapport and Trust Our non-verbal communication, i.e. body language, plays a massive part in building rapport and trust.  Through learning how to match, or perhaps mirror, the body language of an interviewer you can become more effective at building rapport and trust quickly.  This is extremely important given the fact that most decisions on offering a candidate an employment opportunity are made within the first five minutes of the interviewer meeting the applicant.  It is also important to consider how to build rapport through using effective language patterns in writing when compiling your CV or completing application forms.  Our verbal and written communication is roughly based on the three senses of Sight, Sound and Touch so try to use words or phrases which are in touch with all three senses.   4.   Are you nearly there yet? Do you have a strategy for attending an interview?  You probably do but are you aware of what that strategy is?  We have ‘strategies’ for everything we do.  A strategy is the detail behind how we do what we do, either consciously or unconsciously.  By learning how we do what we do, you can stop deploying strategies which do not get the results you are seeking and you can also start using your positive strategies to gain success.  With this knowledge you might want to ask “What do I tell myself prior, during and after the interview?” or “What behaviours am I exhibiting” and “When do I know when I am in rapport with the interviewer?”  Developing positive strategies can play a major part in gaining success at interview. 5.   Adjust to Achieve If you do not seem to be getting the results you are looking for, then you should try something different to achieve your goal.  This is very applicable to the world of work, particularly if jobs do not exist within your area of expertise. Through having greater flexibility of behaviour and knowing how to change your behaviour in different circumstances can lead to a greater chance of success.  Your behaviours are driven by what is important to you, i.e. your values and beliefs, and to a lesser or greater extent the skills which you possess and your aspirations and dreams.  By learning what drives your own behaviours, the range of choices, decisions and actions which you will have at your disposal will be much greater.  This range of choices allows flexibility with regards to your employment opportunities. In order to assist anyone who is currently seeking employment, Mark has developed these 5 tools into a training programme called “Think Your Way Into Work”.  “I am delighted to announce that we will be delivering our first programme in the United Kingdom in partnership with The Lakes College West Cumbria.” Cyril Wheat, Assistant Principal of the Lakes College West Cumbria states “We are supporting this innovative course because of the need for an increasingly sophisticated approach to working with employers.  NLP will help us to help our customers in a competitive business environment.” To arrange an interview with Mark or to meet with Think Your Way Into’s Communication Associate, Jason Rudgley, phone 0844 884 9575 or email enquiry@thinkyourwayinto.com.  Further details of our work can be found at www.thinkyourwayinto.com

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