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Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Achieving Excellence in Communication

Do you want to improve your relationships and engage with others more elegantly; or be better able to use language to influence, motivate and generate creative ideas?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) can help you to achieve this – and more. This article gives you a flavor of what NLP is about, and a few different examples of how you can use it.

What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming?

NLP is a set of advanced communication skills. These have been identified through the study of top performers – those who are excellent at what they do. By understanding and replicating (modeling) their thinking and behavior patterns, this approach argues that you can achieve the same positive results.

The tools, techniques and strategies derived from these studies help you to understand yourself and others; how you act and react in the world; how you and others communicate; and how you can easily gain rapport with others to realize positive outcomes.

To better understand NLP, remember the last time your boss called you into his office after you finished a difficult project. Or, recall how you felt when you stepped on a stage or delivered a presentation. Or think about how a child reacts to a parent's angry or frustrated tone of voice.

In such situations, reactions are often automatic and can occur without conscious thought. These instinctive reactions may be positive and useful, but they can also be negative and unhelpful. Through NLP, you become more aware of your reactions, and learn to change them – including what you say – in a positive and useful way.

Note:
John Grinder and Richard Bandler, the fathers of NLP, called their model 'neuro' because the patterns they discovered were at the level of our neurological processes, 'linguistic' to represent the ways our language reflects our neurology, and 'programming,' reflecting our ability to break free from our programmed behavior and choose to organize our ideas and actions in the way that we want.