The 6-Step NLP Formula for Success

Did you know there is a 6-step NLP formula for success that you can apply to your personal life, professional life, finances, health and beyond?

Would you like to know what the steps are?

While I am not sure where this ‘NLP success formula’ comes from originally, I adapted it from the work of Dr. Michael Hall, co-founder of Neuro-Semantics.

While they may seem simple they make a profound difference in your life when you start to practice them.

Step 1: Know what you want.

The first step toward success is to know what you want. If you are not clear where you want to go, you are very likely going where your past self wanted you to go or where someone else wants you to go. A lot of times what we want is elusive because we think we know what we want, but what we want is framed in terms of what we don’t want.

For example, “I don’t want to be out of shape anymore”, “I don’t want to be poor”, “I don’t want to be in relationships like that one again”, “I don’t want to be lonely anymore”.

I like to think about this as if we were playing darts. Aiming to hit a bullseye will lead to a much more successful outcome than “I don’t want to hit the wall”.

The NLP Well-Formed Outcome process and the Neuro-Semantic Well-Formed Outcome Funnel will help with this greatly!

Step 2: Take informed action towards the outcome.

This is where the ideas of “the secret” or the “law of attraction” seem to split from how reality works. In order to manifest something in your life you need to take action toward that goal.

And not just any action but informed action! Now “informed action” does not mean that you need to know everything before taking action. That is a trap that most ‘reflective thinkers’ fall into that could even lead them to inaction!

What this means is, to the best of your knowledge, do what you believe will bring you closer toward that outcome. If you know what you want but just sit on the couch dreaming about it all day the odds of that thing manifesting in your life becomes very slim! Action/behavior is one of the things that takes you from the psychological world of ideas/information into the physical world of physics.

Back to the darts example this refers to actually throwing the dart! You can read all of the books about dart throwing, and watch others do it all day but it will not bring you any closer to success.

There are all sorts of things that block people from this step. Fear of success, fear of failure, procrastination, overthinking/over planning, etc. but until you jump into the world and take action you will never get the feedback you need to take your skills to the next level.

Taking “informed” action may require finding a model of excellence or a mentor to give you the ‘informed’ strategies that work to cut down on trial and error mistakes. In Neuro-Semantics we say that we “stand on the shoulders of giants” and there is no point in reinventing the wheel if someone else already has a strategy.

Step 3: Use your senses to get feedback (on the response to those actions from others and from the world).

If you’ve come this far you’ve already come farther than many people do in terms of achieving their outcomes. Now that you’ve taken informed action towards making your goal(s) into a reality, the next step is to use your sensory acuity to pay attention to feedback given to you by others and by the world.

What is working? What is not working? What do you need to do more of? What do you need to do less or stop altogether?

It is only from throwing the dart that you could even receive the feedback about how it went. This step is to pay attention to what happened so you can adjust accordingly.

Some blocks that can come up at this part are lacking the ego-strength to look at the truth, over-personalizing, lack of awareness or purposefully looking in the other direction, inability to look at one’s own shortcomings, lack of boundaries between human being and human doing, etc.

4.  Use behavioral flexibility to adjust based on that feedback

Based on your learnings from the last step it is time to adjust your behavior.  This requires behavioral flexibility, which to me is one of the most important outcomes in learning NLP.  

This step just makes perfect sense – if you keep doing what isn’t working, if you don’t do enough what is working, or you are completely missing important actions/behaviors that are necessary to achieve your goal you most likely aren’t going to be real-izing it any time soon.

Back to the darts example, if you are shooting to the left adjust to the right and throw again.  Simple enough.

Here you may need to use various NLP Techniques to change your frame of mind/psychology so that you can alter your behaviors, add new behaviors, or remove behaviors that are holding you back

5. Focus your attention on operating from your best states

Now that you know what you want,  you are taking informed action towards it, you are using your senses to get feedback on your actions and then flexibly adapting your actions (Ready, Aim, Fire, Adjust, Loop)

The ideal here is to chunk down your big goals so much to the point where all you have to focus on is your present state and being in the most resourceful state in the moment so that you can perform at your best.

All doing flows out of being so focus on how you are being as you do what you do.  This is where the NLP and especially the Neuro-Semantic state management tools such as ‘meta-stating’ come into play.

The most sustainably successful people are the ones who are best able to manage their mind, body and emotional states.

6. Persist until you reach your outcomes

The last step for success is to persist until you reach your outcomes.  You may not vividly remember learning to walk, but I hope you didn’t quit in the process of falling down over and over again.  

I assume you persisted throughout that journey and came out successful.   In many situations achieving success is not easy and one of the major ‘differences that make a difference’ is persisting through the hard times, challenges, and learning curves.

Wrapping up:

Similar to most all of NLP and Neuro-Semantics, these steps for success were not pulled out of thin air.  They were modeled from experts. 

Did you know you are already an expert and being successful?  You have succeeded at many things throughout your life: some of which you are proud of and some that you are not so happy about, but regardless this formula should fit pretty well.

In fact, you can test these 6 steps against anything you have been successful at and I am curious to hear how well these steps match.  

Once we take something that we already do unconsciously (in this case being successful) and bring it to consciousness we have much more control over those patterns, so I trust you will begin to consciously apply this formula for higher levels of success in all areas of your life.

When you become clear about you want, take informed action, are open to feedback, adjust your behavior based on that feedback, focus on operating from your best states, and persist you can achieve most anything you set your mind to.   

Do you have any questions or comments?  Feel free to leave them here: https://www.facebook.com/perceptionacademy/posts/1479050412247114