Learn and apply NLP techniques and methods

NLP techniques come in various forms, depending on the multitude of NLP application areas. They can target individuals, but also couples and entire groups. While some NLP techniques take only a few minutes, others require significantly more time.

One focus is on training perception. Perception is a prerequisite for successful communication: Only those who see what their own words and body language trigger can respond accordingly and act according to their needs. With appropriate language models, language patterns, and so-called representational systems, a deeper connection with the conversation partner can be established.

There are techniques that give one the ability to adjust one's emotional states to the requirements of a situation – essential not only for better well-being within oneself but also advantageous for appropriate communication with conversation partners. Additionally, there are techniques that can change the way we perceive our reality to reconstruct it anew. This allows different situations to be assigned new meanings, thus finding entirely new possibilities to deal with them.

A specific type of NLP techniques is the strategies that control and steer human behavior. In NLP, methods were developed that allow one to adopt the Strategies from experts to optimize creativity, flexibility, motivation, and decision-making processes. At an advanced level, one learns how to replicate human peak performance: One identifies the patterns of successful people to make them usable for oneself.

Top 10 Techniques

1. Rapport
2. Anchor Techniques
3. Reframing
4. Swish Technique
5. Fast-Phobia
6. Core Transformation
7. Disney Strategy
8. Mentor Technique
9. diamond technique
10. Praline Pattern

Calibrating

Calibrating is the ability to recognize externally perceivable characteristics and assign them to a state. For example, after I have attuned myself well to my counterpart, I can recognize from a subtle change in their face whether a suggestion is well received or if perhaps more arguments are needed.

Calibrating is not pacing. Nevertheless, a fine perception, as required for calibrating, is an important prerequisite for pacing. Calibrating initially means only that I extract information from the voice, face, or other body reactions. Whether I then mirror (pace) this is another matter.

Exercise in pairs:

• Person A thinks of a person they like. Person B pays attention to the physiology of Person A.
• Then Person A thinks of a person they do not like. Person B again pays attention to the physiology of the person.
• Then Person B asks Person A questions and tries to find out which person it is based on the physiology. Questions include "Which person has more temperament?", "Which person lives further away?", "Which person ...?"

Mirroring

Mirroring refers to physically adapting to posture, gestures, breathing, facial expressions, movements, or weight shifts, muscle tone, etc. Here, one adapts like a mirror to everything they can see.

Exercise:
Mirror the body movements of other people and build rapport with them.

Pacing

Pacing means adapting to the other person in their entire visual and auditory expression behavior. The other person is met where they are. For example, I like to pace the speaking speed, rhythm, and tone of the other person. This category also includes everything that belongs to mirroring.

Exercise:
Call a friend and pace their speaking speed and volume on the phone. Also pay attention to their favorite phrases.

Rapport

When people meet, their expression behavior usually adapts to each other, either consciously or unconsciously. The more positively they view the contact, the stronger their similarities in communication will be. This effect can be used in reverse by mirroring the behavior of the counterpart and thus Rapport (building a positive interpersonal relationship). Rapport can be established with "mirroring" and "pacing."

Exercise:
Observe people on the street, in restaurants, at public events, and wherever you find yourself in the near future, whether there is rapport between the involved persons or not.

Anchor Techniques

Anchoring is a conscious conditioning of a stimulus with a reaction, allowing feelings to be stored for later recall. This way, one can, for example, put oneself in a resourceful state to better cope with tasks.

Thus, an anchor can be set:
First, determine the resource, the state you would like to have "at the push of a button" and choose the anchor (can be a pressure on a body part) with which you want to retrieve this state.

• Fully associate yourself with an experience where you had the desired resource available.
• Activate the chosen anchor just before the peak, i.e., the highest intensity of the resourceful state.
• Separator: Interrupt the state, e.g., with a distracting question.
• Test: Trigger the anchor again to test if it works.

Representational Systems

Representational Systems describe how we perceive the world through the five senses, with each person placing a different emphasis (VAKOG = visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, gustatory). One of the typical representational systems is the VAKOG model.

VAKOG

According to the NLP model, VAKOG people use their own five sensory channels with different emphases.

• V: Visual – Seeing
• A: Auditory – Hearing
• K: Kinesthetic – Touching/Feeling
• O: Olfactory – Smell
• G: Gustatory – Taste

Exercise:
Listen to your favorite songs and identify the various sensory-specific words.

Eye Movement Patterns

Short, unconscious movements of the eyes in certain directions provide insight into what is going on in the other person. Generally, it can be said that information is remembered on the left and constructed on the right. Visual and auditory memories are therefore on the left, and visual and auditory constructions are on the right. Additionally, there is the retrieval of feelings (eyes go down) and the inner dialogue (eyes go left down). These Eye Movement Patterns are a generalization that does not always hold true. Note: For left-handed individuals, the sides are usually reversed.

Exercise:
Observe the eye movements of participants during television interviews.

Reframing

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare. You decide what meaning you give to things by placing them in a certain frame. In the so-called Reframing, something is reinterpreted to achieve a shift in perspective.

Reframing is one of the strongest and most frequently used concepts in NLP. The ability to view things from a different perspective is the essence of "Outside the Box" thinking. That is why it is worthwhile to understand and practice reframing at a mastery level.

Exercise:
What private problem can you turn into a challenge?

Six-Step Reframing

This format is particularly suitable for behaviors and symptoms whose meaning is not clear to consciousness. The 6-step program changes unwanted behaviors by making better alternatives available. The core of the intervention is the distinction between intention and behavior.

• Step 1: Identify the unwanted behavior
• Step 2: Communicate with the part of you that is responsible for it
• Step 3: What positive intention is behind it?
• Step 4: Be creative and develop a new behavior
• Step 5: Introduce the new behavior for the future
• Step 6: Eco-check

More on: Six-Step Reframing

Submodalities

Imagine a positive experience from your life: enlarge this image, mix in more color, and add sounds and tones. The Submodalities allow you to quickly influence your own emotional life and get rid of annoying habits or fears.

The extraction of submodalities:
Person A enters a positive state. Person B asks about the submodalities. Then Person A goes into a less pleasant state that they want to destress later. Person B also asks about the submodalities here. Now the submodalities of the two states can be compared. What differences become visible?

The following questions can be asked:

• Visual: What do you see? Are you associated or dissociated? Is it a picture or a film? Rather close or far?
• Auditory: What do you hear? Are there voices, noises, sounds, or silence? Where do the sounds come from? Loud or quiet?
• Kinesthetic: What body feelings do you feel? Where in the body do you feel them? Do you feel warm or cold?

Swish Technique

Do you want to resolve an unwanted behavior right now? With the Swish Technique, unwanted habits can be changed and strong positive motivation can be built. In the standard swish, the submodalities: size, brightness, and distance are used. This works very well in many cases. Briefly described, in the swish, the target image becomes larger, brighter, and comes closer, while the unwanted image becomes smaller, darker, and moves away.

• Step 1: Find an unwanted behavior
• Step 2: Imagine the triggering image (Associated). What immediately precedes the unwanted behavior?
• Step 3: Create a target image (Dissociated). How can someone from the outside recognize that you are a person for whom ... is not a problem?
• Step 4: The Swish. Make a swish with the two images. Start by seeing the triggering image of the context as large and bright. Then place a small dark image of the target vision in the lower right corner. The small dark image will grow larger and cover the first image, which will simultaneously fade and shrink as quickly as you can say "Swish".
• Step 5: Repeat 7 times
• Step 6: Now imagine the first image. What happens?

Fast-Phobia

With this NLP technique, it is possible to eliminate phobias in a very short time. Imagine a phobic situation dissociated as a black-and-white film. Now play the film in color and associated backwards. This will dissolve the phobia after several applications.

• Step 1: Now think of a situation in which you reacted with stress/fear.
• Step 2: Now step out of the state again.
• Step 3: Imagine you are in a cinema watching a black-and-white film of this situation with a double of yourself.
• Step 4: Imagine the inner film and how your double slowly approaches the critical situation and then experiences the stress-inducing event.
• Step 5: At the worst point, you now pause the film, as if you were pausing a video and a still image appears.
• Step 6: Now go into the film (associated). You are now in the situation and see the film through your eyes with everything that is visible in the situation. Now bring color into the image.
• Step 7: Let the film now run back quickly until you are safe again. Now open your eyes.
• Step 8: Repeat this format from steps 3-7 several times and then test whether you are still able to elicit a stress reaction at the thought of step 1. If so, go through the format again. If not, test the result in reality at your convenience.

Meta-Model

Language is not only the foundation for clear communication but also for quick and targeted change. With the Meta-Model of language, you acquire one of the leading language tools of our time and can become a master of spoken language. The Meta-Model of language is a collection of numerous language patterns and types of questions. You can find the collection of language patterns here: Meta-Model.

Exercise:
Practice the Meta-Model alone by writing down a positive or negative experience and then self-meta-modeling: mark patterns in the text, question them, and provide the respective answers.

Milton Model

The Milton Model is a kind of reversal of the meta-model. While the meta-model is used to specify and clarify statements, the Milton model tends to be more artistic and vague. This nonspecific language serves to trigger trance states and help the listener access their inner resources. With the help of these language patterns of the Milton model, you can conduct a beautiful relaxation trance. However, you can also use the Milton model in business contexts, e.g., in presentations, to put the audience into pleasant emotional states or in sales conversations to create positive associations with your own products.

Time-Line

The Time-Line is a visual symbol, an NLP technique, through which one can temporally encode one's past, present, and future. It serves, for example, to plan goals. How does your timeline unfold? Do you live in time or through time? Use your own timeline to systematically plan your goals and gain clarity for your future.

How do we make it so that we temporally encode memories in some way, so that we immediately know which of two different memories is earlier and which is later? How does our brain differentiate between the future and the past? The basic hypothesis is that our brain spatializes temporal differences. This has been empirically confirmed in many people. The discovery of the timeline enables us to implement a large number of changes in a very short time.

Trance

A trance state is a different state of consciousness than the usual one. In this state, one is usually rather immobile and directs one's attention inward to an internally recalled or generated experience. The trance state has nothing to do with sleep, but it cannot be physiologically distinguished from meditation and relaxation. However, hypnosis is not to be equated with relaxation, as trance phenomena can also be produced without physical relaxation, and the ability to hypnotize is not trainable in contrast to relaxation. Nevertheless, the trance state is not unique and does not differ completely from everyday trances of the waking state, such as highway hypnosis or getting lost in a good book.

A method for inducing trance: the 5 4 3 2 1 method:
The method is based on language and is used with pacing and leading. At the beginning, five statements are 'paced' for the immediate experience of the person. Example: 'You are sitting on the chair.', 'You hear my voice.', 'Your hands rest on your thighs.', 'Your eyes are closed.', 'You are breathing.' Then comes a leading statement, with which the person is guided towards a goal: 'You begin to relax more and more.' Then it continues with four pacing statements and two leading statements.

Here is the further overview:

• Step 1: 5 pacing statements + 1 leading statement
• Step 2: 4 pacing statements + 2 leading statements
• Step 3: 3 pacing statements + 3 leading statements
• Step 4: 2 pacing statements + 4 leading statements
• Step 5: 1 pacing statement + 5 leading statements

Note:
Always go from outside to inside and from pacing to leading in the 5 4 3 2 1 method.

SMART method

Perhaps you know the following situation. You have a goal in mind, start working towards it, and after some time you realize that something is not working. Goals should be formulated specifically, measurably, attractively, realistically, and time-bound so that they can be achieved more easily and quickly.

• S(pecific): A goal should be specific, that is, formulated exactly and precisely.
• M(easurable): There should be a certain measurability so that progress is visible.
• A(ttractive): The goal should be attractive to you.
• R(ealistic): The goal should be achievable according to physical or other laws and personal characteristics.
• T(ime-bound): Set a time by which the goal should be achieved.

Exercise:
Is there something in your life that you have always wanted to do but never really managed? If you have found something, then formulate a well-formed goal that is specific, measurable, attractive, realistic, and time-bound. Write the goal on a piece of paper and hang it where you can see it often.

More on: SMART.

Strategies

Strategies are specific consciousness plans that help organize your thoughts and behavior to accomplish certain tasks. For example, there is the Walt Disney strategy or the TOTE model.

Each strategy also includes certain attitudes and beliefs. For example: "Being successful is possible and important for me."
Strategies are like the recipe we use to bake a cake: The ingredients are essential, the amount of each ingredient (whether one egg or ten) is crucial, and the order in which we combine them matters.

Perception positions 1-2-3

Do you perhaps have a conflict with someone right now? With your partner or with your parents, with children, with a friend, or with colleagues, so that you may not look forward to the next encounter, but rather feel something negative lingering? Through the three Perception positions, one can learn to perceive a situation from different perspectives (I-position, you-position, meta-position) in order to resolve this conflict. For this technique, the other person does not need to be present.

Parts negotiation

Do you know the feeling of being torn between two things? You want one thing, but also the other, and feel like you can't find a way out? The Parts negotiation is an NLP technique in which two or more parts (part personalities) that pursue different goals are connected.

• Step 1: Identify the problem
• Step 2: Separate the parts from each other
• Step 3: Characterize the parts and find their positive intentions
• Step 4: Let the parts communicate with each other
• Step 5: Find the higher common intention
• Step 6: Negotiate new behavior
• Step 7: Eco-check
• Step 8: Future pace

Neurological levels / Dilts pyramid

The neurological levels are interconnected levels of thinking: environment, behavior, abilities, belief/values and identity. Through these levels, it can be determined where a problem or goal lies in order to eliminate or achieve it. Robert Dilts designed the individual levels of the Dilts Pyramid model in the mid-80s. His underlying thought was to develop a tool that helps people better understand themselves and their surroundings. The Dilts Pyramid developed by Robert Dilts can help you find out at which level you currently are and which level you should best enter to successfully change yourself. With the help of the Dilts Pyramid, you can develop yourself in many ways as a person.

Beliefs

What do you believe in? Are there thoughts that distract you from your goals? Everyone knows that voice in their head that sometimes says: "You can't do it!" or "You can't do that!" A belief is the verbal expression of something that someone believes, something that someone considers true. Beliefs are an expression of inner models in NLP that each person continuously designs and must continuously design to orient themselves in the world. Other terms for this are: convictions, attitudes, beliefs, opinions.

Examples: "I am too young.", "I am too old.", "I don't have enough money.", "I don't have enough education."

Finding beliefs: What beliefs do you have? What do you think about life, your identity, your career, work, time, money, love, etc.? These beliefs often start with the phrases "I am...", "Life is..." etc.

Changing beliefs: How do I need to perceive the world to get what I wish for? What assumption optimally supports me in achieving my plans and goals? What beliefs does the person you want to be have?

Core Transformation

In the Core Transformation it is about identifying behaviors, feelings, and reactions that you do not like about yourself and using them to embark on an amazing and uplifting inner journey into the depths of your own being.

Examples:

• 1. Peace in being
• 2. Inner peace
• 3. Love
• 4. Being okay
• 5. Oneness

10 Steps of Core Transformation:

• Step 1: Choose a part to work on (experience the part, acknowledge it as belonging, welcome it)
• Step 2: Discover intention: "What do you want?"
• Step 3: Discover outcome chain
• Step 4: Reach and enjoy core state
• Step 5: Revise outcome chain with the help of the core state
• Step 6: Allow a part to grow up
• Step 7: Fully integrate the part into your own body
• Step 8: Revise the outcome chain with the help of the grown-up part
• Step 9: Look for opposing parts
• Step 10: Generalization of the timeline

Disney Strategy

This macro strategy goes back to Walt Disney, the co-founder of the world-famous Disney Company. Disney was a person with very pronounced dreams and visions. He separated three different phases of goal setting and distinguished them both spatially and temporally precisely from each other. These phases or positions were: the creative dreamer, the realistic planner, and the constructive critic. For each of these three positions, Walt Disney had a different space that also supported him through its furnishings in reaching a favorable mental state for the respective position.

• Step 1: Mark three different spots in the room.
• Step 2: Quickly go through the individual positions in the next steps to get a first impression of this strategy.
• Step 3: Take the position of the dreamer.
• Step 4: Remember a situation where you were creative and imaginative and develop creative ideas.
• Step 5: Leave the position of the dreamer and switch to a brief moment of neutral.
• Step 6: Now take the position of the realistic planner. Choose one of your dreamer's ideas that you want to plan now. How could you realize this idea?
• Step 7: Leave the position of the planner.
• Step 8: Take the position of the constructive critic. Remember a time or situation where you were constructive and critical, where you recognized obstacles and objections early on and knew exactly where the strengths and weaknesses of a plan lay. Look at the outcome of the dreamer and the planner. Feel into it and develop a sense for the plan. Where is something still missing? What has not yet been considered? Can you achieve your goal with this plan?

More on: Disney Strategy.

Future-Pace

This is an NLP technique through which the results of a change process can be projected into the future. The process in which a person explores their future visions for a specific context, a specific task, etc. Future-Pace is a standard procedure in NLP at the end of change techniques. A positive future vision after an NLP intervention is an indication that the desired change can occur naturally and automatically. A negative future vision is an indication that the NLP intervention used will have little impact on actual behavior in the future.

Eco-Check

Eco-check is a standard NLP technique that appears as a separate step in many techniques. The check is: "Is there anything that speaks against experiencing this situation differently from now on?"

Mentor Technique

In this format, it is about utilizing our inner potential and asking the question: How can we free ourselves from our limitations in thinking and instead expand our thinking to new possibilities?

The format uses virtual mentors that allow us to take a perspective shift and thus expand our own horizon. It teases out the hidden wisdom within us through our imagination to get answers.

• Step 1: Find a problematic situation
• Step 2: Experience this situation
• Step 3: Leave this situation again and consider 2-3 mentors. A mentor is an advisor, a counselor, a benevolent or wise friend. Your mentors can be real people, such as friends, acquaintances, or role models, as well as fictional characters, such as fairy tale figures or characters from movies.
• Step 4: Now put yourself in the position of each of your mentors one by one
• Step 5: When you have left the position of the last mentor, think about it again
• Step 6: Next time, try to heed and implement the advice of your mentors

Diamond technique

The special thing about the diamond technique is that the problem is not solved with this technique, but rather dissolved by it. Goals should also not just be achieved with this technique, but should first be examined more deeply. The Diamond technique is a very nice addition to other NLP techniques. It can be used both as a problem-solving technique and as a creativity technique.

• Step 1: Determine the associated goal (well-formedness!)
• Step 2: What do the problem and goal have in common?
• Step 3: What is beyond the problem and goal?
• Step 4: Determine the enabling and preventing factors for all four points.
• Step 5: Then return to the original problem and the desired goal.

Exercise: Take one of your goals and go through the Diamond technique with it.

metaphor

Metaphors have an incredibly significant meaning for communication and personal understanding. Since ancient times, metaphors have been used as a means of teaching and changing perceptions, ideas, and life attitudes. Shamans, philosophers, and prophets have intuitively recognized the inherent power of metaphors and have utilized them.

• Step 1: Identify the problem. What is it about?
• Step 2: Identify the goal. What does the person with the problem want to achieve?
• Step 3: Choose an appropriate content level. Look for a content level that could reflect the problem structure, e.g., the realm of gods, the realm of demons. The content level must be interesting for the recipient of the metaphor.
• Step 4: Reflect the problem and goal in the content levels. The story must be structurally similar to the problem.
• Step 5: Design the path to the goal.
• Step 6: Write the metaphor.
• Step 7: Ecologically check the metaphor. Does the goal fit into a person's life context without negative consequences?
• Step 8: Incorporate feedback instructions. Include ways to provoke physiological signals.
• Step 9: Refine the metaphor. Add improvements.

Praline Pattern

A pattern for doing something you don't particularly like but have to do, with more motivation. A very meaningful application of this pattern is changing your feelings about tasks you have decided to do congruently, which you currently do not enjoy. If you have decided congruently that it is important to do it, you might as well enjoy it!

• Step 1: Identify the problem
• Step 2: Motivating image (associated)
• Step 3: Image of the task (dissociated)
• Step 4: Eco-check
• Step 5: Iris pattern. See the image of the task in your mind's eye, with the motivating image directly behind it. Quickly open a hole in the front image so that you can see the image behind it through this hole. Open the hole quickly as far as you need to achieve a full emotional reaction to the motivating image. Now let the hole quickly shrink. But only as fast as you can maintain the emotional reaction to the motivating image.
• Step 6: Repetitions
• Step 7: Test. The goal is to connect the feeling of the motivating image with that of the task image.

More on: Praline Pattern

Fear opponent

With this technique, you can make your Fear opponent shrink so that it loses its threatening effect.

• Step 1: Think of a person in whose presence you have previously felt anxious, insecure, inhibited, nervous, and the like. Where and how do you see the image in your "mind's eye"? Is it further away or more in front of your nose? Does the person in your imagination have their real size or do they appear larger? What feeling arises in you when you think of this person? …
• Step 2: Now imagine a small black-and-white television, a few meters away from you and on the lower left on the floor.
• Step 3: See the image of this person now in the small black-and-white television. What changes in your perception when you see this person as a small black-and-white image, on the lower left on the floor?
• Step 4: Now let the image of the person reappear in the original way in your mind's eye with your eyes closed. Then let the image of the person shrink, and see it like in the small black-and-white television, a few meters away from you on the lower left. Then open your eyes.
• Step 5: Repeat step 4 five to eight times.
• Step 6: Now imagine you would meet this person. How do you experience the situation now?