What is NLP? | Eastern Daily Press

If you had told Tracy Ward decades ago that she would help people get over their emotional issues, she would have been shocked.

Moving up the corporate ladder in accounting, the current consultant has spent 30 years working in financial transformation, systems and processes.

“But I knew, maybe about 10 to 12 years ago, that wasn’t what I wanted to do forever,” she says. When the opportunity to voluntarily quit presented itself, Tracy jumped at the opportunity to move from transforming things in the business world to reshaping her own life.

“My husband had been made redundant the year before. And when our office closed, I didn’t know what to do next. It was time to think differently. To do something different. I was looking for a coach to train, to find out more (my husband was training as a tennis coach at the time) and saw a free weekend class that looked interesting. I kept looking at him and then I finally clicked the button and he said “next I thought ‘no no’. I did not know what NLP [neuro-linguistic programming] was!

“But it was free, so I went anyway, and it really blew me away. The way I describe him is that he took all of the pieces of life for me and created an image that I could relate to.

“It wasn’t all new, but it helped put everything in place. I was so excited I wanted to do more. To be honest, my husband initially thought I had been brainwashed, but as an accountant I tend to be cautious. I booked the next level as a practitioner, then I became a master practitioner, and then went on to train as a trainer.

Since that first accidental reservation, Tracy has continued to allow others to share and teach the NLP technique.

What is NLP?

“The way I describe NLP is like a manual for the brain. Once you know how the mind works, you can regularly nurture it and make it work. When you need to give it more va va voom, you’ll know how to fix it. It’s a toolbox of strategies and techniques to help you do that, ”says Tracy.

“Simply put, our whole neurological system is connected. So are our thoughts and physiology. Then there is the language. Every time we speak our thoughts run through us and we don’t always realize what we are giving unintentionally. When you start to understand different language models, you can read a lot more in what others are saying.

“NLP helps to program our behaviors. So, for example, when we get up in the morning, we will naturally put our left or right leg down first. We can put on our left sock or our right sock first. If we try to change the order from right to left, it will feel strange until we practice it and get better. We run these kinds of programs every day in everything from getting dressed to brewing a cup of tea. And if we do something new, our approach will generally be the same.

“If we’re going to achieve something we’ve never done before, or say ‘this approach doesn’t work for me’, we have to do it differently. Once we gain a better understanding of our own programming and unconscious behaviors, we can think about how we can change.

Who can help NLP?

“A lot of my clients have a story similar to mine. They’ve had a professional role and are getting to the point where they recognize that it’s no longer about chasing the dollar or climbing the career ladder. They want a balance and don’t know how to achieve it.

“Very often, it is professional women in this situation. It’s also the business owners who feel a bit stuck, thinking “am I good enough?” Then there are the managers who find it difficult to connect with their team. I tend to work with them one-on-one, as well as in groups to build personal development. I am also passionate about golf and work with professionals in this field. We run sessions specifically to help with the state of mind on the golf course.

What problems can it solve?

“It’s great for clarity. Help people think about what they want to accomplish and how to achieve it. Then it is about capacity building. So you take the stress and anxiety and, with clarity, begin to understand what drives those feelings.

“So you might be anxious about giving a talk, going to an interview, or meeting new people. One question I would ask is “what would you like to happen?” “.

“Capacity building allows you to think about what resources or skills you need to be able to talk to someone. Then we can help work on those, so that every thought is encoded in our mind. We can work to adapt the coding a bit. It won’t change us or our memories, but it will change the way we interpret things. Amy Cuddy talks about “pretending until you do.” If you act with confidence and act on the skills you need, these behaviors will become second nature.

“Confidence can also be improved through NLP by getting rid of limiting beliefs. There are different ways to change them because, at the end of the day, a belief is just that – a belief. They are thoughts. They don’t have to be real. If someone is feeling anxious about going to meet someone, that feeling of “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not worth their time” can come into play. We are working to change these thoughts. Once you know what you want out of a situation, it can go a long way in improving your self-confidence. And once you know more about yourself, what drives these triggers and how to overcome them, that’s when you will develop your resilience and know how to deal with your feelings.

To find out more or to join one of Tracy’s beginner’s courses, visit tracy-ward.co.uk

If you are suffering from stress, anxiety, or doubt, could NLP help you get back on the right track?
– Credit: Getty Images / iStockphoto

Three NLP Techniques You Should Try Now

1. It’s easy. Think about a little problem you had today. Something minor. Like “there was no milk in the fridge this morning”, or “the kids didn’t want to get dressed”. Feel that frustration. Now get up, look at the ceiling, and smile. Try to think about that negative feeling again. It shouldn’t be that easy. Every thought that you have creates a feeling that you manifest impulsively. So if you’re cranky, your shoulders might sag. If you are happy you will smile. Once we change our reaction, we can tell the difference. So we started to sit down and we went to get up. We smiled. We have moved our eyes upwards. Your eyes move to different places depending on how you access your thoughts. They will therefore tend to descend to the right if you are frustrated. As soon as you look up, you disconnect from this feeling. Changing the way you hold yourself and act can have a huge impact on your thoughts.

2. We are good at criticizing ourselves. “I should have said this”, “I should have done that”. ‘What if?’ These words and the word “try” imply that we will not be successful. Instead, stand up, step away from your chair, look at where you were sitting, and observe from a third person perspective. Detach yourself. Instead of “I” rate the situation as “Tracy did this”, “Tracy could have done that”. You have to separate yourself from your own internal critic.

3. Our experience of the world goes through our senses – from sight to touch, taste and smell. Sometimes we’ll be filtering so that we don’t always see or hear everything that is going on. We disconnect. And sometimes we will distort situations, or generalize them. When we generalize things that are not useful, it will come out in our language – “I’ll never be able to explain”, “I’m always late”, “I always hash”. Most of these things can be true, but not always. So when we think of it this way, we create the problem. If I coach someone and they say “every time”, I take that language back and say “is it really every time?” Tell me about a time when that didn’t happen ”. This forces a challenge. Forces us to think differently. You might think “I’m not good at my job”. But who told you that? Who told you that? Is this the case every day? Probably not.