Future Pace NLP Technique Explained [How-To]

The Future Pace, it’s a regular part at the end of every NLP technique. With the future pace, you can make sure your NLP technique worked. How do you perform it? You read it here.

The steps of the future pace

Step 1: activate resource (optional)

Get into the source of state of mind. However, this is an optional step, because if you really want to test whether it worked, this will come naturally!

Step 2: Associate in a possible similar situation in the future

Go to the problem trigger and see what happens: “Envision a possible situation in the future that previously would have triggered the old (including questions about the sensory experiences from the VAKOG list).” The problem trigger should automatically trigger the source result.

Step 3: Ask for the result suggestively

Ask about the effect through a presupposition :

• And notice how things are different now.
• How different do you feel now?
• What’s different this time?
• How different is it now?
• Notice how difficult or even impossible it is for you to do it.
• Note that you have to think about how to do it again. It is no longer as automatic as it used to be.
• Notice the changes in your internal experience …
• The resources are fully available to you in that context where you need it.
• It was a real problem, was n’t it? What is different now?
• How much better is {situation}?
• How much better do you feel now?
• “It’s exactly the same.” “But what’s changing?”

How are you …
One day after now?
A week?
One month?
Half a year?
A year?
Five years?
Ten years?

Need more inspiration for this step? Look in the article about coaching questions under the heading ‘Questions what the client has learned after a certain part (with a presupposition)’.

Step 4: Additional Suggestive Test (Optional)

Consider using some extra suggestive language: “ Try doing that old junk again, and notice how different it is.

Help me try to remember, what was the problem again?

Step 5: Dissociate to keep the desire strong

Do the future pace again, but dissociated. So you close it dissociated, so that it doesn’t seem like you have already achieved it, because that remains to be seen. So you get extra motivation to actually achieve it in practice.

So do the future pace the first time mainly associated: so do not use too many visual words, but rather kinesthetic words, since visual words are inherent to dissociation and kinesthetic words are inherent to association . So not: “What would you look like in the future?” But: “Allow yourself to be in the future and feel all those sources completely within you”.

Step 6: Click it into the timeline (optional)

Place the representation (visualization) of the future pace in the future by means of the timeline technique ‘Create Your Own Future’.  And see all future events on the timeline in light of the new choices you have.

The short ‘under the radar version’ of the future pace

“How do you view {situation / subject} now?” “Tell me about {situation}.” Or with a presupposition: “How different do you view {situation / subject}?”

In addition, you can  use the client ‘s  timeline , float above it in the future and see how things are different in the future.

Feel free to give the process a boost

Do you receive positive feedback from the client? Then respond to that: ‘Notice all those changes and how good it feels to have all that power to improve everything and to earn it. Step inside now 3 months later and notice the snowball effect. Notice how confident you are inside, how everything has changed, the level of personal confidence and how that affects other things in your life, notice how good it feels. ‘

In addition, it is important to be aware that when the client returns home, there may be all kinds of unbelieving Thomassen who discourage him. So rehearse a strategy for this with the client: “They have the right to say that, and I know better.” Keep looking for and collapsing problem triggers with the source state appearing automatically until you can’t find any more. Make it a joke. “Isn’t it funny that you can’t think of a problem anymore?”

Is the future pace not successful? All the better!

If you experience in the future pace that the problem is coming back, you have just gained valuable insight: you know what a potential pitfall is! Now you can also tackle this pitfall. After that you know how to solve everything including the pitfalls!

The difference between a test and a future pace

For example, if it concerns letting go of limitations from an old situation, you test it by going back to that old situation. Then you do a future pace by going into the future to a similar situation where the disability would normally happen, and notice what is different now.

With such a test in the past, it is logical – and the intention – that the memory is still exactly the same. The impact and the way we deal with it is the only thing that has changed.

End with excitement and commitment

After a while you have to start involving dissociation, because that creates tension with regard to feeling and association. By association you feel that you have already made it, so that the adrenaline and urge to make it is naturally gone. Just like elastic: if you distance yourself, the anticipation / tension increases to go back! With future pace, keep the changes dissociated at the end until you have asked for the ecology and congruence again.

After the future pace, it is recommended to rebuild commitment to start with concrete behavior right away. Do this while the client is in resource state! Now you are done and the client is heading straight for the target! You can fully integrate the future-pace technique by following an NLP Practitioner Training.