by Nathan Thomas

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The trouble with the world of influence / self development, is that it’s core question is often a harmful one.

People ask “how can I act differently so that I get more from life.”

The very premise of that question concedes that how you are is wrong, but rather than improve yourself on a deep level, you should simply modify a few external behaviors, and pretend that you’re something that you’re not.

So, people learn techniques, and tools and patterns and principles, and set about trying to consciously change their behavior, without changing themselves.

While the patterns and techniques certainly are powerful and are used by many for great effect, at the end of the day they are empty… unless you are congruent!

What Is Congruence

Congruence is when your beliefs and your actions are aligned.

It is when you are what you do.

If you look to anyone who is truly charismatic and persuasive, you’ll notice that while they probably are using techniques of influence, consciously or otherwise, what really makes the difference is that they are congruent with what they are doing.

Why Is Congruence So Powerful?

There are dozens of answers to this question.

Congruence is powerful because incongruence is extremely noticeable – if you are using techniques to veil or hide your personality, I’m afraid it tends to stick out. People can tell that you aren’t really being you, and while you make get some results, it will only be a faint shadow of what you’d achieve whilst being congruent.

How To You Become Congruent?

Well, actually congruence is easy!

It’s what we naturally are. The answer is simply stop being incongruent!

Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. But the first step is always awareness. Become aware of the importance of congruence, and start consciously stopping yourself from acting incongruently in your interactions.

It can be confusing at first – many of us have been stopping ourselves from being congruent all our lives, and it’s a real effort to remember which behaviors are authentic to us, and which ones are the masks that we’re simply accustomed to wearing.

How to Use Tools of Influence Whilst Being Congruent

There is nothing more powerful than someone who is both congruent and a skilled and well trained influencer. These people truly live free and fulfilled lives, and help others do likewise.

When I teach persuasion and influence skills, my goal is to always help you balance technique with congruence. This means that as well as learning the cool tricks of influence that are so popular – pattern interrupts, language techniques and so on – you’ll learn to integrate them into your natural, congruent way of interacting.

This means you can walk through the world whilst naturally being a powerful influencer – without having to fake it.

The key to this is to realize that who we are changes. So, rather than asking yourself “how can I pretend to be a better influencer than I am” simply ask yourself “how can I become a better influencer than I am…”

It may seem blindingly simple, but this one fundamental shift will free you from the baggage which seems to trap 99% of society!

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www.ladybythelake.net

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