Saturday, 16 May 2015

NLP is best learnt experientially

Experience will teach you not to park your car where there is yellow flag - it grows in wet ground. 

NLP is best learnt experientially
Chris Collingwood
I recently responded to a discussion question on a forum where a question was asked
about the criteria for choosing a NLP training course.
Here is my response. 
Comprehensiveness of the particular training program
and the attitude/state of the NLP student.
I would also suggest another couple of ideas to consider when choosing a NLP program,
the exactitude of the course content and skill of the trainer.

Let’s address the key ideas.
Comprehensiveness of the training program. NLP is best learnt experientially
as Grinder and Bostic state “A pattern presented belongs to the presenter,
a pattern discovered belongs to the discoverer”.
Courses where the trainer/s creates a context and experience where the student
embodies the desired pattern as a by-product of that exercise
and then through skilled facilitation ‘discovers’ the pattern is an ideal way of learning NLP.
The course participants are more likely to take ownership of the pattern
and are more likely to generalize that pattern into multiple contexts.
This approach to training NLP takes more time.
It also takes a lot of skill by the trainer to do this type of training well.

The attitude and state of the student.
Taking NLP patterns and applying them actively in the world is in my view a terrific way
to develop skill. In the research from the branch of psychology that studies
expertise and expert performance they have what is know as the 10,000 hour or 10 year rule.
Which states that experts spend about 10,000 hours or 10 years practicing
the constituent patterns of their domain of expertise to acquire expertise.
Of course they are referring to ‘perfect practice’ as in ‘perfect practice makes perfect’.
Naturally having exquisite models of excellence and high quality explicit models makes a difference.

Quality of course content.
Does the program teach NLP? That is a provocative question.
Most NLP courses teach some NLP and unfortunately many teach other material that simply isn’t. Over the 34 years that I have been learning and applying NLP
there has been a gradual increase in content models introduced and taught in NLP programs.
NLP is a model creation endeavor.
And for a model to be part of the body of NLP it must be created from patterns.
The form / content distinction is paramount in whether a models and its constituent patterns
are part of NLP or not. Unfortunately, Bandler and Grinder lost control of NLP
and frankly some trainers don’t know what is and is not NLP.
Read Whispering in the Wind by Bostic and Grinder and our paper on The New Code of NLP;
A paradigm shift in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. 

The skill of the trainer.
Personally I think it takes a good 10 years of disciplined practice in NLP to become a skilled trainer. The best trainers that I know in the NLP community have multiple descriptions of NLP.
One way to get that is to study with a variety of skilled trainers.
When I started learning NLP in ’79 I read all the books that had been published to date,
and repeated my practitioner and master practitioner trainings with different trainers
and different training organisations. In my case that involved travelling overseas.
My partner Jules Collingwood and I continue to attend at least one NLP training
with other trainers each year. Either travelling to do so or by bringing trainers
to work through our training organization.
I have been attending or sponsoring Grinder/Bostic programs since 1984.
As well as attending or sponsoring programs with other trainers.

These ideas were part of the motivation for Jules and I to develop and accredit
through the government a formal post-graduate qualification in NLP
our 22133VIC Vocational Graduate Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
http://www.nlp.com.au/nlp-blog/69/nlp-is-best-learnt-experientially.html


Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blog:
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    for extra TCR information
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

1 comment:

  1. Taking an NLP training is like learning the language of your mind.
    Learn NLP

    ReplyDelete