NLP and Your Inner Bugs

Instead of an Introduction.
A computer has one advantage over the brain: people actually use it. – Gabriel Laub
A lot of knowledge doesn’t teach you to think. – Aristotle

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) originally started as an attempt to understand the strange phenomenon of mastery and success. It turned out that the ancient philosophers were right—the secret is in your head. More precisely, in what’s inside it. Even more precisely, in how that content is organized. In short, successful people think a little differently than unsuccessful people.

“Wow, what a great discovery!” you might say. And you’d be right. Because NLP practitioners are greedy (in a good way). It wasn’t enough for them to philosophically understand this; they wanted to become successful themselves. And then sell the method to others. To do that, they needed not just to understand, but to build a working model for themselves. A real, functioning one. So that it’s not just some unshaven guy in his dad’s old suit running “How to Become a Millionaire for a Reasonable Fee” seminars, but a respectable person sharing from personal experience.

At first, of course, there were some issues with personal experience. But eventually, some people succeeded. Along the way, they created a product that could actually be sold—a working model of how to be successful. And it wasn’t just about making money. Success means something different for everyone (which they also discovered through long study and exhausting research). Success is getting what you want, preferably with minimal effort. Minimal effort is called efficiency. So mastery, success, and efficiency ended up hitched to the same wagon. The only thing left was to get them all moving in the same direction.

What NLP Practitioners Discovered

So, what did these NLPers find out by dissecting masters of their craft and those who reached the heights of personal growth? Turns out, they’re genetically just like everyone else—head and four limbs. But their minds work a bit differently. They don’t think in a radically different way, just enough to make a difference. Everything is a bit twisted, with quirks.

1. They know what they want. Specifically. They set clear goals.

There’s a story: At an American university, researchers studied how students plan their lives and set goals. They found that 85% had goals but didn’t write them down. Another 10% wrote their goals down. And 5% wrote them down in a specific way. Ten years later, they checked how much these students were earning (in America, money is the main measure of success). Guess what? The last 5% earned more than the other 95% combined.

2. They’re sensitive enough to know when they’ve achieved their goal.

Sounds funny, right? “How could I not know I’m happy?” you might say. But most “normal” people can’t tell. More on that later.

3. They’re flexible enough to change what they’re doing to reach their goal.

Another story, another experiment—a classic. In psychology, there’s a field called behaviorism. These folks see people as very complex animals and love experimenting on rats: shocking them, making them run mazes, and so on. At an American university, behaviorists wanted to find out what makes humans different from rats (besides size and tails). They built two identical mazes—one for people, one for rats. The reward for people was a $5 bill; for rats, a piece of cheese. Both learned the maze equally well. But when the reward was removed, rats stopped entering the maze after two tries. People, on the other hand, kept coming back, even at night, hoping for a reward.

The point: “Normal” people are extremely inflexible. They keep doing the same thing, even if it doesn’t work. Successful people, in this sense, are more like rats—they can adapt.

The Three Skills of Successful People

• Goal-setting
• Sensitivity
• Flexibility

“But that’s what they say about successful communicators!” you might say. And you’d be right again. The same goes for successful businesspeople, athletes, artists, speakers, politicians, and lovers. The specifics differ, but the core skills are the same. Here, we’ll look at these three skills in the context of changing yourself.

The key point: We have no other way to impact the world and achieve our goals except through ourselves. We are our main and only tool. And we need to tune ourselves.

Goal-Setting

The first and perhaps most important skill is setting goals correctly. There are tons of seminars on this. But in any case, you need to know what you want. And that’s not so easy. There’s a concept called a “Well-Formed Outcome,” which lists the criteria for a well-formulated goal and how to create one.

But that’s only if you have something to formulate. Most people don’t even know what they want. The general feeling is: “I want something, but I don’t know what.” For such cases, there’s the “Walt Disney Strategy of Genius.” As the name suggests, it was modeled after Walt Disney, who was not only a genius animator but also a brilliant businessman. This strategy helps turn a vague desire or dream into a concrete goal.

However, this strategy doesn’t work with fantasies—those thoughts you don’t actually want to realize. It’s just nice to think about them, but to make them real? No way!

It’s also important to deal with your “inner animals”—I mean your bugs (in Russian, “tarakany” or “cockroaches” in your head). Everyone has their own. The goal of NLP is to make sure you only have the bugs you need. Or, if not bugs, then the insects (or animals) you personally like.

Sometimes, you’re just bothered by something inside. You want to get rid of it, but you’re not sure what it is. These are called problems.

To bring these vague, bothersome things to light, there’s the “Meta-Model”—a set of questions that help clarify the problem and turn it into a task.

Another tricky thing about goals, especially those related to change: Have you ever thought that even if you do something you don’t like, you’re still getting some benefit from it? If you weren’t, you’d have stopped long ago. This is called “secondary gain”—the hidden benefits you get from a problem. For example, a grandmother’s heart condition is unpleasant, but it lets her control her family and get attention. Smoking can help people socialize, relax, or pass the time. If someone is singing and happy in the street, it’s fine if they’re drunk, but if they’re sober, people get suspicious.

That’s why habits like smoking, overeating, or drinking are so hard to break—there are lots of secondary gains. Removing the addiction is easy; compensating for all those secondary gains is the hard part.

So, a big and important part of NLP is dealing with secondary gains and finding other ways to get the same benefits—ways that are just as effective and accessible.

A problem is just a matter of perspective. A problem is when you focus on the obstacle; a task is when you focus on the goal behind the obstacle. Focusing on the obstacle puts you in a bad mood, but that’s just how it is.

So, how should you think about a situation? You can see it as a problem or as a result. Or maybe in some other way. How you think about it determines your goal.

That’s why NLP has lots of different models (ways of thinking, principles for describing the world and people). One of the most important is the Logical Levels model, which connects our behavior, abilities, beliefs, values, and what’s called Personal Identity. It helps you define your mission—the ultimate goal.

For some, it’s the other way around—they know their mission, but not how to achieve it. This model helps connect your spirituality and higher goals with everyday life: what, when, where, with whom, and what to do. It helps you find ways to realize your ideas in the real world and gives your daily goals deeper meaning.

There’s also the SCORE model, which links the past, present, and future, connecting your goals, their causes, and the consequences of achieving them, as well as what you’ll need to reach them.

And there are many more models, all based on how truly successful people think and set their goals.

Sensitivity

Of course, you want to know when you’ve achieved your result. You need to notice when it’s done. “He’ll tell me himself,” you might think. And you’d be right! But what he says might not match what’s really going on inside.

A client comes in: shoulders slumped, quiet voice, hunched over, breathing heavily. “I’m so insecure,” he says. “I want to change my life.” I work with him, and after a while, he says, “Everything’s great. I’m a new person.” But his voice is still quiet, he’s still hunched, still breathing heavily. Did I achieve the result? If I think “yes,” I’m a bad consultant. His behavior shows nothing has changed. It’s a matter of my attention and sensitivity: Did I notice the result wasn’t achieved, or did I just take his word for it?

Now, another client comes in: same slumped shoulders, quiet voice, hunched, heavy breathing. “I’m so insecure,” he says. “I want to change my life.” I work with him, and after a while, he says, “This is nonsense! We’re working, but nothing’s changed!” But now his voice is loud, his shoulders are up, and he’s breathing deeply and evenly. Did I achieve the result? Not quite—I still need to convince the client. But his state has changed, even if he hasn’t noticed. Again, it’s a matter of my attention and sensitivity: noticing that the result has been achieved (at least behaviorally).

The full result is when the client says, “Everything’s great! I’m a new person!” and his voice is loud, shoulders up, breathing deeply and evenly.

After you set a goal, you need to know how you’ll recognize when it’s achieved. There’s not much to describe here—just watch, listen, and feel. Based on what you see, hear, and feel, you determine the person’s state and whether they’ve achieved the result. This is called calibration. You can make long lists of what to calibrate and develop this skill. While special questions can help with goal-setting, calibration is all about skill.

Flexibility

A New York–Moscow flight starts to take off, then stops and returns to the gate. After an hour, the plane finally heads to Moscow. A passenger asks the flight attendant what caused the delay. “The pilot was worried about a noise from the right engine,” she replies, “and it took almost an hour to find another pilot.”

Now, the burning question: “I have a beautiful goal, I know exactly how I’ll know when I’ve achieved it. But how do I get there from where I am now?”

There are tons of ways. You’ll need a lot of flexibility to choose the best one, because they’re all good. Here are some examples.

If you know how your brain works, you can do all sorts of interesting things. Want to learn how to have insomnia? If not, at least listen to how it works. To create insomnia, when you go to bed, start talking to yourself (in your head) in a loud, energetic voice: “Time to sleep. I need to get up early. Sleep! Sleeeep, I said!” For extra effect, imagine bright, exciting images. Insomnia guaranteed.

If you want to fall asleep while walking in the morning and have trouble getting up, as soon as you start waking up, talk to yourself in the sleepiest voice possible: “Time to get up… I’ll be late for work… Time to get up…” The sleepier your voice, the more likely you’ll fall back asleep.

But if you want the opposite—to fall asleep easily at night and be energetic in the morning—talk to yourself in a sleepy voice at night and an energetic voice in the morning.

You can think about the same situation in different ways. NLP encourages this. You can use different models of problem/result, and no one will stop you. Based on your chosen model, you can pick a change technique. There are many, and most work quickly. For example, you can get rid of a phobia in 10–15 minutes, heartbreak in 20, or a compulsion (overeating, smoking, nail-biting) in 40 minutes. Some techniques take longer—50 minutes or even a whole hour. But afterward, you’ll feel like new.

But those are just the techniques. Gathering information and setting goals can take much longer.

Here’s how you can describe a problem. A typical morning situation: You wake up. Your eyes are glued shut. But there’s a voice in your head (or you’re talking to yourself, depending on your perspective) saying, “Time to get up. Gotta go to work.” If you listen to the voice and get up, something inside makes your eyes close and your mouth yawn. If you stay in bed, the voice gets nastier and lists all the bad things that’ll happen if you don’t get up right now!

This is just another way of looking at the same situation. Another technique. Both work, just differently.

You can describe it like this: There’s an important part of you responsible for comfort, urging you to rest more. There’s another important part responsible for success, making money, etc. In the morning, these parts get in each other’s way. Whatever you do, the part that feels deprived will get back at you. If you get up, the comfort part will make you sleepy all day. If you stay in bed, the success part will torment you with thoughts of trouble. Both parts are important! Just like in life: everyone’s nice, but they fight like cats and dogs.

So what’s the solution? Simple—make a deal. “You don’t bother me, I don’t bother you.” And it works. After such an agreement, a person either gets up quickly and cheerfully, or, if they decide lounging is more important than being 15 minutes late, they rest as long as they need, with maximum comfort. Everyone’s happy. Better rest, more energy in the morning. That’s inner harmony.

Resources

Another way to look at a situation: What’s a problem? You’re at point A and want to get to point B, but something’s in the way. For example, you feel insecure around your boss but want to feel calm. But you can’t make the transition. Something’s missing.

What’s missing (or what you need to add to reach your goal) is called a resource in NLP. So, the formula for solving a problem/task is:

Current State + Resource = Desired State

The current state is what you want to change. It’s not always a problem—maybe it’s okay, but you want better. For example, you communicate well but want to do it even better.

Since the current and desired states are constants, the only thing you can change is the resource. And a resource can be many things: states, thoughts, feelings, abilities, skills, memories, beliefs, values, etc.

The funny thing is, people usually already have these resources—just not in the right place. For example, someone is very confident at home on the couch, but that confidence disappears when they see their boss. The question is how to transfer that confidence from the couch to the boss situation.

What’s a resource in one situation can be a hindrance in another. For example, energy is great in the morning but a problem at night when you’re trying to sleep.

So, the solution is to transfer the resource from where it is to where it’s needed. But resources are delicate. Sometimes you can transfer them, but it takes effort to make them take root in the new place.

And, of course, the resource doesn’t disappear from the old place. Transferring a resource is like taking a cutting from a plant and growing it somewhere else.

And not all resources are the same. Figuring out what a specific person needs to fix something is a complex and labor-intensive process.

The main approach in NLP is to increase the number of choices. If something isn’t working the way you want, it means you don’t have enough options—states, abilities, thoughts, beliefs, etc. Almost all NLP techniques simply increase the number of choices by adding resources. If before, you could only choose to be scared, offended, or angry, after adding resources you can also choose confidence, calm, or assertiveness. But the choice remains! And people, for all sorts of reasons, may keep choosing the same old offense. Because it’s familiar, or because of their beliefs. The new states are right there, but they still pick the old one. Because something inside tells them it’s the right choice.

A Story about Masha and Petya

Imagine: Petya and Masha. They’re in what’s commonly called “love.” They date, hang out, talk, and so on. But Masha regularly throws tantrums, and Petya regularly puffs up like a bullfrog.

They’ve found each other, all right!

At first glance, this behavior only ruins their relationship. But maybe one of the most important things they’re testing is: “Will you still care about me if I act badly? Love me at my worst.” Their deep goal is to check if they’re loved for who they are—even at their worst.

Maybe this comes from childhood—if Masha threw a tantrum, her always-busy mom would finally pay attention. The resource Masha needs isn’t just calm and love, but the ability to find other ways to feel loved. Maybe she needs to revisit those childhood situations and see things from her mom’s perspective, realizing her mom had a lot to do for her and herself.

Or maybe she needs to reevaluate all those situations and figure out what resource to add to each one to get something better than a tantrum.

Or maybe she just needs to break the attachment: “I can only feel love from this person.” Our feelings are ours—we create them. Attachment is like a string you tie to someone else’s sore spot and pull to get what you want. But you can tie that string to yourself and give yourself what you need. Then you stop tormenting the other person, and the relationship becomes more open and less dramatic.

All this can really be done—and pretty quickly. Maybe Masha and Petya will stop their painful games and actually enjoy warmth and connection. But for now, they’re playing other games.

These are different approaches, different techniques. Different ways to add what’s called a resource. A resource can be a state (love, calm), a new perspective (the mother’s point of view), the ability to find other ways to feel valued, or the belief that “my feelings are my own.” All these are resources. They’re different and work differently. The only question is how to choose the one that will really work and change the person in the direction they want.

In Conclusion

• Each person decides for themselves what they want to change.
• You can “borrow” the thinking patterns of successful people and learn them yourself—and teach others.
• Your mind is an amazing tool. You just need to tune it right.
• There are many ways to tune it, and they work pretty quickly. You just need to pick the right one.
• If you don’t like the world you live in and want to change it—start with yourself.