Benefits of Using NLP techniques

How to Use NLP Techniques in Daily Life

The benefits of using NLP techniques are far reaching, bearing in mind there are more than a hundred processes that cater to a wide range of issues. In this article, I’d like to touch on how we are continuously changing maps in our minds and using language patterns that impact our performance. This, so you understand how we use NLP for better results. 

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Changing Maps

You may not realise but you’re already using NLP in daily life by changing maps unconsciously. Do you recall images of past exciting events in bright and vivid colours? Does the aroma of your favourite food smell pleasant and the food you dislike smell offensive? Do you feel heavy when you think of a sad experience? 

These descriptive words are how we describe maps in our minds that are made up of pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells. So using NLP in daily life can be as simple as paying attention to how we represent and use our senses. 

What Are Maps?
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The sequence of points here detail how we create maps: 

• We have five basic senses: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory. Otherwise known as the senses of sight, sound, emotion, smell and taste 
• We process our inner and outer world through these senses. In NLP they’re referred to as modalities 
• Within each of these senses lay finer distinctions, known as sub- modalities or maps. What you hear can be loud or soft. What you see can be clear or blurry. What you taste can be delicious or awful 
• One of the main benefits of using NLP techniques is that we become more aware of our senses. The more alert we become, the clearer we understand our experience 
• NLP explains that we use sub-modalities to create meaning and to code our experience. For example, a perfume we like smells pleasant and a perfume we dislike smells offensive. 
  
  Here’s a table of Modalities and Sub-modalities as an example: ​​

Using NLP For Better Results 

1. Let’s say you don’t like eating vegetables because you had bad experiences duringchildhood. The picture in your mind is that vegetables are hard, bland and difficult to swallow. We can change this picture. 

Changing maps to crunchy, fresh and appetising, will expand your boundaries to give vegetables another chance. Wouldn’t this be great? Especially knowing that you’ll get healthier with this change in eating habits. 

2. The process of changing maps works well for creativity in art, problem solving, cooking, working, parenting, relationships or anything at all. For example, you’re stuck with a problem at work or home. 

When you think about it, your mind throws up a picture that’s dim, blurry and small. Changing these sub-modalities to bright, sharp and big produces a different perspective and shifts your energy towards more options to resolve it. These types of processes are shared in an NLP online course. 


What are Language Patterns?

One way we use NLP in daily life is with language. Our choice of words have a far greater impact on outcomes than we realise. Co-founders of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, modelled Milton Erickson, one of the greatest hypnotherapists of the 20th century.

Bandler and Grinder observed that Milton had great success with his clients when he used specific language patterns with them. They later formalised these language patterns into a code and structure in NLP known as the Milton Model. This is how NLP for better results originated. 

One of the greatest benefits of using NLP techniques is demonstrated by the Milton Model. It allows the listeners’ unconscious minds to access their inner resources.

​When language used during therapy is purposely vague, the listener creates his or her own interpretation and meaning. 

The Benefits of Knowing Language Patterns

Knowing how to use Milton Model patterns enables you to become more effective at putting ideas across, and changing people’s minds, in a way that respects their values. An NLP online course is one way of gaining this knowledge and skill. 

Sales people typically understand how to use NLP for better results by utilising some of these patterns, to close a deal for instance. A double bind pattern is one where you give two choices both of which bind you to a result. For example, you might want to sign this contract now or later. Either way you will sign the contract.

Leaders on the other hand use language patterns that are highly ambiguous for example, we would all like peace on earth. It isn’t specified how we might find peace on earth. You might wonder why. 

Leaving a message ambiguous gives the listener an opportunity to make their own meanings. This builds rapport with an audience, as everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of how they derive peace. So it is inclusive rather than exclusive. 

So the list goes on. Knowing language patterns and using them to our advantage is how we use NLP in daily life. This results in a spike in outcomes whether you are a manager wanting to heighten motivation or a parent influencing your child to study. 

It is indeed the difference that makes the difference!

The best part is that language patterns are perfectly natural because we are already using them unconsciously. As the NLP success belief goes, “You cannot not communicate”. 

Everything you say or don’t say conveys messages to others around you. Whatever you do, verbal and non-verbal, amounts to communication.

Learning to use language patterns intentionally is about influencing others and communicating effectively, to open up choices and possibilities. It’s about achieving mutual outcomes for all parties involved. 

Summing up, you’ve seen how NLP in daily life works through changing maps and using language patterns. There is wide scope to benefit from using NLP techniques. We have only highlighted two of the fastest and most effective techniques in the field.

Imagine how easily you could influence others if you knew exactly how to use appropriate language patterns? And how liberating it would be to understand your experience better by becoming more alert to your senses? 

NLP for better results is the way to go. Try it out to experience the amazing outcomes you can enjoy too. 
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