What is NLP?
Neuro Linguistics Programming or NLP is the term used to describe a vast array of connecting systems. There is the neurology or neuro system, the linguistics system or language system and the programming system.
Your neurological system runs or regulates all the different functions within the body. The linguistics or languages system allows individuals to communicate and interact with others.
The programming system allows an individual to create their “world.” This world is based on the previously mentioned systems—neuro and linguistics.
All three systems interact and work in conjunction with one another to allow an individual to come to a sort of oneness in their “world” where the three systems interact to form their mind, language and behavior or interaction.
NLP is flexible in the sense that it is multi-dimensional and has enough pragmatism (an approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application–Wikipedia) to allow for development of behavioral adjustments and competence.
Because these systems are multi-dimensional and intertwined, it allows for certain behavioral patterns in an individual. This in turn creates strategic thinking and understanding allowing for the mental and cognitive to form.
NLP allows for individuals to explore spirituality at a higher level of understanding as part of their human existence. NLP allows someone to discover the potentials of wisdom and vision as well.
NLP will allow an individual to self-discover or explore their own identity. With this, a person will create something referred to as their own “self-mission mindset.” Individuals can develop excellence levels through NLP providing the circumstances to do so.
How Does NLP Help You Grow?
Almost everyone enjoys personal development and wants to be able to grow both mentally and physically. Even if personal development is not their primary goal, everyone wants to be able to connect with others on higher levels.
NLP is a way of achieving these goals. NLP is a great way to discover growth within yourself but at times it can have its own set of complications and implications.
If you were to ever attend an NLP workshop, you might walk away having made significant changes in your life. This can be a really good thing but it may take you out of your comfort zone that you have been living in all these years.
Using NLP is about asking yourself a series of questions. Outcomes are the key to designing your life and sometimes a person has never asked themselves “What do I really want?” Strange, but true.
They can answer a million other questions about what type of coffee they like, where they want to go on vacation, which car they want to buy next but never ask themselves what they truly want. People float through life never knowing the answer to that major question.
Along with answering that question, people also need to be able to understand and discern the various levels of their thought process. When someone understands the processes, they can better relate to others and transfer information more efficiently.
Someone may even get more in touch with their values. This in turn will make them want to start living in a way that is more aligned with those values.
During this process, many people get in touch with or in tune with what it is they believe. By looking at your beliefs, you many challenge those beliefs which seem to limit you and replace them with empowering beliefs instead.
NLP allows someone to become more aware of themselves and others. Someone can actually become more emotionally intelligent in the process. You can learn to take control of your emotions rather than being a victim of them.
Neuro and Linguistics will take someone through the facts but it is the “Programs” that make the most difference. When someone changes their programs, it’s like installing a whole new system. It is like a reboot to your software systems on your computer.
When a person reprograms, they are getting rid of systems that don’t work or no longer serve a purpose. In doing this, someone can develop more effective strategies and habits which, in the long run, can make them happier.
How NLP Helps with Careers
Understanding the NLP of those around us and using this to your advantage will always bring about great benefits. The better and more effectively information is used and given out, the more benefits can be derived.
In the work place, understanding this is very important. Communication is the lifeline in an organization. Knowing communication methods currently used will put you in a better position to not only negotiate but to present your ideas in a coherent manner and achieve the desired results.
For instance, when communicating with superiors, it would be best to take a little time to learn how those superiors like receiving information. Everyone is wired differently and the way that you absorb information and process it may not be the same as your boss.
If someone is more of a visual person, it might be wise for you to find that out before doing a presentation. In this case, you would want to add more visual content than text and show visual images more than speaking. In other words, let the pictures do the talking.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the person who receives and processes information more effectively by listening to what someone else has to say.
The bottom line is to do a little homework and find out which type of person you are dealing with in order to put your best foot forward. You want to present your ideas in the best light possible.
These principles work on your other work relationships as well. Knowing your co-workers and the way that they perceive information will go a long way in producing a better quality and quantity of work.
Pay attention when you are interacting with co-workers or your superiors. Take the time to understand how they absorb different information that is being presented. Use your insights to better communicate your message.
How NLP Helps with Sports and Fitness
Why is it that some athletes excel and make it all the way to the big leagues and others don’t?
You see the kids who are shoved into sports (or those who actually want to play on their own) and have been at it since they were in grade school. Mom and dad are there every Saturday for the game and every day for practice. The child, if in football for example, has played since these early days and was decent in high school and college but has now gone another direction, why is that?
Without being fully engaged mentally, this person will be another statistic of someone who dedicated their whole childhood to playing the sport (or whatever the case may be) and never go anywhere. That’s because that was just the physical side of it.
Physical fitness has to be matched with mental fitness.
You have to be the type of individual who wants to keep going when your body is telling you to stop. You have to have it in you to keep on going at a crucial moment. Motivation has to be maintained even if you are staring at the jaws of defeat. Staying focused or “in the zone” plays a big part in winning or losing.
An individual has to have self-belief and self-confidence for a lot of things you do in life—not just sports. You have to be able to carry through and take something all the way.
By using NLP it is possible to discover and challenge limiting beliefs and replace them with positive beliefs. This is an empowering moment when you can do this.
When an athlete enters their arena (whatever that may be) imagine how empowered they feel when they have the power of positive beliefs behind them.
Imagine how you would feel if you replace worn out or no longer used beliefs with new empowering beliefs.
How NLP Helps with Relationships
Who amongst us does not want a great relationship? This is not limited to a personal relationship with your spouse, this is any relationship. It could be the relationships at home (spouse/kids), work or anyone or group that you work with on a regular basis.
NLP can not only help with close relationships, it can help with complete strangers. Have you ever noticed how some people have instant rapport with others while some can’t seem to get along with a doorknob?
Relationships hold the keys to the kingdom (so to speak). Relationships make you feel successful and in turn you end up feeling like you have a satisfying life.
How well you relate to others has a big impact on all aspects of your life. Depending on your “world” that you have built, this will determine opportunities that may or may not come your way. Want that partnership at your firm? It may depend on your relationship with others.
Have you ever heard the old saying it’s not what you know but who you know? Why do you think that is? Because you have done everything correctly in your world and have made the right connects and get along well with other people who are in turn more apt to help you.
Want to be happy at home? Learn NLP to discover the secrets of how your happiness is affected when you are trying to relate to your spouse, your kids or other family members.
Again, we have said it before, rapport building is everything. Rapport has to become a part of who you are if you want to get along in this world. We use rapport for even the simplest of events that happen in our life.
By observing others closely, you can attune your body language to someone else’s. You can match their voice volume, tone and pitch to match theirs. If you can do all of this you will make a more positive connection with someone. Think what this can do for your relationships.
The more a person feels you are in tune with them, the deeper the rapport.
How NLP Helps with Health and Well-Being
When our mind and our bodies are working as one system, the thoughts that we have are in sync with one another.
It seems like an old cliché but you can heal your body and keep it well by thinking positive thoughts.
Why do you think it is that some people recover faster than others from major trauma or events in their life? If someone loses a limb, or has to face a difficult surgery, why is that one person will recover faster than someone else? Mindset– and the fact that their mind and body are working in conjunction with one another.
Many physicians believe that a significant proportion of illnesses and diseases have a psychological component. Those who believe they are going to get well, or they believe they are going to walk again, will most likely end up doing so. Why?
It is their programming that allows them to think this way. Do you want to change your programming? Learn NLP.
Some say that exercise and looking after your body can help keep your mind healthy. If you are, for instance, overweight, what type of psychological drain is that on your mind and your body? Your mental and physical are not in sync and they are acting counter-intuitive to what needs to take place.
By using NLP it becomes a powerful tool in helping you to maintain both your mental and physical health and well-being.
Some people even “talk themselves well” because there is a direct link between how you think and how you feel. Your mind is holding old beliefs, memories and feelings. Your body will do whatever your mind tells it.
Choose your language carefully when describing your illness. Learn how to re-phrase the negative descriptions in your head before you allow yourself to speak them.
How NLP Helps with Negotiation
You use negotiating skills every day of your life. We are consistently negotiating with everyone in our lives.
Need a new car? Guess what you are going to be doing after you look at and test drive that car? Negotiating with the salesman.
At work or at home you need to be a negotiating genius. If you are in sales, finance, customer service or operations you will be looked upon as a master negotiator if you can encompass the NLP skills you have learned.
Effective negotiating involves achieving “win-win” scenarios and maintaining balance between getting the income you want and keeping relationships intact.
Communication skills and being able to influence others is a key essential tool to your success. Your ability to get others to accept a new viewpoint is all in the art of negotiations.
If you walk into a situation with limiting beliefs, such as dealing with a car salesman, you will walk away with the new car but feel that you did not get a fair deal. You have the power to change that with NLP.
NLP can help you work your way through limiting beliefs and empowering you with positive beliefs.
The Belief Change Pattern will help you to negotiate better by ridding yourself of your beliefs limits and there is a lot riding on the outcome of your negotiations.
The Four Pillars of NLP will help you to achieve great results with your negotiating skills. NLP allows you to move away from traditional ways of negotiating and allows you to understand a more powerful set of strategies for persuasion.
Successful negotiating means being prepared. Follow the principles of well-formed outcomes to achieve this. When in the middle of negotiating, you will have set defined maximums and minimums on what you will allow to take place during the negotiation. You can set in your mind what you are willing to trade-off during this meeting so that it will turn out as a win-win situation.
How NLP Helps with Spirituality
This will seem as if it is a little far-fetched to some people and that is OK. Everyone has their own beliefs are none at all. Both are equally important and spirituality is an individual choice.
Since NLP is extremely practical and grounding in helping people to get what they want, some people will balk at the idea of NLP helping with “spirituality.”
NLP is a form of applied psychology and states that the only ways you can experience anything in this world is through your five senses. How then can anything such as Spirituality even be considered since it might be related to “something beyond?”
Well, some people do believe that NLP, in a sense, gives them an added dimension to their lives in the form of spirituality. It allows people to believe they are a part of something bigger than themselves.
In neurological models developed by Robert Dilts, it is actually included in his sequence: Spirituality, Identity, Beliefs and Values, Capabilities, Behaviors, Environment.
By using both NLP and your spirituality, you may take yourself to another “realm.” But, that being said, people must already experience discoveries in the natural chain of events in life.
Below are listed some spiritual discoveries which coincide with NLP:
- Separation of Self and Other Experience. This is the process of individualism which occurs around the age of 2-3 years old.
- Separation of Self and Behavior. This is the “who am I” phase. This process usually occurs around the ages of 7-8 years old.
- Separation of Self and Emotions. In this phase, young adults or those in adolescence ask themselves “who can I become?”
- Separation of Self and Belief. This phase is the ability to associate and dissociate with self and others’ models of the world in simultaneous experience.
How NLP Helps with Business
Do you fear becoming a success in the business world? Do you believe you don’t have the skills for what it takes to become a manager or an executive?
Some people sabotage themselves at work with the languages they use. “I’ll never be a boss.” “This field is too complicated.” “All salespeople are pushy.” The list goes on and on.
If you want to get promoted at work you need to learn a completely new set of skills which may take you out of your comfort zone. You have to realize the state you are in or how you think and feel at any specific moment in time.
Communication in the workplace is the very heart of business. How well you communicate will allow you to climb the ladder of success or stay at the bottom holding the ladder for someone else.
If you will take the time to learn about yourself and how to interact with others more effectively it will take you a long way in your career. NLP can help in this regard with your communication skills.
By communicating more effectively, meetings become productive, teams will work much better together, the best candidates will be hired and a highly skilled sales team will bring in the business.
Perceptual Positions is a great NLP tool in that it is a great way of gaining insight into other people’s maps of their world. First position only allows someone to see their perspective and they forget how their behavior affects others.
Second position allows someone to see things from another person’s perspective. And in third position, they will take a step back and learn without letting emotions get in the way.
Perceptual Positions is a great NLP tool for handling challenging relationships but don’t forget that Meta programs will help you to understand any issue.
Meta models provides a way of accessing the real meaning or deep structure of what people say through active listening and questions. This can be a great tool in minimizing the impact of difficult situations in a business scenario.
How NLP Helps with Therapy
NLP is used to treat people with a wide range of conditions. NLP has been known to be used to cure phobias in just a few minutes, neutralize emotional traumas from childhood and change the habits of a lifetime.
There are great advantages to using NLP in therapy–one of them being the dramatic results and sometimes complete resolution of a problem in a single session.
NLP has so many different ways of working so that it can often be applied successfully to a majority of issues that a therapist will encounter. Some of the more common methods used include timeline, metaphor, anchoring, Meta programs and sub-modalities.
If a therapist uses NLP they also have an underlying advantage as they most likely understand hypnosis and the powerful results obtained by using this tool.
If an NLP therapist uses the 6-step reframing method, it is in itself a trance inducing technique. And, the Milton Model provides hypnotic language.
Hypnosis gives a therapist a window into the patient’s unconscious mind. This technique is so successful because this is usually where the heart of problem lies and where the change needs to take place.
If hypnosis is not used, NLP used in therapy is by itself and awesome way to provide exceptional results.
Conclusion
NLP can be used daily to enhance your mental and physical health. You may not think otherwise but a lot of people turn to NLP for personal development. Why? Because NLP allows someone to make significant changes in their life.
By using NLP in everyday life, it can vastly improve any situation in which you find yourself. You can manage your state and improve upon the quality of any delivery you need to make such as if you are doing a presentation.
NLP can be used to maintain your mental and physical health. Athletes all over the world can challenge their limiting beliefs and go on to become the best in their field.
In relationships, there is nothing more important than communication. NLP provides great techniques for accomplishing the challenges of communicating with others. It could be in personal, work or other types of relationships but by using NLP you will discover the secrets of understanding and connecting with others.
By creating well-formed outcomes with NLP, you could become an effective leader. Leaders create values that others want to follow.
NLP is a great set of tools. Learn and discover all the ways that NLP can enhance your daily living and you will see doors open to new possibilities.
