I was at the gym this morning on the treadmill. I had one of those experiences of dot joining in my mind and decided I wanted to bring together to share with you in a way which ‘may’ be helpful.

Anchoring is an Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) method whereby we take charge of our emotional state by bringing back a past memory of an experience which has emotional content which would be useful to tap into a re-experience.

For example, if you are taking on board a new challenge then bringing back to mind a time when you did do something and overcome something. The idea is that the emotions start to flow, and thoughts then come up related to this. E.g, if the emotion is something like empowerment, then this can go around into thoughts like ‘I can do this’.

When I was on the treadmill, I was thinking of projects I’m working on personally. I guess the fact that I was running perhaps lead to my memory of when I first ran a marathon pop into my mind. It was 2012 when I first ran one and it was a huge thing for me. I was always one of the really slow kids at school and was unfit for many years. Actually, I am still slow but that’s not the point. I was able at the time to develop some kind of brick by brick mindset and ultimately was able to complete a marathon.

Now the marathon is my anchor point I can use but at the time I was training for one I was able to think about how it would feel to complete it. I could feel myself there and the thought of me with my finishing medal always felt amazing.

I share my marathon story with hesitance because I realise in fact to me at the time and a lot of people completing a marathon is a big thing and something you may never want to do. I share this though because it’s my anchor point, I can use but when I was preparing for it, I was able to create an almost future vision anchor point for myself to keep feeling into (anchoring myself to).

I posted a while ago about Arnold Schwarzenegger and how he had a photo of a guy who won Mr Universe next to his bed and used to visualise himself and everyone chanting his name and feeling into what it would be like.

Sometimes people try anchoring with something totally external. Since we’re emotional beings by nature we can focus on something. There’s the idea that if we’re needing courage, we may do well to bring back what it’s like seeing Bruce Willis jump off the building connected to a fire hydron in Die Hard.

There’s often examples about people just need a thing like that to just get started. The movie ‘Into the void’ with a horrible story of a guy with a broken leg on a mountain and who miraculously made his way down just kept thinking of himself just these small distances ahead and ticking them off. Oh, and he got down by the way.

I don’t like all the personal development pump up so you notice I modestly use words like ‘may’. When I work with people, I like to have a play as to what may be helpful. I wanted to just share this as it popped into my mind today as I anchored myself in this memory and the brick-by-brick way I first did a marathon started to pop back for me. All those associated feelings and importantly anchored in my value of growth and achievement. Have a play with this and be sure to feel into your values too. It’s easy to get a values list online. Just be you. What is it you may want to work to and what can you possibly focus on to own your state and ‘anchor’ yourself ?

Wishing you a lovely day.

Note I deliberately didn’t add the Phil finishing the marathon photo. Just some generic images 😊
Take care.