NLP – stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming and got its name as follows:

• Neuro – is how the mind and body interact.  The human nervous system including the brain and the five senses.
• Linguistic – the insights to a person’s thinking through the verbal and non verbal languages with which we communicate
• Programming – the ability to structure our neurological and linguistic systems to achieve desires results.

NLP is a very powerful approach to communication, change and excellent performance.

It can be used in many areas including:

• Psychology
• Business
• Personal
• Coaching
• Sales
• Sports
• Education
• Negotiation
• And more

Basically NLP is a set of skills which enable you to use your mind, emotions and your body to become more successful in life and to be able to communicate with others in an extraordinary way.

NLP can enable you to improve the way you think, the way you behave and the way you feel by using a collection of information, insights and mental techniques.  Being skilled in NLP will also enable you to assist others to improve the way they think, behave and feel.

The skills and techniques of NLP will enable you to:

• Do the things you do on a daily basis even better than you currently do them
• Acquire a new attitude and new skills that will enable you to do the things you’ve always dreamed of doing but never thought you could.
• Set clear goals and define realistic strategies
• Think more clearly and manage those thoughts more effectively
• Manage your moods and behaviours in a more effective way and be able to understand and manage and reduce stress and conflict
• Communicate more effectively with others.  Even the poorest of communicators will be able to communicate with ease

NLP consists of some very powerful techniques that can modify and change behaviour and the way you think very effectively.  These techniques are based on four principles being:

1.    KNOW – know what outcome you want to achieve

2.    SENSORY AWARENESS – use your senses to gain a clear understanding of whether you are moving to or away from your outcome

3.    FLEXIBILITY – be flexible in your behaviour so that you can vary your behaviour accordingly in order to reach your outcome

4.    TAKE ACTION – take action NOW

Summed up – NLP is about thinking, observing and taking action to get what you want in your life.  Let’s have a look at the four principles in more detail:

1. KNOW NLP

You cannot take action toward your outcome unless you really know what that outcome is.  Having an ‘outcome’ is different that having ‘goals’.  Having goals is having something that you’d like to work towards. Having an outcome is knowing what you want and visualising how it will be when you reach that outcome.

Many people have no idea what they want but only know what they don’t want.  It is very important to move towards the things that you want and not concentrate on the things you don’t want.  So you must KNOW your outcome so that you can move toward it.  Without knowing your outcome you will wander aimlessly through your life, but once you know that outcome you can start to focus on it and word toward achieving it.

Your outcome should be something positive; it needs to be something that you want and not something that you don’t want.  For example, if you want to lose weight your outcome should be that you want to be thinner and fitter, not that you don’t want to be fat. Can you see the difference?  Although the overall result may seem the same you are looking at it in a positive way by focusing on what you want and not focusing on what you don’t want.

Your outcome also needs to be something that can be measured by your senses.  You need to be able to know your progress and have evidence of progress through your senses; otherwise there is no way to measure your progress.  You need to be able to measure your progress to know if you are moving toward your outcome so that if you aren’t you can use your flexibility to change your tactic and try something different to reach that outcome.

Your outcome must also be sensory specific.  This means that you need to be able to say what you would look like, feel like and sound like when you reach your outcome.

You must also have responsibility of achieving your outcome, you cannot have an outcome that relies on someone else to be able to achieve.

It is important also that our outcomes be safe and not lead to any harm to either yourself or other people

2.    NLP SENSORY AWARENESS

Once you know what your outcome is you can start taking steps to reach that outcome.  As mentioned above your outcome needs to be able to be measured and this is where we use sensory awareness.  NLP teaches how to use your five senses to measure your progress toward reaching your outcome. If your senses show that you are making progress toward reaching your outcome then you are on the right track and keep on using the skills that you are using.

3.    NLP FLEXIBILITY

If your sensory awareness is showing you that you are not making progress toward reaching your outcome then you need to be flexible with varying your behaviour until you can start sensing that you are making progress.  To keep doing what you are doing when you aren’t making progress is useless as you will keep on trying and never reach your outcome.  You need to be flexible and be willing to change and try something different if necessary to achieve the outcome you are working toward.

4.    TAKE NLP ACTION

Take action is fairly self explanatory.  You will never reach your outcome if you sit around thinking about it and never doing anything about it.  You need to take action now to change behaviour for yourself and for others.  Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today!

These are the principles that NLP is based on and there are many techniques used to make these steps achievable for you.  NLP will teach you how to change your thoughts and your behaviours to reach any outcome that you could ever desire.  There is nothing that you can’t achieve; you just need to learn how to achieve it.

Read more about NLP and especially NLP Anchoring…