If you’re ready to start taking total control of your brain’s capabilities and be able to instantly create whatever emotional state of mind you desire – confidence, power, joy, focus, determination, pride, powerful, etc. – to improve your spiritual, physical, emotional, or financial situation, this article was written for you.
The incredibly powerful process of “anchoring” comes from the body of knowledge known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. NLP is a relatively new science that explains how and why your mind works the way it does, but more importantly how to fine tune it when it needs a positive adjustment! Basically, you can easily use language to program or re-program your mind for success. Ken Ward explains it best: NLP is “the owner’s manual for our brains that we never received, and certainly never read.”
The best example of anchoring is the work that Pavlov did with his dogs. If you’ll remember, he would continuously ring a bell, and then feed the dogs. After a period of time, the dogs associated the bell with food, and they began to salivate every time they heard the bell in anticipation of being fed. In this context, the bell served as a stimulus and the salivation was the response that was elicited.
As humans, we make the exact same types of connections all the time. Think about it – there’s probably at least one song that, whenever you hear it on the radio, immediately takes you back in time to your junior prom, or playing in the park with a sibling, or maybe your first kiss. The song recalls a certain state of mind that your brain has unconsciously associated with it. I bet if you think of that song right now, you can’t help but smile – your body physically responds to the mood if the association is strong enough.
The NLP anchoring process allows you to tap into your brain’s vast resources and consciously participate in associating a desired emotional response with a chosen stimulus. In NLP, we call the stimulus a “trigger”; we say the trigger and the desired state of mind are “anchored” together.
The process is simple, but the benefits can be immense. As a salesperson, imagine being able to clench your fist to become completely confident right before pitching your product. As a parent, when your child is testing her boundaries, imagine being able to squeeze your forearm to become joyous and thankful, rather than lashing out in anger. As an overwhelmed business owner, imagine being able to pinch your ear to become 100% focused and productive. Just recently one of my clients used this method to anchor the feeling of being full after eating. The next day, she triggered that feeling before ordering dinner and it worked so well, she couldn’t eat! She had to take the food home in a doggy bag. The possibilities truly are endless.
