What is NLP?

A lot of people I meet – at my seminars, online, in my networks, are interested in the fastest ways to achieve personal change and improve the quality of their lives. So they ask me how I use NLP to bring this change to my clients, and what NLP actually is.

I give a detailed description below, but, in one sentence, my friend, NLP provides me with amazing tools which I tailor to help my clients achieve personal changes and move quickly toward achieving their goals, to clear emotions and blockages, and to overcome fear and grief, within one or two sessions.

Neurolinguistic programming, or NLP, was originally developed by a psychologist, Richard Bandler, and a linguist, John Grinder. The American motivational speaker Tony Robbins has trained with Grinder and utilised NLP ideas for his own motivational and self-help programs.
Here is the quick definition of NLP: it helps you avoid a slow, long process of change by helping you to learn to change MORE QUICKLY than therapy, for example.

Richard Bandler

Many people suffer from the lack of knowledge of how their system of beliefs and attitudes influences the quality of their lives. Their perception of their career and life in general is clouded by the excuses and reasons why they cannot succeed. This is one of the reasons why NLP coaching has become one of the leading techniques for achieving fast and lasting personal change.

Personal transformation coaching has become a major field in NLP coaching. Every successful business person works with a coach or mentor. So do successful sports people, and people aspiring to constantly improving the quality of their life.

A more extensive definition includes, but is not limited to:
NLP looks at patterns and processes, rather than content. Your coach or NLP practitioner does not dig into the story of your life and make you analyse why things happened. It instead uses language and non-verbal communication cues to identify behavioural patterns.
It is also an enhancement technique of modelling.
The main role of the NLP practitioner is to take the client – yes, YOU, from effect to cause.

NLP uses different techniques to help you develop more effective strategies in life.
It’s a way of replacing unhelpful behavioural patterns with useful, resourceful strategies. Unlike traditional techniques, NLP gives quick results in personal transformation.

The techniques I use help you with clearing, energising, and transforming your mind, body and spirit. You’ll find the NLP coaching tools applicable to all areas of your life: business - sales, management, communication, and coaching/mentoring; teaching, sports, therapy, personal growth, as well as relationships. They are proven to work, producing tangible results.

Elena Long

NLP Practitioner and Relationship Coach

How Can I Stick to My Goals?

by Myrko Thum

“I create goals in my mind every night. And every day I try to live them but I end up doing the exact opposite of what I want to do, and I don’t understand why. How can I stick to the personal goals I set for myself?”
“I end up doing the exact opposite of what I want to do…”

Interesting.
First of all, make sure that these goals are actually goals you really, REALLY want. Something with high long-term value. Only those are real goals.
Everything else is just something that would be nice to have today (and may be forgotten tomorrow).
Make it a few but important goals. If you have 20 goals, you basically have no goal. Because you just can’t keep your focus on that many goals.
You can find those goals by going through a proper goal-setting exercise.
If those are real goals you have, and you still have a hard time moving towards them…
I can tell you exactly why this happens.

One word: Fear.
You most likely fear the consequences of what happens when you reach your goals.
The fear of failure goes:
“What happens if I fail? What happens when my big dream won’t come true? What if I just don’t have what it takes? How disappointed and worthless will I feel?”
And the other side, the fear of success goes:
“What happens if I succeed? How will my life change? Am I really ready for that? What new challenges will come to me? Do I really want all that?”
The problem with fear is that it’s coming from the unconscious “reptilian” brain. And that might be in conflict with our conscious goal-setting.
The moment you get aware of your fear, you have a chance to overcome it.

Another word: Beliefs.
If you set goals that are in contrast to your beliefs and your values, you will get inner resistance.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set those goals.
On the contrary.
After all, compelling goals have the power to pull you towards a better life. That’s the power of goals: they work best if you really want to make a change.
Run a Check on Your Beliefs
What you can do is to get awareness about your beliefs.
For instance complete the following sentences:
“I want to reach my goal, but _________.”
“I haven’t reached my goal, because _________.”
Fill in the blanks and you will find some interesting limiting beliefs.
This is pretty powerful stuff. So do it!
And then you can even change your beliefs, so that they don’t limit you, but support you in your goal achievement. What a concept!

The third word: Habits.
When you set new goals that pull you out of your comfort zone and need you to form new habits, or give up old habits, you will feel resistance.
That’s something we call habit gravity.
The moment you start to form a new habit, your old habits that are in contrast to your new habits will pull you back down.
For instance when your goal is to start running every morning, you might do it the first 2 days. Then your old habit of sleeping longer will show his ugly face and resist the creation of your new habit.
So you have to escape this habit gravity. And that’s done by…

The last word: Focus.
You can radically improve your goal achievement if you learn how to focus your mind on your goals.
If you’ve set a powerful goal, a goal that is representing what you deeply desire inside, then your mental focus is your tool to make this goal your reality.
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” ~ Stephen Covey 
People think focus means to decide what to focus on. But in reality, this is not the main thing.
The main thing is to say no to all the things you could do, but which would distract you from your goal. To stay focus you need to learn to say no.
So learn stay focused on your goals and you’ve gone the next step.

http://www.myrkothum.com/reach-your-goals/

Your Daily Quote - Live a Full Life

We come this way but once. We can either tiptoe through life and hope that we get to death without being too badly bruised or we can live a full, complete life achieving our goals and realizing our wildest dreams. 
Bob Proctor

Achieving Goals - Visualisation

Success at attaining any goal can be measured by how effectively you are able to move an idea from your conscious (imagination) to your subconscious (belief/action). That is why visualization is so important. When you visualize something in your conscious mind, your subconscious doesn’t know that it is only in your imagination. It watches the movie taking place in your thoughts and accepts that they are actually happening in that moment.

The subconscious mind is a captive audience for the movies we play in our head.

A good story evokes powerful mental images. Combining a good story with powerful mental images and a strong emotional response is the essence of visualization. It has the power to reshape our perception of reality, and once that happens, reality conforms to that new perception.

Once you practice visualization in your life, you will see its power firsthand:

Write down your goals. Visualization starts with an idea and a crystal clear picture of what you want. Be specific.

Create a vision board. At its core, a vision board is a set of visual images that represent the story you are telling yourself about who are and what your life is like. It’s a way of getting clear on the life you want to create for yourself. To help you create a vision board, see my book, The Complete Vision Board Kit. It comes with a DVD, sample vision board and tools to help you create your vision board.

Act as if. State your goals in the present tense like you have already achieved them. One of the most important elements of creation is the ability to see yourself already in possession of the materialistic or physical state you are creating, prior to actual evidence of such.

Take action. Don’t just visualize. For a plant to grow, it’s not enough to simply plant it and wait. You have your work to do too.

Practice repetition. Look at the images on your vision board every day. Repetitiveness of vision combined with your associated emotions will develop your power to visualize and achieve your goals.

- See more at: http://johnassaraf.com/category/goal-achieving-2#sthash.IzuHGcCB.dpuf

The Power of Visualization for Achieving Your Goals

by John Assaraf

Professional athletes and other highly successful people use the power of visualization technique on a regular basis. Why? Results of a 20-year study of the effects of visualization on results revealed an amazing discovery. Humans see pictures on the screen of the mind when thoughts are being processed; i.e. when they think of things.

For example, if a person, let’s say, George, stopped doing what he was doing right now, closed his eyes and thought of his car. What would he see? Is it the word CAR that pops up on the screen of his mind or a visual image?

Mentally, here’s what is actually happening…

George is accessing a memory from his mind that was instilled while he was first learning what a “car” is. Then specifically, his present car popped up. He didn’t always know it was called a car.

Similarly, other humans associate names with images or other forms of stimuli as a way to refer back to them in the mind. And here’s an example of why this simple talent is so important.

Let’s go back to George for a moment. When he goes to find his car after he’s been at a shopping mall, all he is focusing on is finding the image that he has inside his head for his car. He quickly scans the parking lot and with lightning speed eliminates all other cars until he finds the familiar one that he is focused on.

With this example in mind, here is a behind-the-scenes look at how to use visualization to achieve any goal.

Visualize an outcome you want over and over again to build ‘cells of recognition’ in your memory bank, just like you may have had with a car or other learned object when you were younger. This serves in the following two ways.

First: you become consciously and acutely aware of everything that can help you achieve the visualized outcome that you desire. (Just like looking for a car). You quickly scan over anything that is not in tune with that image.

When you continuously focus on an image in your mind, every cell in your body is involved in that image and you vibrate and resonate with everything that is in harmony with that frequency both on a physical and non-physical level. This frequency moves you towards, and moves everything that is needed towards you, for the manifestation of the desired image.

Second: you impress an idea into the subconscious part of you, it eventually becomes ‘fixed’ and you automatically attract and move towards that which you desire.

The reason athletes practice visualization is because they want to condition their mind in such a way that the body automatically behaves the way they want it to without effort. It is the only way to become ‘unconsciously competent’.

The same is true for highly successful people. If they visualize the success they want over and over again, eventually their bodies will automatically do whatever it must to make the image a physical reality.

The outside world is a mirror image of the inside and hidden mental world. Unfortunately, very few people have really taken the time to learn this side of their personality. And that is unfortunate because this is the part that is so powerful.

To visualize is to direct unseen energy into an orderly vibration and that is what is needed to manifest desires of the inner self. Desires must first be created in thoughts and then they are created in ‘ real life’. Humans are the sum of what they think about and focus on most.

- See more at: http://johnassaraf.com/goal-achieving-2/the-power-of-visualization-for-achieving-your-goals#sthash.2Y2TCoLi.dpuf

John Assaraf Answers Your Questions LIVE

John Assaraf answers questions on achieving your goals

Your Daily Quote - Setting Goals

“Aim higher in case you fall short.” 

― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

5 R Process to Achieve your Goals - John Assaraf

Before you even start creating your SMART goals, build the right foundations, using this knowledge of how your brain works and reacts to reality...