One of the questions I get asked a lot is, “What is NLP?” Well, that is a simple yet complicated thought to explain. I’m gonna provide you with my simple answer and then work my way into a more profound and insightful one, while doing my best to make it easy to understand.
Before I do that though, I want you to hear the definition from the the Co-Creator of NLP, Richard Bandler.
Ok, now you have heard from the genius behind NLP, let me offer you my 2 cents.
Ready?
Great, let’s go!
Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP is the study of excellence for the purpose of applying it to your life. It’s where you study the mindset and strategies of someone who is excellent at something and then, model their excellence to achieve the same results—or as we say in NLP, the same outcome.
Now, that’s easy enough right?
Let me offer you an example. Let’s say you want to be successful online marketer. You would seek out the absolute best online marketer, one that gets consistly great outcomes. Find out what they do, how they do it, but most importantly, how they think and feel, when doing what they do.
It would stand to reason that if you can pull all of their thinking, feeling, and actions out of them through observation you could reproduce their states and therefore their results/outcomes.
Okay, Let’s dive a little deeper!
The primary fathers of NLP are John Grinder and Richard Bandler. At its core, NLP was based on the fact that all humans have the same basic neurological system. Our neurological systems push the info that we receive from our environment through to our senses to our bodies.
When we talk of environment in NLP, we mean more than just our outward physical bodies. Environment, in this context also refers to our organs, such as kidneys, liver, eyes, etc.
Our brains then receive the information. That data is then processed and then alerts are given to our organs. Believe it or not but this information will lead you to feel feelings and emotions. This is how we come to laugh, cry, be angry, you get the point.
According to NLP, your ability to do anything in life is determined by how you respond to external factors through your nervous system. Wanna be a race car driver? Or, run bare foot across 50 miles of icy road? You can, if you can get your systems to respond in a way that will support you. NLP is really focused on communication, how you communicate with yourself and others. The powerfully you can do this, the more control you have over your outcomes.
NLP has 13 presuppositions or assumptions that you really should wrestle with and accept in order to be a fairly decent practitioner of it.
I’ll share with you four of the foundational elements so that you can have a pretty good understanding of NLP.
#1 Rapport
If you want to have great relationships and bonds that are built quickly and almost effortlessly, you want to learn rapport.
Ever met someone and felt like you knew them for years? That’s a sign of great rapport.
What about meeting someone and getting a feeling of something being off and not having a connection with them at all? This is a sign of rapport, also, or being out of sic with someone.
We all dance in and out of rapport with ourselves and others. Being able to recognize when you have it. When you’ve have lost it. And knowing how to get it back is one of the root keys to success.
#2 Behavioral Flexibility
If something isn’t working, it’s probably wise to switch your approach. The system with the most flexibility normally wins.
Instead of only having one way of doing something begin to expand your thinking and states of being and you will always find a way to succeed. Why? Because you have the most choice and NLP is all about increasing choice.
#3 Sensory Acuity/Awareness
Awareness is not something that most people have. Most people merely go through life with blinders on, so to speak. NLP helps to remove the blinders and helps us be way more perceptive than we are on our own.
If you want to increase your perception of sight, smell, taste, feel and sound, NLP has techniques that will help you do just that.
#4 Outcome thinking
When you have challenges in your life what do you focus on the most the “situation” or the “solution”? You know that you have a choice of what to focus on right?
NLP helps you to center yourself and search for the fastest, most effective and beneficial outcome. If you are focusing on outcomes, it’s impossible to stay stuck in a rut for any length of time.
Though these are four of the major components of NLP they don’t work individually. They work together to help you create the life that you want and to achieve the outcomes that you desire most out of life without a lot of mental, emotional and physical tugging.
NLP has so much to offer towards helping you believe, be and build the life that you want. If you want to discover more information about NLP, just stay tuned I’ll be sharing more great articles, techniques and quotes to help you build the life that you want. Also, you can follow me on the major social networks.