How To Feel Fabulous Everyday Using NLP Tools

Does your environment ever challenge how good you feel? Wish you could recreate feelings as and when you want? Could you benefit from having a secret weapon in the fight against negativity in the world? How would you like to be able to control your state in any situation?

It is possible to manage your thoughts and feelings no matter what is happening in your environment. NLP techniques can help you do this. Follow these simple steps for using Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) in everyday life. 

What is an anchor and why is it useful?

In the field of NLP, an anchor is any representation in the human nervous system that triggers any other representation. For example, the word ‘danger’ will immediately trigger images and sounds related to the word. The word ‘fire’ will also trigger different associations.

In these cases, the anchors are words but anchors aren’t confined to words. With NLP, we identify that anchors can operate in any representational system (sight, sound, feeling, smell and taste).

• Tonal: For example, the special way a certain person says your name. It could be your mother shouting at you as child when she had discovered something naughty you had done or the way your loved one says your name when they are attempting to comfort you.
• Tactile: The sensation of a reassuring hug can rekindle wonderful feelings. A simple touch of a hand can also bring up a very reassuring feeling.
• Visual: If you've ever worn a new dress, colour or jacket that landed you with an abundance of comments and compliments then your visual anchor would be that now whenever you see that said item of clothing, it reminds you of the comments and compliments and makes you smile and feel more confident in that item.
• Olfactory: Smelling certain foods being cooked can suddenly make you remember the school cafeteria, for example or a special meal out for a celebratory occasion.
• Gustatory: The taste of your favourite food can also make you remember exactly how you felt when you had it before.

It is possible for you to use these NLP techniques to anchor yourself intentionally. Feel good whenever you want to and manage your state to feel more resourceful, confident and happy.

Take some time to re-experience some positive anchors of your own under each of these categories.

Anchoring is a simple but powerful NLP technique to enable you to have access to the states and resources you want, when you want them. To make the most of anchoring with NLP, it is important to really engage in the experience – make it wonderfully vivid in your mind and put effort in to recalling and re-experiencing your anchor the first few times you activate it in a situation.

To get a ‘strong’ anchor or an experience, it is important to remember the following:

1. Ensure you have a powerful example of your experience to work with.
2. Anchor in as many representational systems as possible: Use sounds, images, feelings, and sensations as much as you can.
3. Set the anchor just before your experience peaks (that moment where you know you're about to step outside of your comfort zone).
4. When you activate the anchor, do it accurately. Be as precise as you can!
5. With tactile (using feelings and sensations) anchors, pulsing the anchor can help maintain or enhance the experience.

Setting down your anchor…

Step One: Think of an occasion when you had a highly pleasurable experience. See what you saw then (looking through your own eyes), hear what you heard and feel what you felt. As you feel the sensations increase in intensity, squeeze the thumb and forefinger on your left hand gently together for a few moments then release them. Now ‘break your state’ (for example, remember what shoe you put on first today). Squeeze your thumb and forefinger together again, gently pushing them. The state will return.

Step Two: Identify something that someone you know already does, and create a subtle anchor. Set the anchor while they are doing the activity. Later, use (or ‘fire’) your NLP anchor and see what happens. If they do the thing you anchored then it worked!

Step Three: When you experience something you want more of, anchor it. Use your NLP skills wisely – it’s a powerful technique. In the meantime, become aware of when it is being used on you: advertisers, politicians, and stand-up comedians - all know the power of NLP anchors and all use them to great effect. Awareness with NLP is key. Have fun!