It is often said that the art/science of NLP could have been designed for use in sport!

All of these things are to do with mind-set and mental attitude, and that’s where NLP comes in.

NLP is the coaching tool of choice now for professional sports people because it is a fast way of making large improvements to performance.

An example of how the application of NLP in sport can make such a big difference to performance.

So if we elicit all the strategies for every component of their game we will end up with about 50 strategies.

Now we have a set of strategies that the golfer employs across their game and it makes it fairly simple to identify if something stands out as being a bit different. A pro golfer will be looking for consistency, after all they are looking for every shot to be perfect after all.

However, if they are having a problem in a particular area of their game, say their short game, what is normally the case is that the sequence of strategies that they are running for their short game is different from all the other elements of their game that are working well.

Hence we look for the anomaly, the strategy that is different, and utilising a strategy installation technique, we change that strategy resulting in an instant improvement to that element.

In addition to this, we can work with our golfer’s beliefs and values since both of these run the behaviour or physiology of the client and we can align that part of their thinking to the results that they want.

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.

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!