The next NLP presupposition is a pretty integral one to making things work with Neuro-Linguistic Programming:

Experience has a structure

Neuro-Linguistic Programming believes that experience has a structure, and that structure is composed out of 5 senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory or gustatory. And because every experience is composed out of these same building blocks, so is every state, habit, skill or resource.

If someone else is able to develop a skill, a belief, a particular state of mind, you can also learn to do the same if you could discover how she composes those building blocks in her mind and body to achieve the result, and do the same in yours. This is the process of modeling I described in What is NLP? Part 2.

To put it simply:

If someone can learn to do something, so can you.

From Natural Talent to Learnable Skill

Until the 1950s, people thought skiing was a matter of talent, not skill. You either got it, or you didn’t.

But something happened. According to professor Edward T. Hall, black and white films were made of successful skiers. Researchers then studied the frames and broke down their movements into the smallest possible units of behaviour.

When beginners were taught these movements, their results improved dramatically. Because the skill of skiing had a structure, the only question was how to break down that structure into methods that could be taught to others and produce results.

How Did This Belief Change Me?

The belief that experience has a structure has given NLPers all over the world the guts and the curiosity to find how just how is it that exceptional people create exceptional results, to create techniques and models from the answers they found and use them to create accelerated results.

In How NLP Changed My Life I shared that I was a pretty insensitive person who was never very good with words. How did someone like me change and rise to the ranks of a senior Life Coach within a year, do multiple presentations that were well-received, and help people make changes in their own lives, emotionally, mentally and spiritually?

If the founders of NLP had not believed that experience had a structure, they would not have bothered to deduce the structure of magic behind what top therapists of their times did. And the wonderful NLP Meta and Milton model language patterns would never have been created, and I would never have been able to use those patterns to create the changes I did within myself and my ability to influence.

How Can You Use This?

The belief that if someone can learn to do something, so can you, which is supported by the belief that experience has a structure, or like some NLPers like to say; that success leaves clues, is a powerful belief to adopt for personal growth.

Compared to if you believed that just because someone can learn to do something, it doesn’t mean that you can, and experience does not have a structure because success does not leave clues, you wouldn’t be able to model anyone and find shortcuts to your own success.

If experience has a structure, and you can learn to do anything that someone else can do because success leaves clues, what would be different for you?

NLP 101 Series:

NLP 101: What is NLP? Part 1
NLP 101: What is NLP Special for The Super NLP Hardcore
NLP 101: What is NLP? Part 2
NLP 101: So Dark The Con Of NLP
NLP 101: How NLP Changed My Life
NLP 101: The Map Is Not The Territory
NLP 101: There Is No Failure Only Learning Experience
NLP 101: Every Behaviour Has A Positive Intention
NLP 101: The Meaning of Your Communication is The Response You Get
NLP 101: You Cannot Not Communicate
NLP 101 Thoughts: You Cannot Not Change The World
NLP 101: People Are Always Making The Best Choices They Have
NLP 101: People Are Not Broken
NLP 101: You Cannot Not Communicate: The Pygmalion Effect
NLP 101: Everyone Already Has All The Resources They Need
NLP 101: There Are No Resistant Listeners, Only Inflexible Speakers
NLP 101: Life Is A Series of Systems