|
NLP (Neuro- Linguistic Programming) began in the early 1970s
when two Americans, a mathematician called Richard Bandler and
linguist John Grinder, asked themselves a simple but fascinating
question: "What is it that makes the difference between somebody who
is merely competent at any given skill, and somebody who excels at
the same skill?"
Several extraordinary therapists that Bandler and Grinder studied
had amazing success with their clients. They decided to build formal
models of the linguistic and behavioural patterns of three of them.
Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls. They then applied
these models to their own work.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming presupposes that the behaviour of an
individual can be changed by use of the specific language and by
constantly updating and upgrading an individuals "mental software".
NLP allows you to change, adopt, or eliminate behaviours as you
desire. It provides you with skills and ability to choose your
mental, emotional, and physical states of well being at any time.
You learn how to improve your communication skills, internally and
externally. This transforms your relationships and outcomes. With
NLP, you learn to grow from every life experience, thus increasing
your capacity to create a better quality of life. NLP provides you
with a profound set of tools for personal and professional
development.
NLP is a synthesis of a number of disciplines and offers a
systematic means of achieving consistently outstanding results
across a broad spectrum of human experience. It has been
successfully applied in a wide range of fields including business,
health care, sport, therapy education and the performing arts.
The following are the "presuppositions'' or the assumptions on
which NLP is based:
The map is not the territory: Just as a map does not fully
show exactly how the territory lies, our understanding of any event
is only our "map" of what really happened. All of us use different
"mental maps" from each other to understand and perceive the world
and events that we interact with everyday. And of course, a person's
"mental map" is not all that they are, their whole personality is
their "territory" which is much greater than their map alone. The
map is just a guide to understanding that person. Understanding our
own mental maps can help us improve and adjust the way we are or
have experienced anything. Understanding someone else's mental maps
helps us communicate more effectively to them and co-operatively
produce amazing results.
Behaviour and change are to be evaluated in terms of context:
Every behaviour has meaning. The meaning of that behaviour, however,
depends on the circumstances that are happening at the time of the
behaviour, that is the context in which it happens. I could flap my
arms but that has no meaning unless I tell you I'm trying to fly or
trying to dry my sleeves. Understanding the context gives a person
greater understanding of what is happening in any given moment for
themselves or another person and allows them to communicate or
produce greater results.
Underlying every behaviour is a positive intention: Although
a behaviour may appear to be bad, hurtful, thoughtless or harmful it
is necessary to look at the context in which that behaviour appears
and the underlying reason for the behaviour before you realise that
every behaviour has a positive purpose. Most bad behaviours are the
result of the person having no other resources available to them to
be able to deal with a situation. They are simply acting as best
they know how to in that situation. Through using NLP people can
learn new behaviours, or better still, remove underlying negative
emotions, compulsions, habits, and addictions that in turn result in
new alternatives and choices for a person.
People have all the resources they need to succeed: Everyone
has the requisite mental resources and potential to produce
excellent outcomes. If the desired outcome is not produced, it is
due to inappropriate beliefs, inadequate mental strategy (mental
software) or ineffective behavioural patterns. Within any person is
the abundant resources necessary to alter any beliefs, mental
strategies or behaviours. In doing so any person can produce any
outcome.
Anybody can do anything: If one person can do excellent
things, by properly understanding their pattern, their excellence
can be repeated by anyone. One simply has to duplicate or model the
belief system, the mental strategy and the behavioural pattern of
successful people and install them in themselves or somebody else to
produce the same excellent results. If what you are doing is not
working, do something else.
Do anything else: There is a good saying in NLP, "If you
always do what you have always done, you will always get what you
have always got". If you are attempting to produce a certain result
and what you are doing isn't working it's necessary to look at that
and take it as feedback to try something new to produce the same
result. There is never bad feedback. Feedback is the life blood to
producing fantastic results. Feedback is just a sign that you have
to do something different, anything if necessary, to what you are
already doing to get the result you want.
The meaning of our communication is the response we get:
People are always communicating, verbally and non-verbally. Research
shows that only 7% of the meaning of our communication is through
words. The rest of the communication process takes place through
body language, tone of voice and the various signals words cannot
convey. That's means that 93% of what we communicate is not from our
words!! If we communicate a message and it is received by a person
in a way other than what we intended then we did not communicate
effectively. Essentially the meaning is not derived from what we
meant but how it was received. The response we get from the other
person is really the meaning of our communication. Both verbally and
non-verbally. To be highly effective at communicating a person has
to be sensitive enough to understand as to how his communication is
being received and processed. The communicator should be sensitive
to eye movements, postural and gestural complexes, skin colour,
muscle tension, breathing rate and position to understand the
quality of how their communication is being received. If the outcome
of any communication is not what was intended, then you have to
change the way you are communicating the message until the message
is received in the way you want it to be. That's effective
communication!
NLP techniques can be applied in the following major areas:
Personal development: Physical and emotional well-being is
greatly enhanced and individuals learn what they want to take charge
of their lives. They become able to change limiting beliefs and to
better understand and achieve their own potential.
Personal counselling: Certain problems among the individuals
such as allergy, phobia, trauma, unwanted habits such as nail
biting, snoring and the like can be relieved by using NLP
Family counselling: Problems concerning family members, such
as, between husband and wife, parents and children and the like can
be resolved by improving the quality of communication between the
members of the family. NLP improves the perspectives of individuals
and can assist to build up a mutually supportive relationship.
Sales and Marketing: Salespeople learn to build deep levels
of rapport and can be helped to communicate more effectively with
the customers so that the credibility and the goodwill of the
organisation is conveyed. As well as this, NLP provides highly
efficient ways of communicating with customers to promote and sell
your service or product.
Education: NLP is widely used in improving the educational
system. The problems of students/teachers can be improved by
applying the NLP concepts. Cases such as Attention Deficiency
Disorder (ADD), Learning Deficiency (LD), hyper-active children and
the like can be relieved by use of NLP techniques. Stage fear,
"examination fear'' and adverse feelings towards certain subjects
can be addressed effectively by use of NLP. And, one of the greatest
advances of NLP in the field of education is the ability to assist
anyone in increasing their grades by improving their learning
"mental software" and implementing states of super-learning.
Sports: Excellence in sports is a state of mind and unless
the sports-people are in a highly resourceful state, they cannot be
performing at their best. NLP can be used to improve the state of
resourcefulness of sports-people.
Creativity: People who are in creative fields such as
writing, acting and the like can be helped to improve their creative
ability through NLP techniques. Since NLP addresses the conscious
and subconscious mind, people who have to use their creative talents
can be helped to perform at their optimum level.
|
"NLP may be the most powerful vehicle for
change in existence" Modern Psychology
