Learning NLP

As opposed to acquiring information, NLP is a behavioral process. It is about how we do things. It is one of those subjects where you could easily read thousands of books and articles on the subject and still not actually be doing NLP! This is because NLP is a set of insights, skills and behaviors with which you can gain more control over your life through active use of your mind, body and your emotions, to control your own life more successfully. You can also learn to communicate with others, with extraordinary effectiveness. The ideal would be learning NLP interactively and in a live environment.

Learning NLP should be an active personal and/or professional development experience, in which everything learnt is practiced, explored and openly discussed with other members and the course trainer. Since it is a behavioral process rather than a skill, it is best learnt in the proximity of an experienced NLP trainer.

Most people gain their first training through books, but as many as 40% have not even read an NLP book before they start. Although books are great as a valid introduction to the subject, once you have attended a live learning environment you will quickly understand the difference. You can’t thoroughly learn NLP from a book, anymore than you can learn to drive a car from a book.

NLP workshops are available in many locations, and they all offer various types of courses. Some offer short courses, others offer longer courses for learning NLP, and all have their specialty. Typically short introductory courses, usually of one or two day’s duration, tend to offer brief glimpses of the overall potential. In these environments you usually don’t have to commit to a large outlay of money or time.

There are some disadvantages though, and the biggest is the fact that there is no way that any serious study or application of the principles of NLP can be taught in such a short time span. You would normally find that the subject is skimmed over, thus providing a “brief” outline of any number of key areas within the Neuro Linguistic Programming field. If and when you decide to upgrade or commence a longer term course, you will find that the work you did in the short course, will be covered again in the larger courses.

There are also Application Workshops for learning NLP, where you actually get the chance to apply simple NLP concepts, usually in a specific area like “Managing Stress”, “Confidence Building” or “Effective Communication Skills”. These extended courses offer a lot more detail, and they are more useful to people who already have some grounding in the NLP core techniques, like Rapport, Anchors, etc. The best thing to do would be to talk to some people in your area, or those that you may know, to see which style of learning best suits your lifestyle and preference.