Sometimes, you may wonder if NLP is for you or not?
The straightforward answer would be to attend a workshop and know it for yourself.
However, that will mean time and monetary investment, which is not a good idea. However there is no other way out.
NLP will work out for you if:
- You have a learning attitude (I mention attitude – not high learning ability)
- You are able to follow the instructions
- You accept your human nature
Why these two qualities? That takes me back to 2015 when I was facilitating a workshop.
Among the audience was sitting and old gentleman from IIT Delhi, now retired from active service. So the guy should be at the top of the class as he had experience of lifetime and experience at learning.
However he made the life hell for the trainers, other participants and got the least from the workshop.
Why?
The gentleman was himself a trainer and had gone through some basic NLP concepts. So he had less queries and more interrogations to put the trainers down. The participants also avoided him as he would try to dominate the group wherever he was participating.
Learning ability wise – he was probably the best in the class. However he lacked learning attitude. And he was the most dissatisfied person with the content. The others gained transformation after transformation – thanks to the NLP’s roots in Therapy and Counseling, while the IITian left the course without much change. The only difference – learning attitude.
The second quality is the ability to follow instructions. It is part of the learning attitude. However still worth mentioning separately. Some people say they can learn but cannot follow instructions. Well I would say that they have learning ability but the attitude of learning is missing. I may be slightly wrong here – but not more than 5%. There may be genuine cases who cannot follow instructions but have great learning attitude. We will have to explore with them. However generally – learning attitude and following instructions comes as a package.
The third quality is accepting your human nature.
Some people think they are sorted. They don’t need any transformation. All they want to learn NLP for is to use it on others. Well great… they learn, and they learn a lot.. but NLP without using on yourself is like having a jug of water which you are using to quench your neighbors thirst while you yourself are thirsty inside. All to prove that you don’t feel you need water.
All of us need water. All of us have made mistakes. And life has happened to all of us. We carry negative programming inside from the decisions we took in past. Every time we gave away the control of our lives or snatched someone’s else’s control from their lives – we have committed a sin, which is now stored as a negative memory, past trauma or a fear /phobia, or as a limiting belief.
Denying this human nature, is like using a deodorant and claiming that you don’t need to take batch as you don’t have body odor. Accepting the human nature is like accepting that you have a human body which needs to be washed regularly. If you accept it, you will take bath everyday. Else you will suppress the odor with Deo.
So accepting your human limitations, and working to resolve them during NLP workshop is a pre-requisite for great learning. NLP is something you learn experiencing it first on yourself and the others come at the later stage. It is like putting mask on yourself first in a flight, before helping others.
