Circle of Excellence

Circle of Excellence "Anchoring" is the bread and butter of NLP. It's a technique for capturing and triggering feelings within ourselves. In business, would it be useful to feel flowing confidence on demand? Motivation? To feel persuasive and articulate? Learn an easy process, right here, right now to choose and manifest your own emotional states. Many, many things trigger us unconsciously--as you're driving your car and you see that red octagon also known as a "stop sign," you don't consciously think "I now must move my foot, and exert x pressure per pounds on this pedal..." No. Your foot moves and you step on the brake and slow your car to a stop automatically. When you smell chocolate baking, are you transported to your Nana's kitchen? I am. That's a trigger. An anchor. The smell brings up feelings of warmth and love and acceptance. That's a nice trigger. They aren't all nice. And they aren't all useful. I had a client with text anxiety, and it was the color of the instructor's shirt that triggered panic. Not a conscious choice here! But, the good news! We can change that. We can craft our emotions and responses to be in accord with our conscious desires, not the vagaries of unconscious anchoring. Here's a simple to learn and practice and experience NLP technique for feeling how we want to feel in any context. I love it! ANCHORING EXERCISE - "CIRCLE OF EXCELLENCE" 1. Choose a state or feeling that you want to be able to re-experience at will. It might be happy, or it might be confident, or creative, focused, optimistic, enthusiastic, energetic. Pick something positive! 2. Vividly recall a time or memory when you had that feeling, or were in that state in a powerful way. 3. Imagine a circle on the floor in front of you, or you can lay out a circle of paper--a large flattened paper plate would work! :) And when you are really "feelin' it" (the good feeling you've chosen) step forward into the circle and fully re-live the experience of the last time you were in that good feeling state. See what you saw then, hear what you heard then, feel what you felt, etc. Close your eyes, if you like. LIVE it! Feel it. 4. Now compare what you are experiencing with before you stepped into the circle. Notice what's different in your body and your sense perceptions. Are you standing and breathing differently? What about your hearing and vision, any different? Are you noticing sensations in any parts of your body that you weren't noticing before? Has the intensity of feeling changed in any way? 5. Step back out of the circle and let go of the experience and the feeling, leaving the good feeling inside the circle. It lives inside the circle. For now. 6. When you're ready step back into the circle and notice how quickly you can get the good feeling in your body back--just as intensely as before. 7. Do it all again, until you can achieve quick access to the good feeling you want and stepping into the circle revs it up into your body automatically. Now think about situations in the future where you can use this feeling. Take this circle with you (even if it's imaginary, you can fold it up like a handkerchief and stick it in your pocket) anywhere you go, and place it in front of you, so that anytime you want to or need to feel this good again, all you have to do is step inside the circle and let the magic happen. To learn more about unconscious communication and choosing your own feelings, emotions, behaviors that lead to life and business success, visit: http://www.seattlenlptraining.com. Connie Brannan, CHt., is a professional Neuro-Linguistic Hypnotherapist and Licensed Trainer of NLP (tm).