Introduction to NLP & Four Pillars of NLP

Introducing NLP

NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming is one of the most powerful and impactful method that can be used to drive personal change. It can be learned and used by anyone who wants to make a change for good.  It is an empowering methodology that finds applications in diverse areas of human potential viz sports, theater, business and so on. Through this blog I would demystify and bring these concepts to you in an easy to understand manner. 

Let us first understand what do we understand by NLP and how does it help us. NLP can simply be defined as the art and science of personal excellence. It is an art because everyone brings in their own uniqueness to what they do and this uniqueness cannot be captured in words or techniques. It is a science because there is a method and a process to identify the patterns that are used by outstanding individuals in diverse fields to get outstanding results. The process is known as modeling and the patterns thus identified are incresingly being used in the field of education and business to drive more effective communication and personal development.

Thus to summarize,  following 3 bullets state what practicing NLP could mean for you:

• NLP gives you the ability to drive human excellence
• NLP gives you the ability to be your best more often
• NLP gives you the power to make an effective and lasting personal change

Pillars of NLP

Pillars of NLP can also be understood as some of the basis building blocks and the entities that govern the entire NLP framework. 

You: the center of NLP framework is the You or the individual. It is you who would be deciding where you are and where you want to go and decide what changes are required to be made by you to reach your destination.

Outcome: This is what do you want to achieve or where you want to go. This is very important because unless you know where you want to go everything else is futile.

Sensory Acuity: This is about making use of your five senses of sight, sound, feeling, taste and smell in the most appropriate manner. Thus training in sensory acuity which results in expanded use of your senses to see, feel and hear things in a different perspective is integral to practicing NLP. It also means you getting a heightened awareness of your internal images, sounds and feelings. 

Flexibility: NLP is all about giving yourself more choices. Flexibility means that when you know that something which you are doing is not working then you do something else, anything else. With increased sensory acuity you would be in a better position to see, feel and hear what is working and what is not working. Once you get clarity on this you can choose the best response to the situation. NLP thus aims to give you more choices which means at least three in any situation. You would appreciate that  the person having the most choices in a situation and demonstrating greatest flexibility in behavior would be in control of the situation.

Let us understand these with an example. Let us say that you want to learn rowing a boat. The outcome that you are looking at is to ferry the boat from one shore to the opposite shore. As you start rowing you notice your direction(sensory acuity). You compare it with where you are supposed to go and if you find that you are off course, you change direction (flexibility). You would keep repeating this cycle until you reach the other shore (outcome).

You can extrapolate the usage of these NLP pillars to any work related situation as well to understand how they apply. We will look at applications of these concepts to work & business situations later on. In the first few posts I would focus on explaining the basics.

I hope you would have got some learning from this post. I am committed to give my best shot at sharing my knowledge & experience in this area. I am hoping to resonate with anyone who is interested in not only taking charge of his/her life but also wants to help his/her near and dear ones. 

In the next post I would talk about the 'Outcomes' in more detail...