What is NLP?

The Study Of Human Excellence

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) was initially developed as the “study of human excellence”. That means that people from various different fields were approached, in order to find out exactly what made them so excellent, and then to integrate this knowledge into the field of NLP. Hence, it is really a compendium of many different fields and many different applications. Let’s look at a couple of different fields where NLP has been successfully applied.

Therapy

As it was initially developed by a psychology students and a linguistics professor by modelling excellent therapists, of course the first application of NLP is in therapy. Here, it has given therapists tools and techniques to effectively help their patients move beyond their problems. From a fast phobia cure, to belief changes, more and more techniques are being developed each day to make the process of helping even easier.

Business

Only when NLP moved to Europe did some realize that at its base, NLP is about communication. As such, its ideas are not only applicable in the area of therapy, but also for business. It can help people to become more effective communicators, better presenters, and to develop a more motivated attitude towards work, which can help employees to achieve their peak performance. NLP has also been associated with team building and sales.

Education

Education is about communicating content in a manner that is easy to understand. Our current educational system is geared mostly towards one type of learner, when really there are many. NLP can help teachers to not only present the content in a way that makes it easy to learn, but it can also aid in associating learning with having fun and discovering new things, which effectively creates a great learning environment.

Sport

Recently NLP has made its way into the area of sports and performance coaching. Since, as athletes will attest, successful athletic performance is mix between physical and psychological preparation, NLP represents the ideal tool to increase the performance power of any athlete. Not only can it help to set performance goals, but also for overcoming blocks and for creating powerful beliefs in the athlete.

These are only four of many areas where the ideas of NLP have found to make a positive difference for people. We are only just beginning to find out how widely applicable the ideas of NLP are, and as such, they have found their way into other areas to make a different to individuals.