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NLP for Motivation

By Chris Harrison - Posted January 2009



NLP is well known for dealing with issues such as phobias and compulsions, but it also provides many techniques that are useful for generative changes such as confidence building, or motivation. In fact motivation and NLP have been closely linked since the early days of NLP.

There are two elements of NLP that allow it to be used for generative change in this way.

One is the process of modeling, whereby as long as one person has the ability to be motivated, we can find out how they do it, and 'program' someone else with the same ability.

The second is a process that is used much more regularly, and is based around taking a resource that a person has, and just using it for something else. For instance, most people can think of something that motivates them, even if its something like 'going to the bathroom rather than wet themselves!'. This is one way to build a really powerful motivation strategy.

One of my favorite examples of this kind of change is one that Richard Bandler uses where he links motivation for sex to motivation to read. He finishes with the a line something like 'if you liked reading as much as sex, then you'd have a big pile of books by the side of the bed'.

So basically yes, NLP can be used for motivation.

To use NLP for motivation to develop an NLP motivation strategy yourself, try the exercise Get Motivated with NLP!

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