Many people have heard of NLP and when they hear this acronym they immediately associate it with its most obvious meaning in Portugal: PNL = “Plano Nacional de Leitura” (National Reading Plan), which has a real relationship with personal development.
But (and today we will not talk about the “but”) what I want to speak to you about today is another NLP. This NLP is derived from the original “Neuro Linguistic Programming”.
What is NLP?
So what is NLP? It means Neuro Linguistic Programming and it’s really related to the three components that most influence in the development of the human experience: Programming, Neurology and Language.
Three components of NLP
- Programming? Yes, all of us, since we were born, or even earlier, are programmed by everything around us (and by everyone) and that programming determines the model of the world we build and what we want and believe are capable to do, and, generally, we are capable of doing much more than we suppose.
- Neurology regulates all the functions of each ones’ body, from the most automatic to the most rational, almost always influenced by internal and external factors.
- Linguistics or Language determines how we relate to and communicate with other people, as well as the outcome or feedback we get from that communication. Attention, the language can be verbal or non-verbal.
For those of you who, like me, believe that communication can be at the root of most problems, both in terms of personal relationships and organizational mechanics, and can be the solution to all of these problems, you immediately see the importance of Neurolinguistic Programming – a way to programmatically use language to influence neurology and the results obtained.
NLP and its study provides tools and leverage the development of skills that help us drive towards individual excellence by developing the flexibility, skills and behaviors that support it, also involving strategic thinking and understanding of mental processes and cognitive factors that underlie all behaviors.
This “school of thought” is based on assumptions and there are two whose understanding is absolutely fundamental:
- “The map is not the territory” – nobody is the “owner” of reality. Each individual
has his or her mental construction of any reality and, being aware of it, it is easy to see that each of the other people we relate to will have his own so it’s natural that we have different perspectives on any subject or situation.
- “Mind and Body are one system” – what takes place within us and between us and the outside world is a system. Understanding that everything interacts and influences each other helps us realize that “people are not their behaviors” (another NLP assumption).
Studying this topic is exciting and whoever does it, like me, for many years, cannot stop using their tools for everything in life, in the pursuit of their own personal excellence, and in helping to develop this excellence in others.
Curious about this? Want to know more? You know what to do! Ask me and / or wait for the next articles.
See you soon.
Daniel Lança Perdigão, Strategist & Visual Thinker, UpSideUp.pt