International Teaching Seminars Blog

If you are uncertain about whether to go for certification you may want to consider what it has meant to different people:

• Proof of Competence
  Getting a certificate means that you are recieving external feedback about your capability. It confirms that you are considered to have achieved a certain level of competence.
• Validation and legitimation
  You will be part of the ongoing process of passing on knowledge of NLP to other people either formally or informally. For some people it is important to have permission to do so. Certification can be the equivalent of being told “Now, go ahead and do it. Go out into the world and know you can legitimately claim a level of expertise in this area.”
• A rite of passage
  You will have changed in many ways during your training. Your sense of who you are, your knowledge of what you know, and your capabilities will be different. You went through this process and you emerged successfully at the end, and you have closure on it. In a sense a rite of passage allows you to put the elements together - you have integrated your own experience. You know what you know. Now you can move on.
• A sense of an ending
  For nearly everyone certification comes to represent a symbolic completion of a significant experience. Certification will give you a sense of an ending.

Proof of competence
Certification depends upon you demonstrating in your behaviour that you can do what has been taught. That means you are being a behavioural demonstration of what you have learned. It is no good having an encyclopedic knowledge of how to establish rapport if you don’t actually do it. Therefore if you get Certification you will know that you have demonstrated a suitable level of competence.

The process is analogous to the Driving Test. We need to know that you are able to handle the vehicle (of NLP) and that you are no danger to others on the road (of life). We do not expect you to be an expert, nor do we require you to name all the parts of the engine. We presume that your learning is just beginning and that continued practice hereafter will enhance your behavioural skills. You take off the L-plates and the next stage of learning begins.

1. Enjoy Learning

Regard trainings as the antidote to all previous formal learning.

• Engage with your innate ability to learn, by learning as you did before you ever started formal education.

Ask yourself:

• “What is going to make it interesting for me to be here?”
• “What is going to affirm me in my sense of myself?”
• “What will allow me to learn in my own way?”

2. Know your Outcome

Ask yourself:

• “Why am I here?”
• “What do I want to achieve from being here?”
• “How will being here make a difference to my life?”

3. Be Curious

• Ask yourself “What am I curious about?”
• Be proactive in getting to know and working with other people. You will be amazed at the different world they have created for themselves.
• Test your reality!
• Know that the answer to “Doesn’t everybody do this?” is “No!”
• Be open to what happens rather than immediately judging it for yourself.
• Be willing to experience the unfamiliar. Tolerate not know and even some confusion.

4. Choose your State

Ask yourself:

• “What would be the best state for me to be in if I want to learn the most, and the most easily?”
• “What would the qualities of that state be?”
• “Do I have to be sitting down to learn?”

If you learn better by moving around, or standing, then feel free to do so, at the back or at the sides of the room.

5. Get a Different Perspective

• Move your position in the room frequently. In this way you will literally get a different perspective. The training is very different from different parts of the room.
• During demonstrations feel free to move so that you can see what is going on.

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