door-672999_1280Last week I had the pleasure of putting my newly acquired NLP Trainer skills into practice. I was invited to lead a group on an NLP Practitioner course with the Performance Partnership, run by David Shephard. David is my mentor and coach and I consider him to be one of, if not THE best NLP, Time Line Therapy and Master Hypnosis Trainers in the world.

If you are going to learn new skills, you may as well learn from the best!

It was a six day course, and it was fascinating to witness the personal development and transformations of the students throughout the week.

Day one was as expected; the students arrived full of trepidation and some feelings of angst. When I was a student, I found these feelings curious – I looked forward to the course but internally I had all sorts of emotions going on. It is like the subconscious mind knows what is about to happen, that transformation is imminent. The turmoil seems to come about as the ego can want to hang on to all it’s own ways and fear the change that beckons.

As the week progressed, the students have to carry out exercises and there are written exams to quantify and embed their learning. It is at these times that they are psychologically challenged; tempers are tested and individual characteristics exposed.

Again, this is the ego at play!

Change is not always easy as we learn to let go of what we used to know and hold as true. It takes courage and determination and often a leap of faith to truly change.

My role as trainer and coach on the programme is to guide the students through this time of change. I help to create and hold a safe place where they feel able to open up to the possibilities before them; a place where they feel safe to question and challenge what is happening.

Coaching – even training – in NLP is not about fixing people; it is not about telling people ‘how to’ – it is about guiding them to see for themselves the changes they can make, it is about sharing the understanding of how we all create our own realities and then enabling them to see the changes for themselves.

By the final day, transformations have already stated to take place for the students. It is an incredible privilege to watch the process of realisation taking place.

To play a part in the journey of 14 people’s lives is amazing and I consider myself honoured to share in this.

Change is available to anyone – the students on this course were remarkable in that they showed up with a will to want to change. But ultimately they were just ordinary people. You don’t need a degree or specialist education to transform your own life.

You just need to show up and want to change. I can guide you to the rest.

If you are not living the life you want to, why not consider this? It could be best the decision of your life.