NLP Anchoring – Your Switch to Success
Did you fail an interview, even though you were fully prepared for it? Does any event from your past still haunt you, and disrupt your normal life even today? Stop worrying because here is the good news for you – you can manage your own state the way you want. You can feel confident, happy, positive, energised or downright fabulous on demand, all with the power of Anchoring.
Anchoring lets you create a consistent triggering mechanism that will automatically cause you to create the state you desire in any situation without having to think about it. When you anchor something effectively enough, it will be there whenever you want it.
An anchor is simply a connection between a stimulus and a certain emotional response. In psychology, it is referred to as Conditioned response.
Here’s a common example:
When you drive up to a traffic signal and see a red light, there’s a good chance you brake without thinking about it. This is an unconscious process. While you probably had to think hard about it when you first learned to drive, the response is now automatic.
When you see a national flag or listen to your favourite song, what happens? You have a different kind of feelings, isn’t it? it just changes your state without even thinking about it. These are all anchors.
Anchoring is reminiscent of Pavlov’s experiments with dogs. Pavlov took hungry dogs and put meat where they could smell it and see it but not get to it. This meat became a powerful stimulus to the dogs’ feelings of hunger. Soon they were salivating heavily. While they were in this intense state of salivation, Pavlov consistently rang a bell with a specific tone. Pretty soon he no longer needed the meat – he could just ring the bell and the dogs would salivate as if the meat itself were in front of them. He had created a neurological link between the sound of the bell and the state of hunger or salivation. From then on, all he had to do was ring the bell, and the dogs would literally go into a salivation state.
We are affected by anchors throughout our lives and go into a good mood or a bad one … feel motivated to do one thing or to do another … feel confident and resourceful or the opposite. We are responding to anchors, but we may not know what they are.
For example, when we approach a traffic signal and see the yellow light turn on, we slow down. When we see the red light turn on, we immediately put our foot on the brake. Over time, this becomes an unconscious process and is triggered whenever we see the traffic signal.
Another example of Neuro-linguistic anchoring, is that sometimes certain smells take us back to an experience in the past. If you have associated the pleasant memory of a family dinner in the past with a certain smell of food, when you come across that smell you immediately remember, see, hear and feel that pleasant experience.
Advertisements commonly use visual and auditory anchors. Sometime the wordings of an ad form such a strong anchor that you can remember the wordings when you hear a similar tune. TV and radio shows also use anchoring to keep the viewer or listener coming back.
You probably do it all the time without noticing. Every time you smile and compliment your restaurant wait staff, you’re creating an anchor that tells them you’re pleasant to serve. The next time you go to that restaurant, you’ll probably get better service just by repeating the anchor – a smile and a compliment.
Most of the time, we don’t know that anchoring is happening in our lives, since its outside consciousness. However, when we do it on purpose, we can train ourselves to overcome our unwanted habits or behaviours, such as quitting smoking, becoming comfortable with something that frightens us, or losing weight.
Creating these types of anchors in yourself and others can make a huge difference in your life.
Anchoring is one of the most powerful techniques NLP Anchoring has to offer.
These techniques and its applications are covered in depth with live demonstrations at our NLP Practitioner programs. Here are our upcoming programs – Events Calendar
The switch to change your life is within you.
Stay blessed!
