What is NLP?

Or Neuro-Linguistic Programming? Or even Neurolinguistic Programming?

NLP is a bit like an 'owners manual' for your brain!

At school and college we learned wonderful things like history and geography and algebra but we did not learn much about how to feel good or to have great relationships. That's where NLP comes in.

NLP is a set of insights and skills...

...with which you can actively use your mind and your emotions and your body to run your own life more successfully and to communicate with other people with 'extra-ordinary' effectiveness.

NLP is an ever-growing collection of information and insights, backed up by a huge range of mental NLP Techniques that can enable you to improve how you think, behave and feel - and assist others do the same. Becoming skilled in NLP will enable you to:

	do whatever you already do reasonably well, even better
	acquire skills and attitudes to do what you cannot do right now, but would like to be able to do
	think more clearly
	communicate more effectively with others
	manage your thoughts, moods and behaviours more effectively.

NLP: ‘the study of success’

NLP has been variously described as the technology of the mind, the science of achievement, and the study of success. It is based upon the search for and the study of the factors which account for either success or failure in human performance.

For over thirty years NLP explorers have studied or ‘modelled’ the behaviour and thinking styles of particularly effective and successful people in business, education, sales, therapy, sport, and personal development.

The results of this work are nowadays presented in workshops and extended trainings which, in effect, provide shortcuts to more successful living - you learn in hours what may have taken the experts years to discover by trial and error.

How is it possible to be an idiot... or an expert?

At our Pegasus NLP courses we consider that the question how is it possible to be an idiot or an expert? expresses the essence of the NLP attitude and skills. This is because with NLP we can identify the attitude and the skills that produces either type of performance.

In a practical and pragmatic way we identify the ingredients of excellent performance and look at how we can integrate these into our own performance. And, equally important, we can look at the ingredients of less-than-helpful performance, in ourselves or in others, and explore how best to remedy these.

NLP - that name!

The name Neuro-Linguistic Programming was an attempt to describe in a succinct manner the scope of this extensive body of insights and skills:

	Neuro refers to how the mind and body interact
	Linguistic refers to the insights into a person’s thinking that can be obtained by careful attention to their use of language
	Programming refers, not to the activity of programming, but to the study of the thinking and behavioural patterns or ‘programmes’ which people use in their daily lives.

The name is a bit of a mouthful and is certainly not NLP's strongest asset. By trying to be too comprehensive it has ended up being somewhat off-putting, either because it sounds complicated or, worse, that it sounds sinister (many people initially think the 'programming' part of the name suggests that NLP has something to do with 'being programmed'!).

But the name Neuro-Linguistic Programming has been around for over 30 years so it looks like we are stuck with it. Which is why it is generally abbreviated to the initials NLP.

You could say that NLP has become successful not because of the title but in spite of it. And, let's face it - if something with such a weird name can become this popular it must be good - because the title does it no favours at all!

What they've said about it

Science Digest said that NLP 'could be the most important synthesis of knowledge about human communications to emerge since the sixties.'

Time Magazine announced that 'NLP has untapped potentials for treating individual problems.'

Training & Development Journal reported that NLP 'offers the potential for making changes without the usual agony that accompanies these phenomena' and that it 'allows for increasing options, flexibility, creativity and therefore greater freedom of action than most of us know.'

Best-selling author and motivational speaker Anthony Robbins said that NLP is 'an incredibly effective and enjoyable way to access more of the true potential of your brain.' 

What our participants have said

We've been running NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner certification courses since the early 90's. Click on this link to read what people have said about our NLP courses.

Click on these links for more information about NLP

NLP FAQ

Why learn NLP

How to learn NLP

Where to learn NLP - and how to choose a training provider

NLP Core Skills - our course in the New Forest

What's special about Pegasus NLP Trainings

What people have said about our courses

How we integrate NLP with outdoor activities