Hi,
"The more choices you have, the more successful you will be" is one of the most misundertood presuppositions of NLP.
I like to clarify a bit here.
Many people think that if we had been given too many choices, it becomes really difficult to choose. So the more choices we have, the more confusion we have, the more unsuccessful we will be.
This is absolutely true. So, we tend to reduce our choices. In a long run, we sometimes limit ourselves to one single choice so that we do not need to choose at all. Life becomes easier!
But suddenly, our single choice disappears (things changes!!!) and we find ourselves out of choices! We have nothing. This is one of the most serious problems facing us.
The presupposition "The more choices you have, the more successful you will be" is actually an attitude to prevent such problem.
To understand the "choices" in the "The more choices you have, the more successful you will be" presupposition, we need to understand where this presupposition came from. This was modeled from one of the 4 original great psychologists in the 70's. He is Bateson. He is a systems scientist. This presupposition is originated from the famous Law of Requiste Varity of the Systems Science.
This law states that the larger the variety of actions available, the greater the chance of achiving the goal. This law applies to any cybernetic systems.
NLP developers borrowed the concept of this law to human beings.
The "choices" in the presupposition is not about the choices offered to you. It is about the choices you can use.
The more choices offered to you, the more confusion is generated. But the more choices you can use, the more flexible you will be.
For example, if you want to kiss a girl, someone offers you 2 choices to do so, it is easy to choose. But he gives you 5, it becomes more difficult. When he offers 20 choices, oh my God!
However, if you have 2 usable choices to kiss a girl, you might not be successful if she have more choices of action to turn you down. But if you have 5, it becomes easier. When you have 20, ...........
So, the "choices" is about usable choices and about choices of action. Such choices are not being offered, but it needs us to search, discover, identify and create!
Keith
