NLP is a very powerful and misunderstood methodology.
Because it is so misunderstood, it is often wrongly applied, and as such, generates unwanted results.
The main misunderstanding is what NLP actually is.
People think it is a quick fix, technique-based methodology and simple techniques can solve complex problems. This misunderstanding generated misconceptions about NLP and gave it a bad name.
This may mean that NLP may not work…why?
NLP does not work if used incorrectly from a platform of understanding what it really is. Even though many powerful techniques are used in NLP practice, it is not a technique based methodology.
True NLP is a systemic and structural approach to communication where techniques are effective only when applied strategically into a properly understood system of thinking the client used to create the problem. True NLP requires the ability to think abstractly and being able to recreate the client’s model of the world for oneself in order to make changes to that model.
It is similar to being presented with a foreign object and asked to change it into something better. In order to be able to complete such a task, some obvious questions would have to be answered:
What is that object?
What purpose does it serve?
How was it made?
What was it made of?
What was the intent of the creator who designed it?
What process was followed to create it?
Only when these questions are answered, the task of designing a better version of the object can be accomplished. The object was a
successful result of someone’s thinking process and an execution of steps necessary to create it.
By the same token, every problem is a measure of success. In order for it to exist a person needs to have applied a successful internal and external strategy to create the problem.
That strategy remains hidden in the internal universe of the client. Unless a Practitioner is skilled enough to unravel that strategy and fully understand what is happening in that internal universe of the client, any application of techniques will be unsuccessful.
NLP techniques are designed to elicit a profound and pervasive change. They work only when a Practitioner understands what he/she is dealing with, how the problem was created, and what the intent behind the creation of the problem is. Unless the Practitioner is able to answer these questions, he/she is impotent in applying techniques of NLP.
The skills needed to generate and answer these fundamental questions are the prerequisite to becoming a great Practitioner. Being a great Practitioner is being a great strategist, a powerful tactician, a skilled technician, an engineer designing new realities, an archaeologist digging deep into the hidden recesses of the client’s mind, and a magician able to elicit extraordinary change.
The strategic way of thinking needed to become a proficient Practitioner is the way of thinking required to run a successful business and succeed at any task.
A great NLP training teaches you that way of thinking. One of the first questions you need to ask a potential trainer is “Is your training strategic and in what way is it strategic?”
If they cannot answer that question, you are wasting your money and time. If they give you a comprehensive answer, you are investing in yourself in the most powerful way.
Written by Anita Kozlowki, Founder of Live With Power NLP Seminars. Anita Kozlowski is an internationally licensed NLP trainer, therapist, strategic business and success coach. She has used innovative therapy to change lives through a unique system that has been proven to work. As an internationally licensed NLP trainer, she has trained thousands of individuals from all walks of life in pure NLP, for which she has received recognition on three continents.