Many people who have had some NLP training will understand what an anchor is but do they really understand what it’s for?
Anchoring is literally the association of stimuli, in practitioner trainings and in fact on many NLP training events anchoring is taught by building a state, usually an intense feeling of joy, pleasure or confidence and then anchoring it to a touch, often the thumb and forefinger are used, squeezed together. with a little repetition people can ‘fix’ that anchor in place so that if a situation arises in the future where they would like to feel confidence they can simply squeeze those digits together and have the emotional response of confidence. How cool is that? But don’t just take my word for it, you can try this out for yourself now.
take a few moments to do this,
Imagine or pretend you are focused and motivated,
How do you stand?
How do you breath?
What is your posture – exactly ?
What kind of things are you saying to yourself and how?
What kind of things are you saying and with whom?
Really take a moment to connect with this feeling of focused motivation, take a deep breath and double the size of the feeling and squeeze those digits.
Do this three times intensifying the level of motivation and focus each time.
Now go and ‘break state’, you can do this by getting up and walking around, finding something else to concentrate on for a few minutes or even just asking yourself a question like, “How would my dog sound barking the national anthem?” you’ll notice your state changes. . . . .
Squeeze those digits together and notice what happens. As the feeling returns feel free to double it.
This is known in NLP terms as a kinesthetic anchor, connecting a physiological/emotional response to a touch.
Here’s the part that often gets missed, Anything can be anchored and in any system. Do you know anyone who has one of ‘those’ looks, stops you in your tracks right? That is an anchor, an association of stimuli “They look that way – I feel this way ” and these associations are working to keep you safe in many ways but sometimes stand in the way of true potential.
Learning to spot your own triggers of behavior is possibly the best way of becoming a better parent, teacher, manager, wife, husband, partner, brother, colleague as you can stop running on automatic pilot, you can learn to take control of those ‘automatic’ programs and turn them into more useful events.
If you feel differently in a situation you’ll act differently and if you act differently you will get different results. Combine this with great goal setting and you’ll achieve more of what you want.
Now, some of you will know that NLP has a very powerful tool known as collapsing anchors, imagine you have situation that has a powerful emotional charge attached to it that you perceive as limiting you in some way until now. For this exercise you will need, a human neurology and two points to anchor states to, lets use opposite hands for this exercise, although you can use two of anything (knee’s, shoulders, anything that you have 2 of on opposite sides of the body) when working with someone else. Use the above process to build and anchor the states on opposite thumbs and fingers
Decide what state/emotion you would like to have and anchor it thumb and finger left hand,
Decide what state/emotion you would like to collapse and anchor it thumb and finger right hand,
Once you confirm both anchors are working and producing the emotion responses, take a deep breath in and out relax and squeeze both anchors at the same time and find out what happens.
How does the situation seem different now?
What can you do today that will reinforce how you feel differently?
What can you do over the next week that will challenge and encourage you to find out how different that bright new future can be?
Consider all external stimulus as anchors, what voice tone, look or idea would it be useful for you to experience more freedom around?
Enjoy
Andy
