NLP for Personal Development

Jul 23, 2022 | Personal Development | 0 comments

Last weekend I delivered another NLP Diploma course to amazing people.

I love all of the programmes I train, but this one in particular is always one that makes my neurology light up and gives me a huge sense of gratitude for the people who attend.

You see taking that first step into unknown territory and beginning the journey of self discovery is huge. I say this to my clients when they come for coaching too. Many people want to change things in their life but they don’t. They stay stuck in the same repetitive habits and patterns that are causing them suffering and they feel trapped in a place where they feel they have no choice but to suffer.

This is where one of the participants was on day 1 of the Diploma. By day 2 she was ‘wobbling her model’ of the world and beginning to question her life story, her beliefs and her way of being in the world. By day 3 she looked different, she was holding herself differently, and said she felt liberated knowing that she ‘did’ have choice in how she lived her life.

Another participant had been having difficulty with her teenage son which had caused the relationship to almost breakdown. After day 1 she had approached something with him in a different way that led to breaking a pattern that they had been stuck in. She felt a huge sense of relief knowing that she now has the skills in her communication that she can implement to build the bridge to reach him. She also realised that she often lived from a place of feeling disempowered. Blaming others for her frustrations, blaming herself for things that were not her doing, and making excuses so she could continue some of her behavioural habits that she wanted to change but felt she couldn’t. Her new found self awareness gave her more confidence to and choice in addressing the unconscious positive purpose that was maintaining the behaviour. With this new insight and discovery she completed a well formed outcome to move her towards the behaviour change that she is seeking.

So let’s take a look at some of the ways that NLP can support personal development

Wobbling the model

we all have a model or map of the world that we create to make sense of our experience. This model of the world becomes our blueprint for how we operate. It contains our beliefs, values and experiences and determines the lens we look through to view life. Sometimes it is useful and sometimes it isn’t! We might have habits or behaviours that we want to change but don’t know how to. We might hold beliefs about ourselves or others that are preventing us from thriving. We might have had past experiences that have caused difficulty and become fixed in a way of thinking that is detrimental to our happiness. We might find ourselves repeating patterns in relationships, in health and wellbeing and in other areas of life that cause us stress and unhappiness. NLP gives you the skills to become more self aware so you can begin to discover that you are ‘always more than you think you are’. Expanding your thinking gives you choice and opens up possibilities to perceive things in a different way. Understanding what makes you tick, what your values are, what’s important to you and what has shaped you, enables you to decide who you want to become going forwards and what you can do to align your life with your values. When we ‘wobble the model’ it can feel uncomfortable, unsafe and unfamiliar. We do what we do because it makes sense to us at the time. We repeat patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving habitually without conscious thought. In NLP you learn to bring the unconscious into conscious awareness, so you can harness your power within and live a life you feel truly aligned with.

Self Awareness

Self awareness precedes change. Most of what we do we do unconsciously without even realising we are doing it. We learn strategies and ways of being to survive and continue with these strategies even when they no longer work for us. Take for example someone who is always meeting others needs before their own and they are left feeling tired, resentful and unhappy. They feel guilty if they do things for themselves and they judge others who prioritise their own needs. This pattern could stem form a belief that was formed in childhood that in order to be accepted or a good person, you have to put others before yourself. It might have been that as a child they got praise for not making a fuss, for being quiet and not asking for anything. This could show up in adult behaviour as being passive rather than assertive, guilty feelings when they say no to people or not taking care of their own wellbeing. NLP teaches you self awareness so that you can make changes to the patterns you are running that no longer serve your life in the here and now. We upgrade our technology devices but forget to upgrade our brain! In NLP we don’t believe that there is right or wrong, it’s rather a case of is it useful or not. Making behavioural changes that serve the you that you are becoming, can lead you to living a life that is more fulfilling.