Some people call it procrastination.  Procrastination is part of a person's motivation strategy.  It is how they motivate themselves.  It also has to do with the meta program distinction pattern of Patient or Wait (Reactive).  People with the Patient pattern wait and consider, analyze, analyze, consider some more.  As opposed to the Initiate Pattern which is proactive.  People with the Patient Pattern are very good at inside sales, cashiers, bank tellers, clerks, any where people have to wait for others to initiate.  Profile:

• Motivated to wait, analyze, consider and react
• Wait for others to initiate
• Situation must be right before they act
• Believe in luck and chance – world is not in their control
• Spend a lot of time waiting
• Good analysts
• Use of gerunds (-ing)

Watch people sit in a meeting.  The Initiators will move around a lot and be active in their seats and will change positions.  The Patient will sit and move very little or not at all.  So the next time you procrastinate, be OK with it.  It is a program your brain is running.  Instead of always wanting to change things about you, find where the pattern words best and go do it! 

Becoming Unconsiously Skilled: Understanding progressive learning

I have taught NLP for 23 years. I consider the designations of NLP to delineate and distinguish different levels of NLP. When a person reaches a masters level I think of that level as mastery of oneself. Skill integration takes time and practice as with other disciplines. The Master designation needs to be defined.

I have a Masters Degree in Information Science. What this designates is I have completed a certain amount of course work at a certain level. It qualifies me to get certain positions which other people without that degree would not be eligible for. This does not (or did not) mean I have all the tacit knowlegde I need to run an organization. The only way to get the knowledge is to work in the field. I've done several NLP Master tracts and assisted in several Master tracts. The knowledge and know-how I have today is gained from working and teahcing in the NLP field for so long. It is knowlegde you cannot get from another individual or classroom.

Richard Bolstad wrote an article in 1997 in Anchor Point called Teaching NLP: How to be consciously unconsciously skilled. It was based on research that Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus did at the University of California with chess players and airline pilots. Patricia Benner researched nursing graduates along the same line. Richard mapped it over to NLP students. Here is a brief synopsis
There are 5 stages of development of unconscious skill from conscious skill:
Novice: must have context free rules to guide what they do; do not know what rule takes precedent. (early in practitioner class)

Advanced beginner: given guidelines instead of rules; not black or white. (at the end of a successful practitioner)

Competent: Manage complexities of actual situations; combine processes and design interventions as a part of longer range goals; apply a vast array of guidelines. (AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS OF NLP PRACTICAL WORK and/or after a Master practitioner class)

Proficient: Unconsciously skilled at things the Competent only manages, accesses vast array of EXPERIENCES instead of guidelines. Deciding what to do with a client comes as a response to hundreds of accesses sensory based memories rather than Ad principles.

Expert: Intuitive grasp of the stiuation and zeros in on the issues that need attention without wasted time in problem solving, challenge rules and guidelines, says things like, "it just felt right.", practice becomes holistic rather than step-by-step.

Notice that a person is only half way through the process of developing unconscous skill when finishing a Master tract. And of course, this article was written in the days when people actually took real NLP courses that lasted long enough for them to actually develop some skill in class. When my master students leave my class, my goal is for them to be Competent. Some of them reach beyond that but nothing takes the place of field work. (We call that in the dance world, Floor Time. You do not learn to dance in class, you learn to dance on the floor).

 The Difference between Prediction and Vision

Prediction says what will be, vision what can be.  Predication is a quest for certainties, vision is a quest for possibilities.  Prediction is based on analysis, which means taking things apart; vision is bases on systhesis, which means putting things together.  Prediction is almost always inaccurate, but vision can't be--any more than a dream can be wrong.  And this the most important distinction, prediction takes place in the future, but vision exists in the present. 

Vision is what we see now, brought into focus by all our experience and emotion.  Scientist estimate that 80 percent of what we see in the real world is already present in our brains, such as the memories, judgments, and emotions that fill the gaps that sight alone is incapable of processing.  Though the images pass through our eyeballs, vision actioually takes place in our minds.  To some degree, everything we see depends on what we are thinking when we envision it....The practice of envisioning can shape the future.  Imagination, or rather seeing through the mind's eye, exposes new possibilities and eliminates unworthiness. 

Though we'll never predict the future, we can, it seem, enact it through the visions we hold today....Want to lower your blood pressure ten points?  Recall an image of yourself under a scarlet Pacific sunset, sand all around, and project yourself under there.  Even scientists, with all their rigor and precision, would be nothing without visions, which they refer to as theories.  As Einstein said: "Our  theories determine what we measure."...tomorrow's reality springs from today's vision.
Quote from Thomas Petzinger, Jr.

Ever wonder why technology companies change their products so often?  It is so frustrating for people to just get used to Windows XP and Vista.  Now Windows 7 is out and soon Windows8.  Apple continues to assault our decision-making processes by introducing new products, it seems to me, weekly.  In fact, if you live long enough, you'll have every product that you've ever loved discontinued.

Here is why:
Technology people have a short clock.  This means that they like change and get depressed if change doesn't happen fast enough.  They thrive on the revolutionary.  This is one of the reason they change jobs every 18 months to 3 years.  So it stands to reason that they design products that have short use spans.

The problem is most of the population like change to EVOLVE over 5-7 years. (The 7 year itch thing).  They like improved updated products, not radically new.  When they have to change products too frequently they find it annoying, frustrating and inconvenient.   It is the reason so many people put off changing to new systems or phones or computers.  It doesn't fit their 'clock'.  NLP has more information on this.  These filters are called Meta Programs.