A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P R S T U V W

Certainty

If NLP is applied wrongly then NLP practitioners try to give people certainty on positive things. NLP becomes positive thinking.  Or worse, positive believing. It leads to wrong ideas like: “if you believe it strongly enough it is true”. What follows are the horrors of NLP. For instance arrogance without competence. “I believe I can do it, therefore I actually can do it.” Or blaming the victim: “you are still ill because you didn’t believe strongly enough you would become better”.

Such bad NLP practitioners overlook the fact that certainty closes off other possibilities and therefore limits someone’s world model. In fact when NLP is applied correctly it teaches how to deal positively with uncertainty. Only because a situation is uncertain doesn’t mean you ought to feel bad about it. You can have good feelings in uncertain circumstances. Your feelings are independent of your current situation. If you are ill there is the possibility that you get better. Feeling relaxed and promoting the chance of getting better are smart strategies without the need to believe with absolute certainty. If you want to do something, but you can’t do it yet, there is the possibility that you may learn to do so in the future.

To him who feels himself predestined to seeing and not believing, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them.

Beyond Good & Evil paragraph 112