Everything has a structure. From liquid, to diamonds and even paragraphs to ideas. Its structure holds it intact and gives it meaning.

Did you know that your experience also has a structure?

Your thoughts and memories have a pattern to them. When you change the pattern, or structure, your experience will automatically change. Because of that, you can neutralise unpleasant memories and enrich those that serve you.

If what you see above Malaysia? Or it the map of Malaysia? If you own the map or print out the visual, do you hold in your hands Malaysia? Of merely the map of Malaysia?

With the map above, can you go to Betong? Does it show you where Bekenu is?

Similarly, our mental maps of the world is not the world. Yet, daily we respond to our maps, rather than directly to the world.

How do we create this map?

Through how we experience the world and interpret that experience. The good news is your map can easily be updated, just as easily as you create them.

Plus, wouldn’t it be easier to change your map of the world than to change the world?

NLP, or neurolinguistic programming, focuses on how your thoughts, actions and feelings work together right now to produce your experience. On the other hand, traditional clinical psychologists set out to describe difficulties, then categorising them and search for historical causes.

If you compare the two, clinical psychology starts with the question of “what’s wrong?” NLP, however, accepts the mind being alright, only the way it’s being used – consciously or otherwise – may be impairing.

By now, it’s probably clear that NLP is based on principles that are distinct from traditional psychology. The foundations of NLP rests in what are known collectively as Presuppositions of NLP.

All the 10 Presuppositions which you will be able to discover as the weeks progress can be summarised into one: people work perfectly.

What we do – our thoughts and actions – combined with what we feel produce specific results. Repeat the pattern all over again, you will get the same results.

Take, for example, you waking up in the morning. You want to wake up an hour earlier from before. However, you did not set the alarm nor did you change your sleeping pattern. Can you predict what the results of that will be?

You’ll wake up at the same time as before. The process works perfectly.

So, if you want to change the results, you need to change your thoughts, actions and feelings.

After you’ve understood specifically how you create and maintain your inner thoughts and feelings, changing them with something more useful becomes easy and effortless!

And the NLP Presuppositions are the foundations to achieve exactly that!

This post is inspired by a long-time friend who shared a problem. I decided to share it because it affects many people who want to change.

I’m not sure [what I want to change]. Because sometimes I aim… But in the end nothing happens… Then there’s the fear of meeting people…

This is the reply I got to from an inquiry regarding my Personal Development NLP Session. In whatever light you want to see this in, it’s a common struggle many people face. It is internal conflicts like this which hampers many from being the person they can be.

There are many ways people use to address this dilemma. While others successfully use positive and healthy means, there are people who succumb. The later resort to substances and alcohol, reckless activities that endanger themselves and people around them, or even go mad.

Through NLP Sessions, what NLP Practitioners will do is ask questions – some which you may feel weird. Good NLP Practitioners will use meta questioning models to really discover the deep rooted problem.

Let me take a possible weight loss client. When she comes to me for a weight loss session, I’ll ask her on how she feels about the goal, how would it be like if she achieved it, what happens if she doesn’t.

After covering the surface, using the meta questioning method, I’ll dive deeper. Asking more and more about emotions and memories, guiding my client to explore her subconscious.

From there, we will work on the remedy.

If this is not done, the chances of relapse are high. I reckon this would be the limitations of popular motivation: it does not address the root.