We have expanded or changed our models to transform problematic phenomena thought to be outside our control into valuable contributions to human well–being, within our control. Each of the examples in the previous paragraph, taken in its historical context, involved the shift of a portion of our experience from the class of environmental variables into the class of decision variables by reframing or restructuring the way a problematic phenomenon fit into our models. It is the continuation of this process, the shifting of environmental variables into decision variables by sorting and punctuating the way the variables fit into context, that is the goal of neurolinguistic programming. In our modern technologically oriented culture we have developed a large number of machines and devices which we use in our everyday activities. Nearly without exception these machines embody one or more of the forces of gravity, electricity or magnetism as an integral part of their functioning. Yet an adequate theory of these primary forces remains an elusive goal for the scientist. Fortunately effective models which secure the outcomes for which they are designed do not require complete and satisfactory theories. The reader will search in vain for any theory of human perception, communication and experience within these covers. Our goals here are much more modest — a model of a portion of these complex human activities which works.

Throughout the development of western scientific models there has been a major limitation imposed on the possible outcomes of human behavior, a limitation buried deeply in the empirical heart of scientific methodology itself. If we imagine ourselves stepping into the scientist's shoes, slipping into a crisp white lab coat and looking through the scientist's eyes, we may picture a universe of phenomena neatly interconnected by formulas, laws, theories and hypotheses — all "out there," either already discovered and explained or waiting to be discovered and explained.