What is NLP?
Jun0
Photo by Christopher M.
This is a gigantic question.
It’s like asking, “What is Mathematics?”. Because, like Mathematics, it encompasses a myriad of concepts, strategies and skillsets that ultimately can be used by people to reach a goal.
To put it in simple terms, NLP is the study of how individuals create excellence in their lives and how others can model their strategies in order to achieve the same level of excellence.
First and foremost, you need to know that NLP stands for Neuro-Linguisitic Programming.
Neurology is the study of the brain and how it works.
Linguistics is the study of our usage of language and the effects it has on people.
Progamming as the term suggests is how we structure and “program” our brains to work in desirable ways.
At this point, if you’re new to the concept of NLP, you might find this beginning to get clearer as you continue to read. On knowing that it can prove to be a very important learning for you, you can think about some of the things that happens in your daily life and start to fill yourself with curiosity instead of just leaving your mind to run on auto-pilot.
For example, have you ever gone to a loved one or a friend and began talking about a happy memory and you noticed that their eyes began to sparkle, their faces were beaming with happy smiles and they spoke with enthusiasm? On the other hand, have you ever brought up a less desirable topic e.g. their work/health problems, their flaws, etc. and began to notice that they tended to look downwards and started breathing more heavily and the way they spoke was significantly different?
In NLP, we got to learn to question. We got to be curious about why things are the way they are. We got to incessantly ask “Why?”.
So what was actually happening and more importantly, why? It was the same person you were talking to, yet bringing up different topics created a different response in him/her. Why does talking about different things create a different response? You might think, yea it’s obvious because we were talking about happy/unhappy things. But why does that happen and what is the significance of this observation?
The first underlying lesson here is this – thoughts affect feelings. What we think affects how we feel. You cannot feel happy when you think of sad thoughts and vice versa. Knowing this is a key step in making positive changes to your life.
The second important lesson – feelings affect what we do. Isn’t that true? As human beings, we act when we feel motivated enough to do something. We are ruled by emotion more than logic. Logically we know we shouldn’t be doing things like over-eating, smoking, procrastinating, etc. but we still do them. Why? Because it feels good. Then you begin to get curious – why are some people able to overcome this and take action? The secret lies in the way they’ve learnt to control their thoughts.
Can you imagine what it would be like if you could wake up everyday, having that sense of certainty in your life, feeling motivated and excited about working towards your goals?
The good news is, this is as possible as you want it to. Just control your thoughts.
How? This is why you must learn NLP.