Fellow: Are you a herd animal?

Some people say that people are like sheep and need a shepherd. Sheep are herd animals and walk with other sheep. Therefore, if people are sheep, many people are followers. Fortunately, there are exceptions to the rule and maybe everyone is actually an exception and people who make those kinds of statements are just weird. In this blog I discuss being a follower and how hypnosis can cause you to choose your own path

What is a follower?

A follower is someone who follows a person with leadership qualities. The leader does something and the follower imitates him or the leader gives orders and the follower carries out those orders.

Following along ensures that a particular need is met. This can be anything from recognizing your talent to having a sense of security.

In the case of talent recognition, for example, you are employed by someone who values your talents.

In addition, followers have a number of beliefs that make them followers[1], such as:

• I am no better than other people.
• I don't know if I'm trustworthy.
• I have no power.

These beliefs are related to your self-confidence and your views on how the world works and what role you can play in it.

So beliefs and needs make you a follower.

Co-operators and bullying

Bullying, unfortunately, is something that can happen to you throughout your life, and depending on your mindset, you become a bully.

Followers can also start bullying people because it fulfills the need not to be bullied themselves. Or because it makes them think they have a talent.

Consequences of joining

When you are called a follower or see yourself as a follower it affects you. German research shows that people who are seen as followers (and know this) and people who see themselves as a follower suffer from less positive emotions than people who do not see themselves as followers.

In the process, these people also exhibited fewer behaviors outside their role as followers. So they were mostly doing things that suited their follower role.

The downside is that as a follower, you yourself reinforce the stereotypical image of a follower. You do this by, for example, deliberately missing opportunities and, above all, not showing your independence[2].

Checking to see if you are a follower

Being a follower is not a bad thing in itself, as long as you are not a bullying follower. To make sure that you live your own life and seize the opportunities that come your way, it is helpful to find out if you are a follower, or if you are unconsciously not making the most of yourself. After all, if you know, you can do something about it.

So check with these statements to see if they are true or false for you. Are most of the statements true? Then you can see how you can stop your meandering behavior.

1. I usually do something I've seen someone else do.
2. I usually do something someone else came up with.
3. I have no power.
4. I don't consider myself trustworthy enough.
5. I don't like my own plans.
6. I do things I don't really want to do.
7. I question my decisions and often present choices to others.
8. I find it scary to do something that people have opinions on.
9. I think it's important to be normal.

If you have a majority of truths, you may be suffering from follow-along behavior and hindering your own life as a result. It is important for your positive emotions and opportunity taking to stop meandering so that you live a life that makes you happy.

Quit following along

Stopping along is easier said than done. Initially, for example, it is important to change your beliefs about how the world works.

One belief that is completely false, for example, is that as a follower you have no power. In fact, together with the other followers, you hold all the power. Especially if you’re following a bully, the way to stop the bullying is to stop following them.

After all, a leader gets his power from the followers, from the followers. When they stop participating, the leader loses his power, and this is because the followers realize their power and do not give it away to the leader.

Changing beliefs

Part of changing beliefs can be done with by gaining knowledge. By developing yourself, you find out, for example, that society works differently than you first thought. Like explaining how power works and that it lies more with the followers than the leader.

When it comes to beliefs about yourself and how you act and think and feel, just gaining knowledge is not the way to change them. In that case, you can apply regression for those negative feelings, for example.

Regression is a technique performed under hypnosis that takes you to the first moment in your life when you were troubled by a particular negative feeling. Which created a negative belief. By looking at that in a different way than normal, you can get rid of the negative belief which also causes you to stop rushing along and become more in your own power.

Regression is an important component in Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training programs.

Changing those beliefs creates a transformation in your behavior.

Strengthen new beliefs

By "installing" new beliefs, you ensure that the transformation is permanent. One way to do this is with self-hypnosis where you can use different types of visualizations. For example, you can visualize yourself doing what you want to do, or you can do it with language, by repeating hypnotic suggestions in your head, such as:

"You choose your own path."

"You have the power."

"You get to do what you feel like doing," says the company.

"Say "no" if it doesn't feel right."

"You are good enough."

"You can be seen."

"There is no normal."

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. You can repeat these out loud or in your mind. Then you can also play with how you "hear" this in your mind so that it arrives properly.

Visualize doing something different

Stopping along is sometimes very difficult, because how do you take responsibility for what you do and how do you do something that is not "normal" for once. One way to do this is to visualize what it looks like when you don't follow along. The moment when you stop and walk away from a situation you don't want to participate in.

A hypnosis expert will help you with visualization if you cannot manage to do it on your own. This can be done in the following way, for example.

"You are back at work and you see again that your colleague is not getting coffee, getting a stupid bill taped to his chair and you too are being asked to do something stupid. This is the moment when you stop getting a stomach ache for doing something you don't want to do. You say "No, I'm not going to do that, I think that's stupid" say this out loud to that person. You see how the person reacts and that it is ok for you to say this. It's ok not to participate."

This is just an example of a guided visualization. Depending on your compassion problem, you may get a different visualization from your hypnosis expert. If you feel you cannot visualize, there are other ways to still create change while under hypnosis.

In addition, there are practical ways to help you mentally make the move where hypnosis works as well. Such as:

Stand up

Standing up straight already causes something to happen in your brain that makes you stand up for yourself better than if you stand somewhere with your shoulders bent. This small difference can have a big impact on people who normally ask things of you that you don't really want. In doing so, you can say no more easily.

Think before you do something someone else asks of you

Does the person asking something of you have authority over you or not? A colleague who asks something of you does so because you may be seen as collegial, but if you are busy (or just don't want to do that, you can say no to that. Saying no to your manager is even harder, because they have more authority. Then you can still ask yourself if it fits the profile of your work.

Set your own goals

To forge your own path, it’s important to know where you want to go. You can start small—like deciding which movie to see—and eventually expand on this by finding work that suits you.

Hypnosis and taking practical steps can be incredibly helpful in breaking the habit of following the crowd. Want to know exactly what hypnosis feels like and how you can use it to help yourself or others? Then come to the hypnosis workshop or sign up for one of our training courses.

[1] https://neuroleadership.com/your-brain-at-work/why-followers-follow/

[2] https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1027/2151-2604/a000116?journalCode=zfp