Eh? You what now?

If you have ever heard anyone talking about NLP and they say to you, “perception is projection”, it is likely that you screwed your face up in a contorted knot while you tried to make sense of what they said in your head; or you nodded blankly, hoping they didn’t realise that you had no idea what they were talking about and wished the conversation could pause while you explored this further; or you even just wished the person spoke in plain English – the world would be a much simpler place if everybody said what they meant.

So, what does “perception is projection” really mean?

It suggests that we can perceive only what is already in our consciousness. And that what we perceive, we then project onto our surroundings; or, in other words:

We are not perceiving the world around us; instead, we are projecting what we carry inside us onto the world around us. This would mean that the world is a reflection of our inner thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs.

Let's break that down a little further.

We tend to perceive people around us and events we experience with preconceived filters. These preconceived filters are influenced by our personal beliefs, choices, decisions etc. Usually, these come from memories and events throughout our lives, which are stored in our unconscious minds. We may not, and often do not, remember the events that led to these preconceptions, but they are etched into our subconscious minds with all our lifetime memories and experiences, like expectations. They are developed from things we have witnessed and experienced, from what our parents/teachers and friends have taught us. These teachings are not always intentional. They could be from watching the actions of someone we looked up to or a programme we watched on TV. Based on previous interactions, we expect a certain person to behave in a certain way. We expect certain situations, based on previous “knowledge”, to turn out in a certain way.

For example:

You are 8 years old, and you stand up in front of the class to talk about your holiday, and the class laughs at you because you use the wrong word in your descriptions. The laughing makes you feel embarrassed and not good enough. With this, your reality becomes - whenever you stand in front of a group of people again, you will feel shy, scared that you will be embarrassed again. You will expect something to go wrong, even if you cannot put your finger on it. You will effectively project your belief onto the event that it will go wrong … so it does.

Does this make sense? Yes, it can be taken to the nth degree and back again. Why complicate matters? All you need to remember is that changing your perception of an event, something or someone can completely change your outcome.

So, tell me:

What was it you are trying to achieve?

What will you change to make it happen?

What is really stopping you?