Giorgio Nardone and Claudette Portelli, in their book, Knowing Through Changing (19) use the following instruction as part of their work with clients. It's a very interesting method that can be used to change any problem whatsoever, by installing an internal voice that initiates a daily pattern of thinking and behavior.
During the following weeks, I'd like you to ask yourself this question. Every day, in the morning, question yourself: "What would I do differently today if I no longer had my problem, or if I had recovered from
my problem?" Among all the things that come to your mind, choose the smallest, most minimal but concrete thing, and put it into practice. Every day, choose a small but concrete thing as if you had already overcome your problem, and voluntarily put it into practice. Every day choose something different. (19, p. 73)
Those who would like to develop their ability to model useful communication patterns may wish to pause before reading further, and reread the instruction above, perhaps several times. Then think of a problem that you have, and vividly imagine actually carrying out this instruction every morning over a period of a week or two… .
Then review your experience, and notice how this instruction redirects your attention, and how you respond to that… .
Then use whatever understanding of NLP you have to recognize familiar elements, and think about how the different aspects of this instruction work to initiate and amplify change… .
This instruction is an example of "tasking" or "homework," in which someone is given specific instructions about what to do outside the therapy session, to support a desired change. Many of Milton Erickson's (10) interventions directed clients to do certain things that would change how they experienced their problems. Often these instructions were puzzling and mysterious, and often were delivered within a hypnotic trance in order to amplify their impact, and make sure that they were carried out.
Erickson often talked about making a small change that would begin a "snowball" effect, growing into a much larger and more lasting change. However, this certainly isn't true of all our attempts to change. People often make a small change and it doesn't "snowball" at all. Someone makes some effort, resolution, or decision, and then quickly backslides into their old behavior. What is the difference between a small change that will "snowball" in a useful way, from one that won't? There are many different elements in this instruction that support each other, and that result in a cascade of change.
First, the instruction is oriented toward the client voluntarily doing something different — both the actual small behaviors selected, and also the mental activities required in order to follow the directions — in contrast to passively hoping for some change to come from outside them.
The instruction repeatedly uses an "as if" categorization — that they have recovered from their problem — to create a "make believe" world in which anything can happen, free of the constraints and limitations of the real world. This neutralizes any objections based on judgments that someone might have about the instructions
being "impossible," "unrealistic," "silly," "stupid," etc. Within this "as if" categorization, the concrete behaviors that the person selects (not suggested or imposed from others) become linked with having recovered from the problem.
Since they are told to choose the smallest thing, they will have to think of all the things on their list in order to choose the smallest one. If they had been told to "just pick one thing that would be different," they would not have had to think of all of them. The instruction to choose the smallest thing seems to minimize the task, but it actually makes it more impactful, because it draws their attention to all the things that would be different.
Then when they actually do one of the concrete behaviors, that makes it real, taking it out of the "as if" categorization. Since this real behavior is linked with recovery, that implies that it is equally real that the problem has already been overcome. Usually this will occur entirely outside of their conscious awareness; they will only notice that their lives are going better, or that their depression has lightened somewhat, etc.
When they are asked to choose from "among all the things that come to your mind," that they would do if they had recovered, that presupposes that many things will come to their mind. That directs their attention to the category, "all the things that you would do if you had recovered," and that strengthens each individual thing by associating it with all the others.
Because of the linkage between the specific behaviors and recovery, each example that they think of will direct their attention to what it will be like to have recovered from the problem. That focuses their attention repeatedly on the solution, rather than the problem — and this will be true even if they don't actually do any of the things that they think of.
Another way of describing this is that the client is told to repeatedly think about recovering from the problem every morning, and then to do a specific behavior that validates the implied recovery. Since every morning begins with the implication of having recovered from the problem, that makes it likely that they will also think of it, consciously or unconsciously, at other times throughout the day. This instruction would not be nearly as effective if it were assigned in the evening — unless perhaps there was an explicit suggestion to continue to do it in their dreams while sleeping.
The client is told to choose the "smallest, most minimal" thing to do, in order to make the task appear easy to do, avoiding any residual objection or resistance. However, it really doesn't matter how small the task is, it will still create the connection between the "small thing" done, and recovery. If a smile is an indication of happiness, it doesn't matter how small or brief it is.
Since the client does this over a period of weeks, and each morning they have to choose a different smallest thing that they would do if they had recovered, each
day they will have to choose a somewhat larger thing to do from those remaining ones that they have thought of.
If the client enlarges the list by including additional "smaller" things that would indicate recovery, that means that they will think of the solution even more often as they review this larger category of things in order to choose the "smallest" one. And if they are at all oppositional or rebellious, they may decide to do one of the "larger" things, giving them an opportunity to resist a small element, while still complying with the overall task. If they do a "larger" thing, that will be even better evidence for the implication that they have recovered.
Furthermore, since each morning the client does something different in the category "what I would do if I had recovered," soon there will be a group of things that they have already done that indicate that they have recovered. That group of experiences will become larger and more compelling each day, providing more and stronger evidence for having recovered as time goes by.
Thinking of the actions that indicate recovery and doing one of them each day will also sensitize them to when they do these actions spontaneously during the day. For instance, if smiling or laughing are two of the behaviors, and they find themselves smiling or laughing sometime during the day, they will tend to notice that they have spontaneously smiled or laughed, instead of ignoring it. A spontaneous response is even better evidence that they are recovering than a deliberate action.