What is NLP

Nishith Shah
Founder, Imaginarium

Every now and then people come up to me and ask me what NLP is and how can it be useful to us. Sometimes this comes from people who have a basic understanding of NLP sometimes its from people who just happen to come accross NLP either online or through a friend/colleague  who happen to mention it  over a coffee.

Let’s, first look at the literal definition of NLP - NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Neuro stands for our Neurons, which basically stands for ‘the way we think’.  

We, as humans, have a unique thought process. The way we think, the way we make our memories and the way we experience life are basically constructed through our senses which are

●        Visual

●        Auditory

●        Kinesthetic

●        Olfactory

●        Gustatory

In simple terms, our thoughts are constructed through our senses mentioned above.

Linguistic stands for ‘the way we communicate with ourselves and the world’. We use 

●        Verbal (Language)

●        Non-Verbal (Physiology & other means)

means to communicate with the world.

Programming stands for our ‘patterns of habits, behaviors and emotions. ‘ This is nothing but the internal programs we run unconsciously that decides the way we behave, the things we do, the things we are good at and the things we are not so good at, the habits we have created for ourselves, the emotions we feel like knowing when to be happy or when to be sad, etc.

By studying and learning the relationship between these internal programs and how we create it for ourselves , one can transform the way they traditionally think and act, and can start adopting a new and far more successful model of excellence which can produce brilliant results for us and others.

In short, the literal definition of NLP can be taken as a more effective way to Program/Reprogram and influence our own or other’s mind and produce magical results in the process.·

If you are reading about NLP for the first time or you have a very basic knowledge about NLP, most likely the case is that you are still not clear about what NLP is and how can it help you. That is ok, even I took some time to really get more deeper understanding of NLP and its applications.

In its simplest form, NLP can be defined as ‘Science of Excellence’; Excellence in results and the process of obtaining those results.

Let’s take an example to understand NLP better.

If you were really good at Mathematics and lets say I am not so good at it (It’s just hypothetical, in reality I am super good at it ), I can use NLP to model what you do, the way you do it and how you do it to significantly achieve same results as yours in absolutely no time. Using NLP, I would be able to learn and model what you do, how you think, what you think, how you use your body and take note of the minutest details possible. Using this information I would create a structure of ‘how to be good at Mathematics’ - like a step by step procedure and apply it on myself to start producing the same or even better results than yours, with respect to Mathematics. In fact, not only can Iproduce better results with your observations but I can train others also to apply the same structure in their life to be better at Mathematics.

One of my other favorite example is about developing confidence. From the time we were born till this minute a lot of people in different areas and in different context must have told you about being confident. Even when we go for seminars investing thousands of rupees they tell us, “if you want to be successful you really have to be confident”. But has any one ever told you ‘How to be confident?’. This is one of the places where NLP helps you to create structure of confidence and using that structure you will be able to experience confidence anytime you want.

In fact, NLP was first developed by Richard Bandler (a Brilliant Mathematician) and John Grinder (an Effective Linguistic) on the principle of Modeling. They modeled some of the best and most successful people involved in fast-change therapeutic work from several different areas and then used their observations to apply it on their students. Amazingly they were able to produce the same results at even faster speed than before.

At First, NLP was developed keeping therapy in mind but since then it has spread across almost all the the different fields of today.

NLP has whole has a lot of skills involved in it which includes using our body, using our language, thoughts, memories and other skills to create the kind of results we want to produce. Having said that, even if we are able to learn one skill and master it, the amount of success and the sense of achievement it can bring us can be beyond our imagination.

In a nutshell, NLP is what you make of it. NLP can be that thing which you are doing now to get your desired results and by understanding 'how' you do it, you can produce the same results in all the areas of your life.

 And so I Hope understanding this explanation of NLP has helped you with what you wanted to know. Keep checking the blog section to get some of the most powerful articles on how to use NLP in different areas of your life. These techniques which we will share are some of the most effective techniques which you can master to get your desired results.

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