How to make a difference in a teaching environment.

NLP has a range of tools that can be applied to teaching. Learn how, with the following top tips, the application of NLP in education can take teaching to the next level.

2. The basis of all communication is rapport

By utilising some NLP presentation skills it is easy to ensure that rapport is gained and maintained and that information is really getting across.

4. Using the 4 Mat system

Which is in fact not originally from NLP but came from someone called Bernice McCarthy who was researching how people learn. Some people have a preference for the ‘why they should learn/listen’, some the ‘what it is’, some the ‘how it works’ and some the ‘what if I did it’. In the world of NLP, we have found that any presentation or lesson structured in this system pulls in the whole audience and not just some of them. Most lessons/presentations are a mish-mash of all of these things with no particular structure leading to confusion for the listener. She paid particular attention to the “why” section too. This is the section of a lesson that ‘sells’ it. This is the bit that creates relevance to the listener. No-one will listen if they do not feel a subject is relevant to them.

5. Representational systems. 

Working out if your students are predominantly visual, auditory, kinaesthetic or auditory digital learners and structuring your language accordingly depending on who you are talking too. A great way of rapport building on the one to one level.

7. Listen to the language beyond the language

Using the language skills of NLP it is possible to understand what is behind the ‘talk’ of communications. Is it all surface talk (in other words generalisations), or is it all very detail focused? Understanding the level of a communication gives a great starting point to understanding when to use Milton or Meta model approaches of communication to build rapport and get to the core information of what is being said or needs to be related.

8. Avoid labelling students.

Labels are not useful. Telling a child that he or she is dyslexic or is ADHD affects the child’s self-esteem and belief system and, they will take on those behaviours.

9. Bad anchors

An anchor is the process of stimulus-response. For example, from previous experience, a child might see a classroom and immediately get a bad feeling. It is possible to work with students who you feel have set up bad anchors unconsciously, and using the process of collapse anchoring from NLP help them remove the negative anchor.

As a general rule people come to a coach because they want to be mentored and to focus on improving their life. It would be fair to say that this is because they feel they are stuck and understand a coach will help them to re-focus on their goals and achieve the results they want.

People are looking for a better way of doing things in their life, things are not really going as well as the person would like and the reason for this is that their behaviours have essentially maxed out their performance. Have you heard the old saying “doing the same things in the same ways will always get the same results”. With their current thinking it is impossible for them to perform any better than they are.

The first thing to realise is that all your behaviours are run by your unconscious mind.

What is the conscious mind?

This is the part of your mind that ‘sits on top’ of your unconscious. The tip of the iceberg if you will. Information comes in via our senses and the conscious mind is the part of us that makes sense of it all, applying critical judgement to try and understand what we are experiencing and to formulate a plan for what should be done about things. We take our life experience, make judgements regarding what is happening and consciously plan on the action we are going to take. The outcome of all of this is then passed onto the unconscious, where the decision is accepted uncritically and action is taken.

The conventional coaching approach

A lot of talking is involved where the coach will identify what the client wants and together a plan will be formulated regarding the action the client needs to undertake to try and get the outcome they desire.

It is an approach that can have some success, on the surface of things sounding like the most effective way of handling the process, how else would you go about it? But…. All of this is happening at the conscious level of the mind.

Imagine a friend coming to you and saying their problem is that they eat too many doughnuts and want to stop. Do they consciously know the answer to their problem? Of course they do – “stop eating doughnuts!” Seems quite straightforward?

But let’s look a little more at what is happening. They know the solution to their problem consciously, but this is only part of the story. Their unconscious mind is continuing to run the old behaviour, remember the unconscious is the part of us that makes things happen.

It could be the conscious mind is also thinking “hey – I have eaten doughnuts before and I love them, they are so tasty and sweet!”

Perhaps in the conscious mind there’s a compromise running. “It’s ok – I’ll eat doughnuts some of the time.” The point is that is the action the subconscious has initiated, the behaviour, is not what the person wants at all, they want to stop eating doughnuts entirely!

It’s ok if the person focuses their conscious mind on the outcome they want, the behaviour will change. But it is only really temporary. Once the attention wanders (those doughnuts are so sweet!) then the desired behaviour lapses. It is kind of like trying to push a big rock up a hill. Guess what happens when you stop pushing?

So you can see that trying to a behaviour consciously is VERY hard indeed.

No longer are they trying to push that rock up the hill because the client’s thinking changes. All those old limitations in their mind have been removed and replaced with empowering beliefs about themselves and their abilities and once that happens, the client can progress forwards easily.

With the tools of NLP we can make real and lasting therapeutic change with our clients as well as applying the techniques to help ourselves.

Stress management

We live in busy times, often leading extremely busy lives. It can sometimes feel that we’re getting a little overwhelmed by the pace of things around us, which can manifest as stress. Hypnotherapy can offer an island of calm in the storm, allowing for a profound sense of relaxation both within a session, and lasting long after as well. There are simple yet extremely useful tools which I can teach you which will help to bring about a sense of peace and tranquillity to your life. NLP can offer strategies to deal with specific situations or triggers which can cause an inappropriate stressful state.

Habit control

Weight control and quitting smoking are both areas ideally suited to be addressed using the tools supplied by NLP

Removing blocks

Do you have any behaviours or habits which you feel are blocking you? With a little time it is possible to quickly understand the mechanisms at work in your life and tailor your responses in such a way that the block can quickly and effectively be removed or made redundant. What can be learn can be un-learnt!

When talking about business what do we mean? Giving presentations, making sales, working with clients are all aspects of the workplace and all have the same common theme. Communication.

How do we know when we’re communicating well? Ever had that feeling that a conversation you just had didn’t go quite as well as you’d hoped? That the point you were trying to make somehow didn’t hit home? How about a presentation, has it ever felt that you’ve worked your heart out and yet somehow the message didn’t seem to get across?

Wouldn’t it be great to have an insight into how the communication is going as you’re progressing? How would it be if you knew that your point was getting across with no resistance and that the other person, or indeed your audience, is completely in tune with what you are saying?

Within NLP we talk a lot about communication. Being in rapport with someone, understanding that their model of the world and yours may be different, taking into account how they represent their world internally when processing information. I guess it may all sound a bit technical but understanding that 75% of communication is non-verbal and that communication is not about what you say but what is heard can make you a much more effective communicator. NLP has some simple, but powerful, insights into how we communicate, along with some very easy and practical techniques that can be quickly learnt to improve your communication skills and make sure that what you’re saying really is getting across.

They also had great success with their sales executives with their closing rate going from just 10% of quotations before the NLP advances sales training they received to 63% of quotations being closed.

These may seem like remarkable results, and they are, but there’s no magic involved. There was no changing of the content of the message being delivered, however, there was a lot of emphases put on how it was being delivered and how to effectively communicate.

What is personal development? Seems on the surface of it a fairly straightforward question, surely it’s developing yourself to improve yourself? And that’s true, but how?

How is your library of self-help and improvement books? I have quite a few but book knowledge is different from applied knowledge. As the old phrase goes “the learning is in the doing”. There’s nothing wrong with reading books, they can teach a great deal of course. However, it’s in the practical application of that knowledge that we start to see real results. To coin the old phrase “we learn by doing”

Or is it that you are the sort of person who recognises that change will only come with action, and that action is only going to happen if you make it happen?

If you are in the last group of people then you already recognise that NLP is quite possibly the thing for you, the technology of change that will help you to progress along your path of personal development.

If you do find yourself thinking you’re not in the last group then no worries, after all, you’re reading this website and that’s a great step forward. Remember – it is curiosity that leads to practical action.

And this is what I love about NLP. The whole thing is extremely practical. However it’s not just a bunch of techniques, although they are important, but it is also about learning a framework that gives us real insight into how we communicate internally and externally and how we process information which ultimately drives our behaviours and leads us to action.

The Practitioner course is a great example of this. At the beginning of the course people are curious, what is this NLP stuff again? Why am I here? What am I going to learn? And my favourite question I see people asking themselves is “over the duration of this course how am I going to grow?”. The whole course is a process of exploration and of change, some of which can be quite profound. I have seen people on practitioner courses leave with a real renewed sense of purpose and fired up to go out and make all sorts of positive changes. Of course I can use myself personally as an example of this, my practitioner course led me to a deep appreciation of NLP, on which I followed up and now share with other people through running courses and passing on my knowledge.

So what makes the application of NLP in personal development so effective?

Think of a new year’s resolution for example. The desire to change is there, there may even be some planning to make sure that the change can stay with us. Ask yourself though how many times do our good intentions towards ourselves go by the wayside? How often is it that you’ve seen the change you wish to make simply run out of steam and disappear? As an example think about gym membership.

This is because this is all being held at the conscious level of the mind, a noisy place where there are many distractions and where many underlying aspects of ourselves vie for our attention. Quite often things are not necessarily in harmony with each other. “I want to lose weight but I love eating cake” – both things are fine on their own but as you can see they overlap and could quite easily be at odds with each other.

With the application of NLP in personal development, we work at a level where there are no contradictions. This means we can effect lasting positive change, and change that sticks!

What is rapport?

Rapport is that feeling you get when you feel at ease with someone. You feel they are listening, the communication is flowing both ways and you’re ‘in-tune’ with what is going on when talking to them.

Why is rapport useful?

Who wouldn’t want to be able to communicate with ease? Have a think, what is it you might be trying to say? It could be you want to tell someone about something important that has happened to you, or share a memory of good times, or let someone know about a great product or service (it may even be yours!)

In all of these examples knowing that you are in rapport means you can be confident that your message has a greater chance of being heard, processed and hopefully accepted.

That first meeting….

When you first meet someone, the decision to like someone is usually made pretty quickly. You get a feel for common interests, beliefs, or perhaps because you admire their character and aspire to be like them which makes things gel. Perhaps their thinking just matches with yours and consequently you feel at ease and in tune.

But how about being faced with building rapport in a situation with someone you don’t have much in common with? This can be a bit challenging.

What does rapport look like?

So, how do we make it so we get on with everyone, not just the people we ‘click’ with?

The key to building rapport is commonality. We tend to enjoy being around people who are similar to ourselves.

To generalise, people who are like each other like each other.

What does this mean?

It’s not referring to beliefs or political views or any other content regarding what people are saying but more about how they are saying it.

Think about that time you saw two old friends who were relaxed and chatting away. Perhaps you’ve seen people out in public in a coffee shop or elsewhere and you can tell they are getting on well, you can see the communication flowing.

Now you may not be able to hear what is being said but you can see what is going on.

Notice how they are together. They may be leaning in towards each other for example. Look a little closer, they may be unconsciously copying body gestures and movements. They are most likely also matching the tone, speed and volume of their voices too.

All of these are natural things that occur when people get ‘in the zone’ in a conversation.

How do we build rapport?

The great news is if you notice that these things aren’t happening when you’re talking to someone you can start to build them into what is going on, thus building rapport with that person.

This will tell them that you are engaged, and active in the relationship, encouraging them to dive deeper into the conversation.

And one more tip – give yourself time within a conversation. Active listening skills go a long way in making sure that you are listening to what the other person is actually saying rather than just forming a response in your head and give you time to relax. Feedback gestures and other physical indicators to them but also feedback what they are saying. That way they know they have been heard, and everyone likes to know they have been listened to.

In summary…

Building rapport is important in any communication. Rapport can be applied to almost any relationship that you may have. Whether it’s with friends (where it probably just happens naturally anyway) or with customers, business partners, business contacts or potential clients establishing a strong and secure relationship through rapport with them will ensure a smooth ride throughout your day.

Rapport is a great skill to master and one we cover extensively on our NLP Practitioner course.

Take those good feeling with you wherever you go

In this article, I’ll take you through the easy steps of this NLP Classic anchoring technique, the circle of excellence.

I really love this technique, it’s so simple and at the same time so effective. It really works!

You may be wondering why you should memorize and practice the circle of excellence, check this out:

According to an article by James Clear “The Science of Positive Thinking”, published by Huffington Post:

Positive emotions broaden your sense of possibilities and open your mind, which in turn allows you to build new skills and resources that can provide value in other areas of your life. As we discussed earlier, negative emotions do the opposite. Why? Because building skills for future use is irrelevant when there is immediate threat or danger (like the tiger on the path).

In other words, if you can learn to harness positive states your mind will be more available to absorb new information and learn new skills, and positive states are what the circle of excellence technique is all about! It’s a no-brainer!

Beyond that…..

Do you ever feel weighed down by negative emotional chatter in your head? Ever have that ‘endless funk’ feeling where you’re just down and can’t seem to get back up again?

This may be the time for you to take charge of your inner life and the circle of excellence could be a primary tool in your effort to develop mentally and emotionally.

How?

The circle of excellence technique harnesses your positive, resourceful qualities and brings them into your day-to-day experience.

Perhaps you feel you are lacking in self-confidence, or it feels that life is getting too heavy? Maybe you have a monumental task ahead of you and feel you might not be able to do it.

Whatever the case may be, experiencing the positive feeling behind the accomplishments, good qualities, and potential that you have will greatly benefit you.

When you feel yourself in need of setting this up for yourself…

1. Using your imagination draw a circle on the ground in front of you. large enough to step into.
2. Now have a think about something really positive. Perhaps a great memory, good times with friends, a party, some sort of occasion
3. Focus in on those feelings and make them more intense. Perhaps there’s a feeling in your body? Play with it so that you really feel those feelings. A colour? Make it more intense. A sound? Make it so the sound is making you feel great
4. And step into your circle……
5. Enjoy those feelings, feeling good eh…
6. And step out of your circle.

You have now got a great resource in your circle, and in a moment I’ll show you how you can use it anytime you want

But before I do why not add another resourceful state in the same way? Do you want to have excitement in there? Add it in! Confidence? Calm? Feeling resourceful? Feeling good?

Go through and add them in, it’s your circle, you can have whatever you want!

You now have an excellent resource for feeling wonderful, and using it is really, really easy.

Using your circle, any time you want!

All you have to do is step inside your circle and experience all of those wonderful positive states. That’s it, just take a step in!

IF you want you can pick up your circle and keep it for later use. Keep it on your person, perhaps in a pocket, on your key Chain. As a ring or bracelet. It’s a magic circle, so even if you change clothes it will still be there for you.

Now, whenever you need it you can pop it on the floor in front of you and take that simple step to feeling great.

How about you’re doing a presentation? Pop it on the floor before you start and set yourself up for feeling really positive.

The possibilities are endless…

Nice, huh? You did it! The NLP circle of excellence is all yours.

It’s so simple, why not practice by teaching a friend or loved one the circle of excellence and show them how to use this amazing technique to feel great?

NLP perceptual positions.

Before telling you about my friend’s transformational experience, I’ll first explain what NLP Perceptual Positions is.

NLP Perceptual Positions is a technique that is about giving a person the opportunity to experience a situation from multiple positions. We call them the first, second and third. When someone needs a new perspective on relationships or any difficult circumstance this is a great way of looking at things from different angles and gaining clarity through new perspectives. 

In the real world, my friend Dave

So, here’s a quick story about a situation my friend found himself in and how he managed to ‘unstick’ himself with the help of using perceptual positions.

I’d not seen my friend for quite a while, and when I did bump into him again I almost didn’t recognize him at first. His smile seemed strained and his energy levels were really low. I remember a really active and vibrant person, and I never thought I would see him like this. So, I decided to take him to my local coffee shop to have a catch up over a drink and to listen to what had been happening in his life since the last time I’d seen him.

From the moment I met him I picked up on the fact he was expressing that “everything is over, there’s no time”. I recognized that the dominant thought in his mind is “there’s no time”. He was living under the impression that he would not be able to accomplish anything in his life because he was too old, he’d run out of time, life was too short now to accomplish anything meaningful.

I could see he was visibly upset, actually in tears at points during the conversation. When I asked him about how things were with him he told me that he was about to be laid off because the company he was working for was failing. Because of this, he feared he would be out on the street very soon. Not only that but he felt he may not find a job later because he was not working with his talents and because he’s not young anymore.

He had a plan of sorts, and that was to sell his car, start thinking about his bills, and somehow deal with his wife.

His VAK (Visual / Audio / Kinaesthetic) movie (another great NLP technique) was terrible. His plan was not going to help him move forward, so I got my favourite pen and on a piece of paper, started writing down every limiting believe he was saying.

Limiting Beliefs

Before moving forward with him, I explained that there seemed to be a number of things that he believed about himself at the moment that may not really be useful to him. Beliefs that were holding him back and limiting his choices, limiting beliefs in other words

I asked him about his childhood hero and he told me it was Bill Gates. Knowing him I knew he was into programming but didn’t know he liked it so much from childhood. I decided to use NLP Perceptual Positions with him.

To do this I had him read all the sentences I wrote down earlier. I asked him to read them once more loudly and imagine that Bill Gates was in front of him listening to what he was saying. I asked him to imagine that Bill Gates is responding to these sentences. What could he tell you about what you are saying? Will he agree with you or not? Then I asked him to imagine his kids listening to these sentences and how would they feel? How would his wife feel?

Later he recognized that the circumstance was not the problem and it may be his awareness. In other words, the things affecting his life, although having been triggered externally, had caused something to happen to him internally. The problems and issues were all in fact internal.  What had been triggered, the bit he could work with and change was internal. In fact, he had full control over what he wanted to do and what he could do about making changes to improve things.

This was quite a shift.

He said his company will be there for the next three months with little work to do. This meant he would have free time to prepare for the upcoming period. He decided to invest more in learning and education.  He also decided to get rid of all the useless activities he did on a daily basis.

NLP Perceptual Positions Sets In

Weeks later I met with him and he told me how things were going. He was very happy. His relationship with his wife was very close as never before, as he felt her support for him. He was also trying to move forward with an opportunity that appeared to him that would let him live the life of his dreams.

He told me that in fact the crisis he’d felt himself to be in was actually quite empowering after all. He’d not seen it this way at the time though. All he could see were the external pressures and he’d felt like he had no control. Once he realised that it was all about a change of mindset and awareness he said a world of possibilities started to open up for him.

How did it work for him?

What allowed this change of mindset for him was by seeing his situation and limiting beliefs from an outside perspective, from perspectives other than his own.

When we are inside out situation it is very hard to see the solutions. It feels like the awareness to solve the problem just isn’t there. This is when the technique of NLP perceptual positions can give you a new insight through new perspectives.

Try it for yourself

You can do this activity on your own. The next time you are faced with a problem that seems hopeless, simply write down all your limiting beliefs. Then, step outside yourself and see them from someone you look up to. Imagine what they would tell you or the solutions they might come up with. Have a go and see how your thinking suddenly changes.

Simple but effective!

You can read more here in our post ‘NLP perceptual positions – change your perspective‘

We cover perceptual positions on our NLP Practitioner courses.