The anchoring gesture is a technique, from NLP, which allows you to acquire a superpower: that of controlling your positive emotions and, above all, of making them flow on demand.
What is positive thinking for?
There positive thinking is a mental and emotional attitude that involves focusing on what goes well. It comes down to envisioning a better life and always expecting to succeed and achieve positive results in the future.
This state of mind, particularly encouraged in positive psychologyis also a weapon to avoid getting discouraged. When your plans don’t go as planned, the thought positive allows you to stay motivated and not resign yourself to failure.
You can implement an anchoring gesture that will allow you to experience a feeling of well-being every time you feel the need. You can then press your well-being button whenever you need it. You will then reconnect your mind to a positive emotion and you will feel a release of serotonin, the hormone of joy of life.
How to activate your well-being button?
- Take a few moments to refocus on yourself and relax. Wake up your memory and dig into it to remember your best memory.
- Try to fully relive this moment. What did you feel? What was your behavior? What did you do, see, feel and hear?
- Relive the film of your memory. You are the main actor, so feel free to add details, color and enhance the settings in your head.
- Notice how vibrant you feel, both happy and confident. You will associate this sensation with what we call a anchor gesture : for example, you will make a fist and focus only on this feeling of joy that invades you.
As soon as you encounter an annoyance during the day, clench your right fist (or left fist, it’s up to you) as if you were pressing a feel-good button.
By practicing this little exercise regularly, you will notice a boost in confidence and feel more positive. Above all, you will acquire real power, that of “controlling” your positive emotions and bringing them out on demand.
The anchoring gesture in NLP
Widely used in NLP (neurolinguistic programming), the anchoring technique is based on a physiological reflex when a pleasant stimulus is evoked. The idea is to make a voluntary gesture (make a fist…) which we associate with a special feelingbefore resuming, at his own pace, contact with reality.
1. You determine the emotional state you desire
What emotional state do you want to see appear when you practice your stimulus gesture? You don’t necessarily have to limit yourself to a feeling of well-being, it can for example be a state of motivation, a feeling of extreme concentration, a state of serenity, etc.
2. You remember an experience where you experienced this state
Search your memories an event where you strongly felt the emotional state that you wish to anchor.
3. You choose a singular stimulus
Define an anchor gesture that will allow you to anchor the desired state. This must be a single stimulusthat is to say a gesture which does not risk being ambiguous because you use it all the time, in any situation. Snapping your fingers is not necessarily relevant, but, for example, connect your middle finger with your thumb can become a unique, distinctive stimulus.
4. You train yourself to feel this state to validate the anchoring
You will train yourself to feel the emotional state you desire by visualizing past experience and in y associating this gesture. This is called setting the anchor. By practicing visualization, you will install, feel and relive the emotion in question. The intensity of the emotional state will increase.
As the emotion rises in intensity, uses the stimulus and maintain your gesture as long as the emotional intensity continues to grow. Then, you repeat the exercise several times a day to validate it. After a while, you will find that the stimulus alone is able to provoke the emotional state you desire.
