NeuroLinguistic Programming - NLP

What is NLP? Before we get into that, imagine you are about to experience a very juicy piece of fruit. Something you really like - something delicious. Look at the fruit - let it be vivid and colorful and truly beautiful. Notice how the light plays with the texture and color, where it is shiny or sparkly or deeply, richly colorful. Now, imagine holding that fruit, feeling it in your hand, feel the texture, the weight, the temperature. Now bring it up to your nose - smell it. Then take a bite. Feel the juices burst in your mouth, the explosion of flavor. THAT is NLP.

There is no one, simple, all-encompassing definition or explanation of NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming). NLP is the study of how the mind works - how we represent the world to ourselves. It is the study of human behavior and the application of the knowledge gained to help people make change and get what they want. Some people call NLP the “study of subjective experience”, but it is more than that, for it is also a model of communication and human interaction. NLP is a philosophy, a practice, a set of models and formulas for success. It has been used by wildly famous people and people you have never heard of. Anthony Robbins used NLP to get rich, and it was created by the somewhat less famous but fairly brilliant Richard Bandler and John Grinder.

NLP is utilized in Fortune 500 companies, sports teams, and the government to help manage and motivate people. It has been applied by professional athletes, musicians, politicians, and business people to create success and enhance performance. It has been used by hundreds of thousands of people to create the change they want in their lives. This applies to you because in NLP we find the beginning of a new way of thinking about how you work – at least new within the realms of psychology and the study of the mind. There is nothing NEW in NLP, for it is the study of how we are – and the human animal has been using its mind in much the same way for as long as we can remember. Thinking about it in this way, however, may be new to most of us.

Perhaps the simplest way to think of NLP is to consider it the study of HOW. Are you having a good day, and feeling happy? Well, how do you know? What happens in your mind that tells you today is good? Do you make pictures? Hear sounds? Get a sense or feeling in your body? For that matter, what feelings in your body translate to ‘happy’? How does your mind represent the word "happy" to you? For that matter, where in your body do you feel fear, anger, joy? The magic here, is that once you learn and understand these concepts, you can use them to change how you think, how you feel, even how you behave. If you know what makes you happy – HOW you make yourself happy – then you can use that to…guess what? Be happy. Feel happy when you want to. Just because you want to. Happy becomes something you can do on purpose, not just by happy accident.