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In ancient times, sailors set out to explore the world. The maps they drew up look very different to maps made today in the era of satellite navigation. The ancient mariners’ perception of the world was clearly different from ours. Future generations will also have different maps and ideas about the cosmos as technology evolves. This illustrates a central idea of NLP: that a map – and thus our peception of the world – is always subjective.

In other words, each of us has a unique view on the world. How we see the world is not actually how the world is, it’s simply the internal map (or model) we’ve developed – our way of looking at things. Each of us may think we are looking at things as they really are, but the way we think is just a viewpoint. Someone else may think very differently about the same situation.

• The role of the subconscious. Most of the time, how we think about things is subconscious. It has to be, because the conscious mind can focus only on a few things at a time. Subconsciously we take in much more. Our subconscious runs our body, stores our memories and

one minute wonder Always have respect for another person’s view of the world. Just because someone disagrees with you or has different values, that doesn’t mean that they are wrong (or you are wrong) – simply that you have different maps.

takes in information through the senses. We’re bombarded with information – some say two million bits of it per second, whereas consciously we’re only aware of about seven bits of information per second. That’s why our internal map of the world is unique. Without thinking about it, we pay attention to some things more than others.

Once you recognize that your map is a subjective view of the world, you can begin to do two useful things.

1 Firstly, recognize that other people’s views are equally subjective and valid.

2 Secondly, look inside yourself and work out what you are choosing to pay attention to.

Once you start to perceive the things around you that you’ve previously been ignoring, then you have the choice to change your map if your current one isn’t getting you to the destination you want.

If you change the way you think, you’ll change the way you act. If you change the way you act, you’ll change the results you get.

We each have a unique internal map of the external world.