Book Summary – Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Bandler 

Introduction

Richard Bandler is the author of this book and also the co-creator of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). John Grinder and Bandler met at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the early 1970s and began to discuss their ideas on human behavior and effective ways to make changes that last forever. They developed the belief that humans form their opinions and perform due to the way they perceive their environment, and that changing of person’s perception can take place quickly.

What eventually became NLP was the practice of modeling behaviour to deliver a specific outcome. In other words, a mentally competent human being can watch how someone else does something successfully, and then simply duplicate that person’s actions and behaviors for the exact same result.

The successful achievement of desired goals happens through a process of studying the way people act and speak. You can then use proven techniques to persuade and convince them to help you achieve a particular result. 

Richard Bandler very basically illustrates the ability of NLP as something that allows “anyone to do something that anyone else has done.” He has authored several books on neurolinguistic programming, some with John Grinder and a few on his own. Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming is one of those solo efforts.

The Idea

The basis of this book is exactly as its title suggests. Richard Bandler believes that anyone can create the type of life they desire simply by applying NLP strategies, techniques, and truisms. In short, any negative behaviors you exhibit can be quickly changed. You simple model the actions, speech patterns, and mindset of people you would like to be like, while influencing and persuading others.

The author has helped tens of thousands of people from all walks of life, all ages and cultures, both men and women, to cure incurable addictions, fears and phobias. It is his expressed belief that the 35 proven NLP techniques taught in this book can help you also create whatever life you desire.

There are plenty of people around the world that claim a single session practicing the strategies taught in Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming was sufficient enough to rid themselves of negative habits and anxieties, and move on from past traumas that have halted their life and negatively affected it.

How the Book Is Laid Out

A Foreword is delivered by Doctor Paul McKenna, host of  “I Can Make You Thin” on The Learning Channel. He begins by comparing NLP to a mobile phone. When cellular phones first came to be they were large, bulky, not very capable and very expensive. Now mobile phones are smart, tiny and light, as well as affordable. McKenna makes the claim that Bandler’s early work creating NLP was not near as powerful and easy to get your hands on as it is currently. He refers to NLP as “psychological technology” capable of quickly, sometimes instantly, removing addiction and other negative behaviors and delivering powerful life-changes.

The foreword is followed by a note by the book’s editor, Owen Fitzpatric, who chimes in with his belief that NLP is only now being accepted by the field of psychology for the power it has. He reminds us that the old psychological belief was that time was needed to affect positive change in one’s life. He points to Bandler’s NLP techniques and strategies delivered in this book as capable of causing much quicker and more powerful changes in behavior that last, and sometimes are experienced instantly.

You first meet your author in the book’s Preface. He moves through his life from the 1970s to present time, and discusses the practical base for his beliefs. You also learn that the book is broken down into 4 major sections: 

1. Understanding NLP and Your Psychological Process
2. Getting Over It
3. Getting Through It
4. Getting To It

An Introduction follows. You learn that the book was created as “a guide for your behavior” that helps you avoid therapy and make quick behavioral changes that have the biggest impact on your life. The author explains in his introduction that you only need one quick, bad experience to develop a phobia. Perhaps you were involved in a flight which nearly ended in a crash. That one instance could cause you to have a fear of flying. He explains that since you can develop fears, addictions and other negative behaviors and issues quickly, you can also just as quickly reprogram your brain in the opposite direction.

Part 1 begins with a lesson on the power of your unconscious. Bandler explains that learning to consciously reprogram your subconscious is the “freeway to change” that may be currently shut down in your mind. You are taught just how important the quality of your thinking is, and how to actually change your brain chemistry so that you control your thoughts, and that control leads to positive behaviors. The next bit of information is very powerful. You learn that it is actually easy to build new belief systems and behaviors when you develop a “structure of certainty” which is explained in detail.

Part 2, Getting Over It, is broken down into 6 sub-sections. This allows you to instantly access a particular area where you know you need to make serious changes. Those 6 sub-sections are:

• Bad Suggestions
• Fears and Phobias
• Bad Memories
• Grief
• Bad Relationships
• Bad Decisions

You learn to get past any addiction, trauma, emotion or fear that you currently suffer from in any of those areas using specific NLP techniques.

In Part 3, you learn how to Get Through specific instances that have caused you trouble in the past. The author uses physical recuperation, particularly negative habits and compulsions, stressful events, tests and obligations as real-world examples of problematic times you may experience. He shows exactly what NLP techniques should be used to render these previous problems powerless. This is explained in 6 sub-sections: 

• Habits and Compulsions
• Physical Recovery
• Resignation
• Big Events
• Tests (Exams and Interviews)
• Obligations

Part 4 is all about moving on to the achievement of success, fun, love and peacefulness in any area of your life. Bandler shows that by implementing the lessons in the first 3 parts of the book, you start to “Get To” those things in your life which you have long been desiring but have been incapable of achieving, which have been explained over 8 sub-sections:

• Fun
• Love
• Meeting People
• Important Duties
• Exercise
• Be More Organised
• Make More Money
• Make Big Decisions

A short Conclusion is followed by a Glossary of useful terms, and additional NLP reading resources are recommended.

Who Benefits from Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Bandler?

If you have tried goal setting, hypnosis, meditation or some other method of achieving a desired mental state and failed, this book may be for you. Bandler provides plenty of research and real-world examples which back up his belief that you can model any behavior that you desire to have in your life. 

If you want to quit smoking, lose weight, stop drinking or stop being scared of simply being in public, these are all easily achievable. The author teaches you to change your brain chemistry and way of thinking quickly and easily. This leads to a change in the way you view your environment, allowing those thoughts to create new and positive behaviors.

Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming may benefit those people who may have failed using traditional behavioral change therapies and techniques in the past. The book is also hundreds or thousands of dollars less expensive than mentally intrusive psychotherapy lessons, and can be implemented literally instantly through a digital purchase.

Find more books recommended for NLP on www.w3coach.com/nlp-books