What is NLP?
NLP is about identifying patterns in your thinking, beliefs, and behavior, and learning how to consciously choose which patterns to keep and which ones to change. NLP has helped many people to improve their communication skills and reach their business and personal goals.
The idea behind NLP is to give you a set of tools that you can use to watch yourself so you can operate most effectively. Once you are no longer being pushed around by seemingly invisible forces, your self-confidence and energy will rise, as you feel more in control of your circumstances.
NLP operates on the basic assumption that reality is subjective. That is, instead of assuming that there is an objective, single reality out there that we all participate in, it focuses on how each individual experiences and perceives reality from inside.
Therefore, instead of “facts,” NLP is studying personal beliefs and perceptions.
Each one of us perceives our reality through a huge collection of perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs that have a structure and organization, even if it’s too complex for us to easily see it.
This is no different from mainstream psychology, which often looks for the roots of a problem in a patient’s childhood, in the belief that there is a connection.
NLP looks at these connections in much more detail, asserting that even the smallest verbal or nonverbal communication or behavior can reveal some of the underlying internal structural processes, and someone who has been trained in observing these signals can work with the subject to change behaviors.
Rather than being a rigid discipline, NLP takes a toolbox approach, feeling free to borrow from an eclectic range of theories and disciplines. Experimentation is encouraged — whatever proves to work with a particular individual is used.
Since we are all different, a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approach will be much less effective. As a result, NLP is more of a constantly developing process than a philosophy. It is more concerned with what works than with what is “true.”
