Certified NLP Practitioner and Coach

The story goes that the name Neuro Linguistic Programming originated when co-founder Richard Bandler was stopped by the police for alleged speeding. He was asked his profession and came up with the name on the spur of the moment after glancing at the titles of some books in his car. Despite this, the name gives a useful description of what it is about.

NEURO means relating to the nervous system. The information we take in through our senses influences our neurological function. If we improve the accuracy with which we take in information, i.e. we listen better and are more observant, so we are more open to our own and other people’s experience. This means our brains have better information to help make decisions. We also increase our ability to communicate effectively – both consciously and unconsciously.

LINGUISTIC is about language. As we understand and are more aware of language – the words themselves as well as their structure and the way they’re spoken (speed, voice tone, rhythm) – so we get better information for making decisions and communicating consciously and unconsciously.

PROGRAMMING here refers to habits. We develop habits, some useful, some less useful. NLP teaches us how we can develop and encourage useful habits and reduce less useful habits.

So in short Neuro Linguistic Programming is about using language to program our nervous system into more useful habits. Success is often about developing the right habits in any situation.

Neuro Linguistic Programming was created in the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. They studied and worked with some of the most talented psychiatrists and therapists of the day: Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, and Fritz Perls. Contrary to most of the academics at the time, however, they took a different approach in that they focused on bringing about measurable change, rather than merely theorizing.

Bandler and Grinder wanted to know the psychological strategies great performers used – what they did and how they did it. They devised ways of modelling these strategies so others could replicate their performance. They then tested and refined the model with their clients. As different groups heard about its benefits it spread across a whole range of human endeavors, including coaching, art, sport, and business.

John Grinder and Richard Bandler, the fathers of NLP, called their model ‘neuro’ because the patterns that they discovered were at the level of our neurological processes.

“Linguistic” to represent the ways our language reflects our neurology, and “programming” to reflect our ability to break free from our programmed behavior and choose to organize our ideas and actions in the way that we want.

You use NLP to enhance your ability to behave positively and constructively. NLP techniques help you develop rapport, connect with others, and communicate and understand others. With it, you can use language skills and patterns to ask powerful questions and to achieve positive outcomes.

NLP can also help you to increase your confidence levels in public speaking. By exploring your internal state when you are feeling confident, you can map these images and sensations across to situations in which you are less confident. Your unconscious mind picks up on these subtle shifts and increases your confidence.

Although most of us are probably very good at creating rapport and connecting with others, we all experience times when things do not go as well as we would like. For example, if you’re having a difficult meeting with an unhappy client or asking your boss for a pay raise, NLP can help you to foster a positive rapport with the other person, which can ease the flow of the discussion and improve the likelihood of a good outcome.

Mirroring someone’s body language, tone of voice, or even rate of speech can help strengthen your rapport with the other person. Unconsciously, the other person picks up that you are like them – and we all tend to like people who are like us.

You can also connect with others by speaking the same language. We take in our experiences through our sight, hearing, feelings, and even our senses of smell and taste. Our speech reveals our preferred sensory language in a particular context.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I see what you mean,” “I get the picture,” “I hear what you are saying,” “That rings a bell,” “I’ve just got a gut feeling about something,” or “I’ll be in touch”? Developing the skill to pick up on this sensory language will help you to modify your use of words.

Additionally, by developing an awareness of the subtle shifts of body language, you get an insight into what may be going on with the other person. What do shifts in posture (tall or slumped) tell you? Have you seen someone’s face turn red while they get nervous, or go deathly pale after hearing upsetting news?

By delving further into the mechanics of language and how people communicate, you can identify patterns that help you to understand human behavior. Are they distorting, deleting or generalizing? Do they like options, or prefer to follow procedures? Knowing what motivates people can help you deal with them.

Some people believe that NLP involves manipulating others into doing what you want them to do. For example, a pushy salesperson persuading you to buy something you really did not want. However, it’s the use of the tool that determines manipulation, not the tool itself. If the tool is used to disadvantage someone else, then this is manipulation. If it’s used for his or her advantage, then the tool is being used in a positive way.

Another misconception is that NLP is used to detect whether someone is lying by watching their eye movements. Part of developing your sensory acuity is about picking up subtle eye movements and understanding that different movements have different meanings. However, since the meanings associated with every individual’s eye movements are unique, you need to understand what they mean before you can even begin to use NLP for this purpose. It is far from being a quick and simple lie detector.

1. Sometimes people say,’ One day you are going to look back at this and laugh.’ My question is:’ Why wait?

2. Brains aren’t designed to get results; they go in directions. If you know how the brain works you can set your own directions. If you don’t, then someone else will.

3. The easier you can make it inside your head, the easier it will make things outside your head.

4. You are born with only two fears: fear of falling and fear of loud noise. All the rest is learned. And it’s a lot of work!

5. If you say to yourself ‘It’s difficult to get up in the morning’, ‘It’s hard to cease smoking’, then you are already using hypnotic suggestions on yourself

6. Disappointment requires adequate planning.

7. Understanding why something happened does not help to reduce the problem.

8. The fact is that there is nothing wrong with most of us that a good, clean change of attitude and some new skills wouldn’t fix.

9. You can stop anything but a person with a good attitude.

10. Don’t re-open old wounds in order to examine their origins. Leave them healed.