Ever wonder how different sentences with similar meaning spark different response?
* Go take that pencil for me!
* Would you try to get the pencil for me?
* If you have time later, please take the pencil for me.
* Why can’t you take that pencil for me?
That’s a minuscule part of NLP. “Neuro” denotes the brain, “Linguistic” denotes sentences, “Programming” denotes the construction of the sentences. So, in this case, NLP is constructing sentences to control how the brain will think, react and respond.
Furthermore, NLP maps the way human beings think, react, respond based on different stimulus, while at the same time it acknowledges all the differences human beings are one from another. NLP can explain why different people react differently on same stimulus and in the same environment, same context. NLP maps the uniqueness human beings are and how they are different.
NLP consists of many parts:
* Presuppositions. This is the basic rule we start with in dealing with people, mainly to recognize that people are different to us, that they are unique and acknowledge their resources which are already available. It acknowledges the nature of human beings in general.
* Submodalities. People may think through pictures, sounds or feelings. Different way to perceive will render different responses. For example, when a person visualizes something in the brain upon receiving a stimulus, if the picture is big and lively, the response will be different to the case when the picture is dim and small. Mainly, people enjoy the world in any of the 3 modes: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Different people will enjoy different things in a beach: the view, the sound or the feeling. They are motivated in a different manner.
* Metaprograms. Furthermore, NLP maps how people are motivated on different issues, different causes. Some are motivated toward achieving a goal, others are motivated to avoid bad things. Some are interested in human beings, other are interested in objects. And so forth.
* Metamodel. Upon receiving tons of stimulus at the same time, people have filters to ensure they are not overwhelmed by information. They may generalize, distort or delete information they feel less significant. Challenges occur when they generalize, distort or delete too much information. Different people may even generalize different things, distort different things and delete different things. Upon seeking information, often we don’t get the detailed information we need. So, we need to use metamodel to obtain more information and get more clarity. Not for our sake, but often for themselves. There are many things they may not realize until we seek more information through metamodels and then they may finally realize something.
* Well-formed Outcomes. The secret of achieving a goal is to have the goals. There are many conditions for a goal to be powerful and achievable, congruent to our values, and spark a burning desire to achieve it. But how to set a goal? We use WFO to do it.
And there are many more parts of NLP, making it a powerful science to help people achieve excellence.
In the applications, NLP is often the mother of other personal development techniques. NLP is the basic of hypnosis, timeline therapy and some other techniques like Emotional Freedom Technique. So, I can say that NLP is one of the most widely used and the most influencing technology in the field of personal development.
