To become a master of any skill, and especially in NLP, you need to invest much more than just your time and money. Yes, it is true that you can be “certified” as a Master Practitioner or even a Trainer within weeks, but this certification does not magically transform you into a master of NLP. A title is not enough to truly master a skill.

Mastery of any skill involves the continuous investment of:

Focus / Concentration

Passion / Intention

Discipline / Commitment

Of course, for a focused effort you must have a very clear and well-defined outcome. To feel passionate and passionately intent with a certain outcome, for a long period of time (as required to master a skill), your health must be in tact, your body in shape and your mind nurtured with mental challenges and spirituality.

In his book, “Mastery”, George Leonard describes 4 characters: The Hacker, The Dabbler, The Compulsive and The Master. For a thorough discussion on each character and a very well written description of Mastery and the path to achieve it, read Leonard’s book.

In essence, the Hacker starts a project and once it gets a bit boring, or in a Plateau stage as Leonard says, he stays in that level. The Hacker will learn a skill up to the point when he needs to continue even if there isn’t any remarkable progress; he might be stuck in that level for years until some urgency or a crisis comes along that forces him to rise above that level.

The Dabbler will work on a new skill, get into some level, might get stuck somewhere and get bored, and then drops the Path altogether and moves on to another idea.

The Compulsive will do exactly the opposite of the Dabbler’s strategy. The Compulsive will push harder and harder, missing out on enjoying the path and growing through the challenges. The Compulsive’s objective is to cross the finish line, no matter what. As you may realize by now, the Compulsive is the one that burns out eventually, doesn’t enjoy the acquisition of a skill and discovers too late that Mastery is not achieved by force.

The Master justifies the title by enjoying the Plateau and  actually constructing their practice around it. The Master wants the skill to grow from within as a result of continuous practice and learning and the humility to always think like a beginner.

Masters are driven by passion to express themselves and contribute to others, while enjoying the path to Mastery. They vision is clear and balanced, their focus and commitment levels are high.

Compulsives are driven by stress and pressure to prove themselves to “someone” or “anyone”; their vision is “to be someone”. There is no balance and the results, even if they’re high-end, are not being enjoyed because there’s always something else out there to conquer. Compulsives have a high level of commitment but a low level of focus and stability.

Hackers respond to crisis; they grow out of necessity. They need to be pushed to excel. Their level of focus and balance is relatively high, but there is no internal drive and the commitment must come as a requirement from the outside.

The Dabblers are in the worst condition – their levels of focus, commitment, stability and vision are all very low and ignored. Their main state is boredom; they do master a “skill” – they are masters in procrastination! Their aim is to do whatever feels good for that moment, making excuses for lack of progress and falling short on their promises to themselves and others.

Now, here is a practical outlook at these characters – you have them all. In some area, you’re a Master in training. In another, you’re a Hacker. Yet, in another you might be a Dabbler or a Compulsive.

One person cannot be a Master in every single area of his or her life; that’s reasonable, right?

You cannot really “have it all”, but you can change and shift your focus according to your most important outcomes. Let’s see how it works out in real life…

Let’s assume, that you want to become a Master of NLP. Now, you do not wish to just be titled a Master Practitioner, since you are already aware of the trend – you pay money, go to a seminar, when you finish the hours you get a certificate with your name on it and a title.

No! That’s not what you’re after. You want to really become a master of the NLP skills. NLP is a complex set of skills, you cannot master it in a one or two weeks seminar. So how do you become a master without Dabbling or Hacking other areas of your life?

You use NLP to master NLP and keep your life balanced! Tricky? Yes.

You always start with the most important outcomes. Have 3 or 4 at most; the more you have, the less time you can invest in mastering each.

Take a look at some possible areas of life for an NLP learner:

Health

Family

Relationship (with a spouse or a mate)

Money

Career

Hobby

Spirituality

Religion

Relaxation / Vacation

And whatever else you think is important.

Now, here’s the deal – you cannot be healthy and in shape while spending all your day “relaxing” in bed, true? You cannot be a master of the stock market and spend 10 hours praying a day. You cannot maintain a passionate relationship with your wife or husband while touring the world (hobby) 200 days of the year while they stay behind!
But you can juggle the outcomes and put more weight on less areas. It is not a permanent solution, it is something that you consider changing on a weekly basis.

To master NLP you should invest at least a few hours a day practicing the skills. Now, this book is giving you almost 100% of the actual techniques and ideas you should know and practice, but reading a book is only the beginning. To practice, you need to physically go through the steps of each pattern, using it on yourself if needed, and surely on any and every person that agrees to work with you.

It took me about 30 or so sessions with clients to master the Swish technique. I didn’t really understand how it works and what is going on until I had done it for so many times that I could tailor it to a client on the spot and make it work no matter what was the situation and how much the client was objecting the process (yes, if you’re working with people you’ll see that even when they say they want to change, they will conscious or unconsciously do anything to stay the same).

Now you have to remember the basic requirements for mastery. I mentioned it before – commitment/focus, passion/intention and discipline/commitment. You make the time for practice, you find the passion to keep going even when it seems like it’s going no where, you develop your discipline and commitment through the first two requirements.
Here’s the REALLY good news – NLP has specific techniques to help you with all of those requirements!