Getting in a State – Overcoming obstacles
We are always in one state or another.
Our states change all the time. A state is a combination
of how you think or feel in a given moment. We have many
different states, such as joy, sadness or fear. How
useful would it be to be able to change your state
so that you can access a required state, such as “confidence”,
when attending a job interview or “focused attending”
when completing a project.
When thinking about what state we need to be in, this goes
hand in hand with our intention or what outcome we are working
towards achieving. Therefore once you are clear about your
outcome, you can determine what state do I need to be in
to complete this outcome successfully? So, if you are a
Manager about to discuss a performance issue with a staff
member. First, you need to be clear about the outcome for
your communication. Then ascertain what state or states
are required for success. This understanding of managing
our state is often what people refer to as emotional intelligence.
In developing our emotional intelligence, we learn that
we can change our feelings by the way we modify our body,
we talk to ourselves and the pictures we make in our mind.
Would you like a switch that instantly gives you a boost
of confidence when you need it?
Anchoring is a process of learning to hold on to the states
that are crucial to success. It is a way of choosing the
emotional state we want and finding a way of accessing it
when we choose.
Using anchors are the key to designing, changing and choosing
your state. Anchoring was first described as classical conditioning
and was discovered when a scientist called Pavlov conducted
some experiments when offering food to his dogs and at the
same time ringing a bell. After awhile the dogs associated
this bell with the food and would salivate as soon as the
bell was rung. This came about through repetition and a
neurological connection in the mind of the dogs.
Whenever we do something new we create a new pathway and
we strengthen the new way of doing things. This is abit
like walking through a path in a field for the first time
and once you have walked if a few more times the path becomes
clearer.
It is possible then to associate the feeling of confidence
for example with a physical gesture.
How do you do this?
There are four keys to achieving a successful
anchor.
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In the required state – you first must be in
the desired state e.g. confidence when the anchor is
set |
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Unique anchor – the anchor must not be something
that will happen by accident. A unique gesture can be
used. |
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Replicable – it needs to be able to be repeated
easily when you need to access the resource in a future
time. |
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Timeliness – It must be done exactly when you
are in the state, not before or after. |
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One of the things I assist my clients with
is to help them with interview preparation and therefore
ultimately career success. In the current market, job seekers
are competing with larger number of applicants for their
next career move. Also, due to current restructuring and
redundancies people find themselves having to apply for
jobs that they had not necessarily planned to do, in some
instances this is the very stressful step of applying for
their current position in a restructuring process.
How to use anchoring to succeed at Interviews.
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Get clear on what you want to achieve. You are the
No 1 candidate and that you are the person they want
to hire. |
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Sell yourself, part of your intention is to sell
yourself. Your, CV or an introduction has got you an
Interview, now is the opportunity to market yourself
as the best candidate. |
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Use anchoring to get and maintain your state during
the Interview. Practise this in your preparation. You
want to build the perception that you are friendly,
confident and interested in the person and their business.
It is important to be in an uptime state and that you
are curious or interested in the position offered. |
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The skilful and elegant use of anchoring
is one of the most useful and powerful tools that one has
to manage state. You can use anchoring in many situations
to help you achieve your outcomes. The process of anchoring
is easily taught by a registered NLP Practitioner/Coach.
