NLP is the buzz word in personal development circles now. If you are interested in Personal development there is every chance you might have heard about it. And also wondered about it. Fast and Miraculous transformations are attributed to NLP.You might be thinking how NLP could do this. In that case this report can help you understand the NLP phenomena better.
NLP was co created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder during the early 1970s. Richard Bandler was a mathematician and John Grinder was a linguistic. They came together by asking this question “ How are Successful people Successful?”
Their basic idea is that Success is a process, not just the result. There is a particular sequence of things, when done in that particular sequence would fetch you the results. Success is replicable. This concept is called as Modelling.
An expert baker bakes excellent cakes. And he has a process to do that. He has certain ingredients and certain appliances. He mixes the ingredients in a particular sequence and uses the appliances in a particularl way. And the result is an excellent cake.
An excellent cake does not bother about who made it. It is the result of a particular process. And any one who knows the process can bake an excellent cake. And then using his uniqueness he can make it excellently different. This is Modelling.
Similarly nlp started as a modeling process. Richard bandler and John Grinder believed that success can be replicated. They wanted to Model successful people and understand their processes. They chose the field of psychotherapy and chose three experts who were producing phenomenal results.
One was Fritz Perls, who was a gestalt therapist. The second one was Virginia Satyr, a family therapist. And the third one was Milton Ericson who was considered as a Master Influencer.
Richard Bandler and John Grinder studied these three people for many years very thoroughly. They focused on key distinctions that made these people “ experts “. This included their body language, verbal communication,specifi behaviors, capabilities to build relations and understand their clients minds, specific processes they used and their beliefs and values.
What turned out was a very distinct style of beliefs and values and a particular style of execution which were common to all these people. These were the distinctions that made these people highly successful. So a code was born which was later named as NLP.
NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. Each word is specifically significant and represents particular domains.
The word Neuro represents our central nervous system that is made of our brain, spinal cord and associated nerve systems. We process the data from the world around us as “ Experiences “.
And we use language to interpret these experiences to give “ Meaning “ to these experiences – the linguistic part.
And we engage in a series of behaviors based on the Meaning which we give to these experiences. This is the programming part.
Very predominantly the behavior depends on the meaning which we give to the experience and not to the experience itself. So if one wants to change the behavior he need not change the experience itself. All he has to do is change the Meaning of the experience and a better behavior will emerge. The better behavior will indirectly bring him a better experience.
This I believe is the basic philosophy of NLP. NLP is the art and science of changing the “ Meaning “ of experiences. For changing the meaning NLP uses three principles, called the “ARM” of NLP – Anchoring, Reframing and Modelling.
Now let us look at the various definitions of NLP :
- NLP is the study of subjective experience.
- NLP is the study of Human Excellence and how it can be duplicated. ( Modeling )
- NLP is the study of the influence of language on our mind and subsequent behavior.
- NLP is the systematic study of human communication.
- NLP is ability to be your best more often.
- NLP is the powerful and practical approach to personal change.
- NLP is the software for the brain.
- NLP is whatever works.
- NLP is an attitude and methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques.
- NLP is the art and science of excellence.