NLP is a methodology for modelling excellence, and NLP presuppositions are not beliefs, laws, governing rules or regulations, but are attitudes which lead to excellence. NLP presuppositions are an unbiased and compelling set of beliefs that one can choose to incorporate into their lives.
It is important to remember that NLP’s primary focus is not on whether a specific belief is true or not, but rather on how effective it is as a means to attaining or achieving a specific desire or goal.
The Core Presuppositions of NLP
1: Everyone’s paradigm of the world is RIGHT in their eyes.
It doesn’t matter how other people are towards us, what they say to us, what they believe or how we feel they are towards us. What matters is that we acknowledge that everyone is ‘right’ in their eyes.
It’s easy to judge others for what they say, particularly is we deem what they say as offensive, immoral or “wrong”. However, refraining from judging them and accepting what they say it the “right” way of thinking to them can help us challenge their thought processes by unfolding what they believe and coming to understand better why they think that way.
2: The response determines the meaning of a communication.
People focus too much on the responses they get rather than the communication they gave out which provoked such responses. The meaning of our communications is always determined by other people, not by us. Thus we can only truly gauge the calibre if our communications by analysing the responses that we receive.
3: The mind and body operate in tandem with each other.
Our health is incredibly complex, and while we may be able to have physical ailments assessed by health practitioners and prescribe appropriate medication to treat them, our mind very often plays a role in our physical health.
4: People respond more to perception than reality itself.
Most of us believe our reactions are justifiable and understandable responses to the world around us. We turn on our computers; we can become saddened, angered and frustrated with the stories on our newsfeeds. If a pedestrian suddenly steps out in front of our car, we blast our horn in both fright and frustration; or, if our flight gets delayed by seven hours, we may become irate, defeated or disappointed.
These examples are objectively true. There was murder in the news, someone stepped in front of your car, and your flight got delayed. There’s no room for debate, contemplation or critical analysis of the legitimacy of these examples. Yet, despite the objectivity of their reality, people respond to these events differently. The varied and contrasting responses to certain events can be quite disturbing to many people.
The reason why everyone responds differently to the same objective truths is that people’s responses are driven more by their perceptions than reality itself. To positively influence other people, we must be aware of the role our perceptions play in our lives and our natural inclination sometimes to misinterpret information based on our personal cognitive biases.
5: People respond more to their experience than reality.
Our experiences inform the assumptions and conclusions we arrive at in life. A teacher who tells a child they aren’t clever enough at mathematics or history may arrive at the assumption that they are unintelligent. This belief subsequently follows the child into adulthood, and they stop learning or engaging in their fields of interest because they believe themselves too unintelligent to venture into the unknown.
6: The map is not the territory.
People respond to signs rather than things; people respond to their experiences rather than reality itself. Two people can see the same event, but both have two completely different responses to it; this is because we don’t have access to reality as it is; we do not know the truth. We experience reality through our senses, our filter systems, our beliefs — our own personal ‘map’ of reality, which has an agenda written into it. NLP works by modifying the ‘maps’ that are not currently working for a client into something far more useful; you can add more data in, try laying on different meanings or enrich your internal library by drawing up new comparisons.
7: Evaluate behaviour should in light of the intent behind it.
The gauge we use to measure ourselves is usually very different from the one we use for other people. We’re always very quick to judge the intentions of other people, but despise it when others are quick to judge us without taking the time to understand our true intentions.
We need to apply the same logic behind how we wish others would evaluate our intention and extend them to other people. Rather than respond or react to someone’s actions, words or behaviours, we take the time to step back and evaluate the intentions behind what they say and do, i.e. are they fear-based, founded in ignorance or are they good, but uninformed etc.?
8: Everyone does their best with the resources they have.
Behind every behaviour is a positive intention. No one goes out of their way to consciously sabotage themselves; everyone always strives to do their best with the resources they have available to them. While we may never fully comprehend the motives of others, it’s important to assume the positive intentions underlying and influencing their behaviour.
While the positive intention of behaviour, particularly bad behaviour, is very rarely visible, and usually incredibly difficult to decipher, it’s crucial to remember it’s there. No smoker smokes to purposely damage their health: they smoke because the habit gives them some positive feelings about themselves. Rather than assuming the worst in people based on their behaviour, be gentle and understanding, and apply the same empathy to yourself.
9: People make the best choice they can at the time.
Everyone has options in life, but people can become very judgemental of those who choose to engage or behave in ways which are different from theirs.
Everyone can only make the best decisions for them in their life based on their circumstances and life-experience, so holding back from projecting your evaluations on what someone should do according to your understand and position in life.
10: Accept all people, influence their behaviour when needed.
Unconditional acceptance is easy for some people to give to those close to them (note that I said some people, not everyone). But unconditional acceptance is even harder to extend to those outside people’s immediate sphere of influence.
Some parents struggle to accept their children for who they are unconditionally, and many more struggle to accept strangers for who they are (particularly if those strangers hold opposing values to their own).
Unconditional acceptance is a beautiful skill to adopt, not just for those close to you, but for everyone. The key to this is to separate who a person in from their behaviours. People are not what they do in life – there’s more to them than that.
11: People have all the resources needed for change.
All change is only ever one decision away, and all of us have free will. I have a goal to help you become more aware of your potential and assist you in working towards your own desired outcomes in life. We all have the resources and ability to achieve all the things that we want in our personal lives.
12: There are no incapable people, only unhelpful states.
We can either panic and become depressed about where we are in life, what we don’t know and what we haven’t accomplished. Or, we can ask ourselves what we need to do, learn and think to get closer to where we want to be in life. Disempowered people wait for the world to change for them to have a better life, empowered people make the changes needed to better their lives.
No one is incapable of anything they put their minds to, but unhelpful states such as melancholy, depression, stress or anxiety don’t bring about positive or productive change. Nothing about your life will change unless you make the change.
13: The possibilities we have are restricted only by the strategies and beliefs we have.
We don’t always have the most effective strategies or healthiest beliefs in place for our life to grow the way we want. This means that all those times you failed aren’t reflective of your capabilities, but rather, what strategies and thought processes you had at the time.
You can only manage life with the resources you have available to you, and you add many resources to your metaphorical toolkit as you grow and gain experience in life. Just because you weren’t ready to set up a business at twenty-five doesn’t mean you can’t try again now you’re in your forties. Your failures don’t define your abilities – they merely define how well you were equipped at the time.
14: There is no failure, only unhelpful feedback.
Some people won’t take the risks they want to today because they define themselves by their past failures. When you are failing or succeeding, you’re only ever doing so according to other people’s standards.
These human-made, authorial standards are artificial. The reality of your “failures” is abstract – it’s merely a constructed perception you’ve adopted from societal norms around you. There is no such thing as feedback, only well-intended yet unhelpful feedback from authorial figures who construct the concepts of “failure” and “success”.
15: There is always an alternative course of action available.
You can always change your attitudes, direction, behaviours, habits, and perspectives about things. You’re never condemned to live life a certain way – you can do whatever you want with it, and you can think about your life with whatever perspective you want to adopt.
There is no such thing as being out of options unless you keep your perspective remains closed off. There’s always a possible action available to you.
16: All principles and procedures should increase awareness.
NLP places a lot of emphasis on broadening and challenging one’s perspectives. The principles and procedures you adopt in life shouldn’t be those which fit your narrative and perspective, but rather, should be open enough to suit other perspectives.
Having open-ended principles and approaches in life give you the space to grow and change within them. Otherwise, controlled and closed principles and procedures will lead to stagnancy.
17: Personal responsibility precedes personal empowerment.
Every person is solely responsible for the thoughts, feelings, actions and behaviour. It is taking responsibility which breeds empowerment.
We cannot grow and change in an area of our life which we have not owned. It is essential to remember at all times that responsibility breeds empowerment. No one will own our problems for us; we have to accept that nearly everything we struggle with is within our power to change and no one else’s, and if it’s not within our power to change, it’s within our power to change our attitude.