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What is NLP?
There are lots of definitions out there as to what NLP actually is. I will try and give you mine as succinctly as I can. However if you are still curious go ‘google’ it and you could have hours more fun!
At school and at university we may have learned lots of interesting facts, or even on occasion how to think about things, though rarely how to think and maximise the full potential of our brains; especially not when it came to feeling good, having great relationships and interactions with others etc.
So for me, to some degree, NLP is a bit like an 'owner’s manual' for your brain!
NLP – What’s in a name?
The name Neuro-Linguistic Programming is an attempt to describe in a concise manner the main parts of this extensive body of insights and skills:
- Neuro, short for neurology, refers to how the mind and body interact.
- Linguistic refers to the insights into a person’s thinking that can be obtained by careful attention to their use of language.
- Programming refers to the study of thinking and behavioural patterns or ‘programmes’, which people use in their daily lives.
The name is a bit of a mouthful and is certainly not NLP's strongest asset. But the name Neuro-Linguistic Programming has been around since the 1970’s, so it looks like we are stuck with it. This is why it is generally abbreviated to the initials NLP!
What can NLP do for me?
NLP is an ever-growing collection of information, insights and mental techniques that can enable you to improve how you think, behave and feel. Using NLP techniques could enable you to:
- do whatever you already do reasonably well, even better;
- acquire skills and attitudes to do what you cannot do right now, but would like to be able to do;
- communicate more effectively with others;
- think more clearly;
- manage your thoughts, moods and behaviours more effectively.
‘The Study of Success’
NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) has been variously described as the technology of the mind, the science of achievement, and the study of excellence and of success. It is based upon the search for, and the study of, the factors which account for either success or failure in human performance.
For over thirty years NLP explorers have studied or ‘modelled’ the behaviour and thinking styles of particularly effective and successful people in business, education, sales, therapy, sport, and personal development. It is the practical and pragmatic study of the ingredients of excellent performance and the transfer of these ‘ingredients’ to others.
Modelling
Modelling is a concept at the heart of NLP. The goal of modelling is to capture behaviour of an expert and transfer it to another person. The NLP theory behind modelling does not state that anyone can be Einstein. Rather, it says that know-how can be separated from the person, documented and transferred experientially, and that the ability to perform the skills can be transferred subject to the modeler's own limits, which can change, and improves with practice.
This is often interpreted as a view of "unlimited potential" because a person's ability to change is only limited by their beliefs and the change technology available to them.
Modelling involves observing in depth, discussing, and imitating and practicing many different aspects of the subject's thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviors (i.e., acting "as if" the modeler is the expert) until the modeler can replicate these with some consistency and precision.
Presuppositions
A lot of the work atround NLP is based on what are known as the ‘presuppositions’. The NLP presuppositions are a set of axiomatic or ‘useful’ beliefs used as an approach to change work, and even to life itself. Here are some of them:
The map is not the territory. The world we perceive is not the same as the actual world.
Everyone lives by their own unique and equally valid model of the world.
People always make the best choice available to them, given what they know and the resources available to them.
No one is wrong or broken. People work perfectly to accomplish what they are currently accomplishing.
There is a solution (a desirable outcome) to every problem.
People already have all the resources they need to effect a change, though they may not be currently connected to them.
There is a distinction between a person and the behaviors they exhibit. Every behavior is useful in some context.
The behavior of a person is not who they are. The intention of all behaviour is always assumed positive.
The meaning of a communication is the response it elicits. The intention behind a communication is not its meaning.
The person with the most flexibility and variation of behavior guides the outcome of the interaction.
Memory and imagination can have the same impact as actual experiences when a person is fully engaged (associated).
Knowledge, thought, memory, and imagination are the result of sequences and combinations of representational systems.
If someone can do something, anyone can learn it.
Mind and body are part of the same system, so anything occurring in one also affects the other.
If you aren't getting the response you want, do something different!
There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback.
Change comes from releasing the appropriate resource, or activating the potential resource, for a particular context by enriching a person's map of the world.
"Energy flows where attention goes"