By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 27
THE KEYBOARD TO YOUR EMOTIONS: ANCHORING
Visual Anchors
Auditory Anchors
Kinesthetic Anchors
How Anchoring Affects Our Lives
Four Steps to Creating a Powerful Anchor
You can create an anchor for virtually any resourceful state that you want. You can create anchors for confidence, relaxation, motivation and love. Once you decide on the state you want to anchor, there are four major steps to follow.
Step 1. Get into an Intense, Fully Associated State
The first step is to get yourself into an intense, fully associated state. How? By accessing a time in the past when you felt this state. Adopt the same physiology you were in and use your sub-modalities to intensify the state.
Let’s say you wanted to anchor the state of confidence. Well, think of the last time when you felt totally confident. Adopt the same physiology you were in at the time. Stand the way you were standing, breathe the way you were breathing and have the same facial expression you wore when you felt totally confident.
See what you see, hear what you hear and feel what you feel. Now, from a scale of 1 to 10, intensify your state to a 10 by making the pictures bigger, brighter and associated. Make the sounds louder and closer and say to yourself what you would say if you felt totally confident.
Step 2. At the Peak of the State, Apply the Anchor
Once you sense that you are at the peak of the state (scale of 10), apply your anchor! The best kind of anchor to use would be a combination of an auditory and kinesthetic anchor. For example, you could clench your fists and shout, ‘Yes!’ Alternatively, you could clap your hands or snap your fingers.
Step 3. Break the State. Then, Repeat Steps 1 & 2 At Least Five to Ten Times
Next, break your state by thinking of something else. Then, repeat the process of getting into the supremely confident state, intensifying it and, at the peak, apply the anchor again. Keep doing this over and over again until the anchor is installed. Normally, five to ten times should be sufficient.
Step 4. Test the Anchor
Finally, test the anchor. Again, get into a neutral state. This time, apply the anchor by clenching your fist and shouting, ‘Yes!’ Do the emotions of confidence come back? If they do, that means the anchor has been effectively installed.
The best way to test the anchor is in a real situation when you are not feeling confident. Whenever you are in a situation like this, fire off your anchor to get back into a resourceful state. If you think about it, every time you got anchored to a particular state, you went through these four steps.
Why did you get emotions of love anchored to the Titanic Theme? When you watched the movie, its pictures and sound put you in an intense state of romance. Then, at the climax of the movie, they kept playing that same song (apply the anchor at the peak). They did this throughout the whole movie until the anchor was installed.
The test of how effectively the ‘romance’ anchor was installed would come later, when you were in a neutral state. And then, suddenly, you heard the song being played, and this triggered off the same powerful feelings of love. So, the test worked.
You may have also heard the expression, ‘They are playing our song’, taken from a stage play. Couples in love, from all eras, often say this with some excitement when they hear a particular song being played. What these couples refer to is a song that was playing (usually the current romantic hit song) when they were falling in love. And hearing it played again brings back to the couple, the same rush of romantic love. I am sure many of you can relate to this.
Warning: Do not use this technique for intense fears and phobias. A phobia is, of itself, a very powerful anchor and it will override the resource anchor. The technique of using anchors to get rid of phobias requires a different sequence of steps and we will come to that later.
The Keys to Anchoring
Many people attempt to follow the four steps described above but are still unsuccessful in installing an anchor. If this happens to you, know that it is because you did not pay sufficient attention to the four crucial keys to ensuring that the anchor is effective. They are:
Key 1: Intensity
The first key is Intensity. Anchors can only be installed when the state you experience is extremely intense. In fact, when a state is intense enough, an anchor can be installed instantly after one attempt. Being in a slightly motivated state, for example, will not work.
Key 2: Timing
The second key is Timing. The anchor must be applied near the peak of the intense state on the upward buildup so that when you test the anchor, you will get a state that is on the uptrend. If it is at the peak, it is possible that your anchor lasts into the state’s downtrend, thereby reducing the anchor’s effectiveness. You should hold on to the anchor for a second or two before letting go.
Key 3: Uniqueness
The third key is Uniqueness. The anchor you choose must be unique. Remember, it can be a visual anchor, auditory anchor or a kinesthetic anchor. It can also be a combination of all three! For example, your anchor could be seeing a particular picture, saying something to yourself and snapping your fingers! But all three must be applied simultaneously!
Key 4: Replication
The fourth key is Replication. You must apply the anchor a few times in exactly the same way. For example, if your kinesthetic anchor was touching a part of your shoulder, you must touch the exact same part, with the same pressure. If the anchor was something you said to yourself, you must repeat what you said in exactly the same way.
Anchor Yourself for a Successful Outcome
Are you ready? I want you to choose five resourceful states that you would like to access in different situations. For example, if you often give public presentations and always feel nervous at the thought of facing an audience, you may want to create an anchor that fires off a confident state or, depending on your audience, you may want to create a calm anchor so you can deliver a smooth speech with quiet confidence. Or, when you are feeling stressed, you may want to be able to trigger off a state of relaxation.
Write down the FIVE resourceful states you want to anchor and access when needed in the space below. Next to your states, think and write down what anchors you want to use to fire off these states. Remember that you can use visual anchors, auditory anchors, kinesthetic anchors or a combination!
If you already have a state anchored to a particular kind of music, such as Motivation state to Rocky movie, then you could just utilize that anchor! Grab your pen and do it now.
Resourceful States Anchor
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Once you know the resourceful states you want, use the four steps to anchor yourself to each one of them. Choose a different anchor for each of the different states you want to fire off.
Create New Powerful Anchors in Other People
Can you use the same technique to create anchors of Love, Confidence, Motivation and Enthusiasm in other people? Of course you can!
Once I had my son who lost his confidence when he reached the examination hall for all India entrance examinations for post graduate selections. So I got him to a corner outside the exam hall (as we reached little early) in order to break the negative state.
I then got him to go back to a time in the past when he felt totally relaxed and confident. As he accessed this resourceful state, I got him to intensify the feelings. At the peak of the state, I got him hold his own his left ring finger with his right hand in a certain way and made him saying, ‘Yes!’ I kept repeating the process over and over again. After this, when he finally went in to the exam hall, he held his left ring finger with his right hand and said ‘yes!’ Immediately, his posture and facial expression changed! He felt instantly calm and powerful and could give the exam very confidently. And he cracked the entrance to secure his seat when few lakhs students appeared for 35 seats.
Anchoring… To Fall In Love Again!
Remember I told you about how couples fall out of love after a few years? Well, Virginia Satir, a world-renowned family therapist was able to get couples to fall deeply in love again after short sessions of therapy with her.
What she simply did was to create new powerful anchors for the couples. She would get the man and the woman to imagine going back to the first time they fell in love. She would get them to imagine all the wonderful times they had together.
As they felt all these great feelings of love, she got them to intensify the experience and, at the peak, would get them to look at each other’s face. She did this process over and over again. Pretty soon those great feelings would come flooding back and the couples would fall deeply in love again.
How to Collapse a Negative Anchor & Install an Empowering One
Now that you have learnt how to install anchors for various kinds of states, you must also learn how to collapse them. Obviously, we would only want to collapse anchors that fire off lousy states and limit us.
What limiting anchors do you have that hold you back? For example, when you get into your office and the first thing you see is an overflowing in-tray or a desk piled high with files, do you immediately feel you want to do something to avoid attending to all that paperwork?
Or perhaps you feel nervous when you have to pick up the phone to make a cold call? Or apprehension when you see your boss’s face, or when you have to walk into a crowded room and you don’t know anybody?
Perhaps you get butterflies in your stomach just before you make a presentation to a client?
All these are subconscious anchors that fire off lousy states that prevent us from performing at our peak. I want you to take a few minutes to write down whatever limiting anchors you have. Also, write down at least 3 new powerful states you would want to replace the collapsed anchor with.
My Limiting Anchors
Anchor Limiting State New State
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Once you have identified these limiting anchors, you can use the 7-step process of collapsing anchors.
7 Steps to Collapsing An Anchor
Step 1. Decide on the negative state to be collapsed
The first step is to decide on the negative state you want to get rid off. For example, whenever you look at the phone in the office, you feel nervous. If you are a salesperson this would be extremely counter-productive.
Step 2. Decide on the Positive States Needed
The next step is to decide on all the powerful states needed to collapse the negative state. You could use ‘confidence’, ‘fun’ and ‘motivation’ for example.
Step 3. Elicit the Different Positive States and Anchor Them
Next, put yourself into each of the positive states using your physiology and sub-modalities. At the peak of each positive state, anchor them one by one. By using one anchor for all the positive states, you are literally stacking all the positive states so they become very powerful.
For example, think of a time when you felt totally confident. Put yourself in the same physiology and intensify the state by changing your driver sub-modalities. At the peak of the state, you could snap your fingers and say ‘Yes!’ (notice that this a kinesthetic and auditory anchor). Repeat the same thing for ‘fun’ and ‘motivation’. So by snapping your fingers and saying, ‘Yes!’, you fire off all three positive states of ‘confidence’, ‘fun’ and ‘motivation’.
Step 4. Fire Off Both Positive & Negative Anchors
Simultaneously Until They Peak, and the Integration is Complete To collapse the anchor, we need to fire off both the positive and negative anchors simultaneously. For example, we look at the phone and snap our fingers. When both positive and negative states are fired off together, the more powerful positive state will collapse the negative one.
Step 5. Release the Negative Anchor
We then release the negative anchor by looking away from the phone.
Step 6. Continue to Hold the Positive Anchor for 5 Seconds and then Release
We continue to fire off the positive states by snapping our fingers and saying ‘Yes!’ for 5 seconds.
Step 7. Test it Out
Finally, we can test it out. Now look at the phone afresh, this time the old state of nervousness should no longer be felt. In fact, by looking at the phone, the new resourceful states of ‘fun’, ‘motivation’ and ‘confidence’ should be fired off automatically. Perhaps you don’t realize this but what Virginia Satir did to help fighting couples fall in love again was a ‘collapse anchor’ process. Before the therapy, each time an estranged husband and wife saw each other’s face (old anchor), feelings of anger and disappointment would surface. Virginia, by using positive states of ‘love’, ‘joy’, ‘happiness’ and ‘excitement’ as anchors, helped the couples collapse the negative feelings they had of each other. With the new anchors successfully installed, every time her clients saw each other, the great feelings of love would come rushing back!
(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, you will learn about dealing with phobias – our ultimate anchors. And after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilize concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Friday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+, Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist.
