NLP shows you how to work more effectively, how to control how you feel, how to interpret events and how to communicate successfully

NLP, or to give it its Sunday title - Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a technology and an approach that comes from the study of human excellence. It is highly respected by leading employers and is used successfully in many fields, including business, sports, art, health, education, politics and personal growth.

NLP's communication tools can enable you to..

• Improve your verbal and non-verbal communication with others.
• Deepen your appreciation of your own and others thinking styles.
• Learn techniques for high performance mental states.
• Exchange unwanted habits with desired habits.
• Set goals to fit (and change) your life.
• Use language with much greater precision.
• Perform at your highest level.
• Enjoy activities you used to fear

NLP was developed in the 1970s out of an academic enquiry into how people excel in various fields. The result was the distillation of certain principles and subtle communications structures that can be taught, learned, and applied to any area of your life.

Over the past 30 years since its pioneering days, NLP has undergone, and continues to undergo, considerable refinement. Many of its techniques and principles have passed into common usage under other names and appear to us daily, not only in the classroom and in coaching situations but also in cinema, television, and, of course, business communications ranging from the office to advertising.

If you understand that there may be room for improvement in your communication skills, or if you are not getting what you want out of life, NLP’s tools can enable you to uncover, change or transform and become truly successful.

Anchoring: The process of making associations that work through conscious choice so that you can re-access your own, or trigger other people's, chosen state when appropriate.

Association: The state of being "inside", seeing the world from your own eyes, hearing the world from your own ears, and feeling the emotions of the situation whether current, remembered or imagined.

Beliefs: Emotionally held opinions treated as facts and the basis for our everyday decisions, abilities and behaviours.

Congruence: Having all parts of oneself working in harmony without conflict.

Criteria: The values and standards used as the basis for making decisions.

Disassociation: The state of observing oneself as if an outsider. Seeing and hearing oneself from the outside. That is to observe oneself not from an internal perspective. Disassociation is, in effect, to disconnect with ones emotions.

Eye Accessing Cues: Movements of a person's eyes that indicate visual, auditory or feelings based thinking.

Filters: levels of thinking that determine where we focus our attention. how we make our perception what it is and what defines how we respond to situations and people.

Linguistic: The study of language and, in the context of NLP, the patterns of language that communicate our thinking strategies.

Logical Levels: A form of personal and organisational hierarchy that affects change and how effectively we bring about change for ourselves or for others. Consisting of environment, behaviour, capabilities, values, beliefs, identity and systems.

Metaphor: A parallel means of describing or observing. Metaphors can be parables, stories, analogies, pictures and actions.

Modelling: The process of unpacking our own, and others', conscious and especially unconscious strategies to duplicate the results of those strategies.

Neuro: The way that we use our brain.

Neuro Linguistic Programming: Defined as the study of the structure of subjective experience. The name was developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler in 1975. It is a process of modelling and, increasingly, the term is used to encompass the techniques and skills uncovered as a result of this process.

Outcome (Well Formed): A goal that is characteristic of someone who consistently achieves what they want in ways that are of benefit to others as well as themselves. Different from traditional methods of goal setting in that it involves the use of all senses, including emotion.

Pacing: Respecting the values, needs and style of another person in a way that leads to establishing rapport with that person.

Perceptual Positions: The mental strategies used by successful negotiators, involved in moving mentally from being in one's own shoes, the shoes of another person and an outside detached position.

Programming: The sequences of thinking and behaviour patterns that constitute our strategies for achieving results.

Rapport: Our ability to relate to ourselves and others in ways that create a climate of respect, trust and cooperation.

Reframing: The ability to make meanings from events that work for you and create desirable emotional states.

State: The mental, physical and emotional condition of a person.

Strategies: A set of thinking and behavioural steps to achieve a result.

NLP takes the view that everything that we do has a physiological background to it. We do not react to our environment randomly. We respond to what is happening around us almost in a programmed way. So when we get stressed and embarrassed we may sweat more or blush. This is a natural reaction that is controlled by physiological make up.

When the same thing happens to you, you will have the same reaction. To change this pattern of behaviour means you have to understand how you learned these patterns in the first place. To take control of your behaviour takes reprogramming of your mind and body.

Neuro Linguistic Programming looks at how you can improve or change your life. It uses a set of NLP Presuppositions as a basis for changing our patterns of behaviour. They also help us understand how we interact with the world around us.

One of the NLP Presuppositions is as follows:-

People respond to their perception of reality, not to reality itself.

What we see as happening is really only what we perceive is going on. We view or experience things with a life experience that channels our view of things. You can be with someone and have a completely different viewpoint to what is going on based on your knowledge, emotional state and your understanding.

Other Neuro Linguistic Programming presuppositions look at aspects of emotions and communications. They consider how people process what is happening around them. The basic tenet is that your mind, brain and body work together and that we learn the behaviour we have from an early age. From these presuppositions you can then look at changing things.

There is a whole science that reviews and commentates on these presuppositions. There is general agreement on them but still plenty of argument and discussion about the detail. Some practitioners even have their own versions that they prefer.

The Neurological (Neuro) part focuses on your bodily senses and the way they affect your behaviour. This physiological assumption for behaviour means there is a very strong link between your mind and body.

The Linguistic aspect looks at how we make sense of the world in our brain. It brings into the equation the part of the brain that is thinking and knowing.

The Programming part refers to how we live our lives in patterns and learnt behaviour. It can involve quite a bit of unlearning as well as reprogramming to achieve the desired changes in life.

These three aspects operate on the basis of the NLP Presuppositions. The usefulness of NLP is in trying to understand these presuppositions and adopting them to change our behaviour or our responses.

You can change things such as how you relate to others, how to learn a new language or even how to overcome the fear of flying. If you keep doing the same things over and over again then you will keep getting the same results. Your ability to change your life will depend on what you want to change and how embedded your current behaviour is.

“The Models we make of the world around us with our brains and our language are not the world itself but representations of it “ [1]

History of NLP Meta Model:
Meta Model is the first formal model of NLP. It was introduced in 1975 by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. This model was first introduced by these two in one of the best book; The Structure of Magic, Volume 1. With the passage of time, they extended the features of its general semantics. Soon this model became a formalized set of linguistic patterns that can be used in order to change the mental hurdles or other weaknesses in a person’s mind. It can be used to change a mental picture in a person’s mind about himself or about someone else’s.

Progress of NLP Meta Model:
NLP Meta model is mainly used for therapeutic reasons. After its introduction, it was considered to be satisfactory tool and soon it became one of the most powerful that can be used for individuals outside therapeutic context and for other individuals that are looking for professional NLP practitioners. It has been observed that individuals show tremendous improvements within short period of time after using the NLP Meta model since it helps in removing bad or negative mental pictures from their minds.

Revising or Expanding Mental Pictures
Meta Model was being designed in order to challenge the mental limitations of individuals. People use to go to NLP professionals in order to get changed through the process of therapy. NLP focuses on the Metal Maps and changes it. People abstain from many effective behaviors because of these mental traps, hurdles. NLP Professionals use NLP Meta Model Patterns to revise or expand the mental pictures or maps in a person’s mind that may contain many hurdles and traps that resist against better behaviors and way of communication.

Three Important Terms:
There are three important terms frequently used by NLP professionals when discussing the Meta Model; Distortion, Deletion and Generalization. The task of a Meta Model, in the context of these three terms, is to guide us in analyzing problematic distortions, deletions and generalizations in our patterns of thinking and our verbal interactions with one another. Let’s discuss all of them one by one:

a) Distortion: is basically a process which makes you shift in your experience. Fantasy could be one of the examples of Distortion. This is the process which has made humans to think more creatively. If you can’t challenge present reality with distortion then you can’t make any discovery.

b) Deletion: is simply a process of excluding things after we select and consider certain dimensions of our experience. This can be compared with a filter. For instance, this can be compared to a situation in which a person is in a room, full of people and their voices, and he/she concentrates on only one voice; hence filtering all other voices by not paying attention to them/ excluding them. Deletions, most of the time, helps us in managing different things by excluding most of the unnecessary data. Deletion in our mental patters can be useful and mentally painful depending upon the context.

c) Generalisation: Generalisation is usually represents a broader meaning of a word or a concept. It is also considered to be a process in which a person’s model is separated from his personal experience and then it is related to an entire category of experience. Generalisation helps us in making universal rules like “Do Good – Have Good”.

References:
1- Dilts and DeLozier, Encyclopedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming and NLP New Coding, 2000.

The term rapport is mainly used in the context of NLP or in unconscious human interaction. In technical terms, it is process of being synchronized with a person to whom you are talking. It is considered to be one of the most important features of unconscious human interaction.

Rapport is no doubt, one of the ultimate tools in improving relationships of any nature,  Using advanced rapport techniques, you can resolve almost any conflict and you can improve relationships between families, boss and employee etc.

Rapport Techniques:
There are various NLP techniques that can be used in building rapport, which is the foundation of a healthy relationship. Some of the most popular NLP techniques for building rapport are Matching, Mirroring, Pacing and Leading. These techniques will be discussed in more detail later.

The main principle behind every technique is for one person to establish rapport with another so that they will empathise with one another. When each person feels in the same way as the other person they are much more likely to reach agreement or to be influenced. The more you can get into synchronized state with another person the more likely you can persuade and influence them.

Rapport, as mentioned above, is considered to be foundation of any healthy relationship. Using rapport techniques helps you in discussing serious issues without any agression. Using rapport makes it easy to discuss criticial issues more easily and it also helps in finding effective and practical solutions. Rapport usually happens at many levels. You should learn how to build rapport.

You can easily build rapport at any time through:

• The rapport skills that you have acquired.
• The way you sound
• The way you look and behave
• Your set of beliefs.
• Your values of life.
• The places where you spend time with people.

Matching and Mirroring:
Matching and mirroring is one of the most useful NLP techniques to build rapport. You might have noticed the rapport between people in bars and resturants when they dance or they talk while sitting on the table. You can often observe the synchronization in their body movements and the way they talk.

If two people are totally out of synchronizations as they are while having intense arguments, you can often see how much they mismatch. Matching and mirroring are the ways in which a person tunes himself or herself according to someone else. The person who tries to synchronize has to watch the world with the other person’s eyes. When you have a rapport with someone, mirroring can happen naturally.

For effective rapport you should aim to match:

• Body Postures and gestures
• Breating rates
• Energy level
• Your voice tone

Pacing and Leading:
It is sometimes essential that you pace others in order to build healthy relationships. It is as though you run alongside a train. If you want to jump on to a moving train, it is very likely that you’ll fall. You can only do it if you gain the speed of the train. Similarly, to influence someone with your views, you should begin by pacing them to establish rapport.

Once you have established rapport through pacing, you can begin to lead them; hence it is called as Pacing and Leading. In the process of pacing and leading someone, you must be sure that you are in rapport before you move into leading them. If you have not established rapport through mirroring, matching and pacing you will not be able to lead them. In fact trying to lead someone too early is likely to break rapport with them. Be patient!

This is a clip from John Seymour Associates Introduction To NLP Training boxed DVD set, which provide a nice introduction to NLP:

Does the video clip answer the question for you?

What other NLP related questions do you have?

NLP is a relatively new discipline dating back to the mid-1970s. The term Neuro Linguistic Programming was originated by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Dr John Grinder was a professor of linguistics at the University of California in Santa Cruz and, at that time, had already published a number of books in the field of linguistics known as Transformational Grammar. Richard Bandler was a student of mathematics and computers also at the University of California in Santa Cruz.

Richard Bandler discovered that he had an inherent gift for modeling and hearing patterns. He became interested in Fritz Perls' work on this Gestalt Therapy and he discovered that he could detect and replicate patterns in Gestalt Therapy from just a very limited exposure. Bandler Subsequently discovered that he could model Perls' therapeutic processes and he achieved immediate and powerful results with clients through his use of those techniques.

Richard also discovered that he could model others and, with encouragement from Grinder, he was given the opportunity to model one of the world's foremost family therapists Virginia Satir. He almost immediately identified that Virginia utilised seven specific patterns and, as he and John began to apply those patterns, they discovered that they were able to replicate Virginia's therapies with equal success.

Richard applied his computer programming knowledge and experience by breaking down processes into component parts. To this very basic metaphor, John added his extensive knowledge of transformational grammar. This was the basis for their model of human programming.

Bandler and Grinder were later introduced to Milton Eriksson MD by the well-known anthropologist, and neighbour of theirs, Gregory Bateson. Eriksson had developed the model of communication that we now know as Erikssonian hypnosis and, as Bandler and Grinder modeled Eriksson, they discovered that they could achieve similar results. Many of today's NLP techniques can be traced back to the initial modeling of Erikssonian hypnotic processes.

From their research and their original experiences, Bandler and Grinder developed their first model of communication. This model provides us with a theoretical understanding of how we as humans are programmed by languages and how we develop regular and systematic behaviours and responses. The model also provided the means for individuals to achieve personal improvement and change.

The original NLP model then expanded to incorporate materials from other disciplines including Cybernetics, philosophy, cognitive psychology, and neurology. Today, NLP is being applied worldwide across many disciplines including business, education, athletics, medicine and of course within many branches of therapy.

Most NLP practitioners will tell you that Neuro Linguistic Programming primarily focuses on the study of excellence. Whatever you wish to improve you should study the best. NLP offers you a model for learning how to recognize excellence and how to emulate it.