A Confidence Boosting Tool!

CONFIDENCE ANCHOR TO USE IN ANY SITUATION

There are times and situations in all of our lives when we feel that we could be more confident and self-assured. This tool is great for helping you to bring feelings of confidence to mind whenever you may need them. The exercise takes an initial ‘installing’ or setting up in your system and then can be used at any time when you need it. It is based on an NLP technique I use with clients to help them feel confidence when they need it most.

1) Think of a time when you felt really confident and relaxed about what you were doing. This could be a memory of you with your friends chatting and laughing, or a time when something you did went really well for you in the past. Close your eyes and remember the situation and the feelings that you felt. Think of 1-3 emotions that you were feeling, for example happy, calm and confident or proud, elated and energized.

2) Now imagine a circle on the floor in front of you. Take one of the emotions e.g. ‘happiness’ and imagine that the circle is a circle of happiness. Now physically step into the circle of happiness and close your eyes to really feel the feeling. Imagine the emotion of happiness filling every cell of your body. When you can feel this as strongly as you can ‘anchor’ the feeling by pressing together your first finger and your thumb for a few seconds (choose which hand you use and always use the same hand throughout this exercise).

3) Now step out of the circle and imagine that the second emotion you named has now joined the ‘happiness circle’. It is now a circle of happiness and calmness. Step back in and get those feelings as strong as you can by imagining them filling your body’s every cell, just as you did before. When you get the feelings nice and strong, again anchor them by pressing the same finger and thumb together.

4) Step out of the circle again and recall the third emotion you named. Again imagine that the circle is filled with happiness, calmness and now also confidence! Step back in and again imagine those feelings filling your mind and body. When you have the feelings as strong as possible use your anchor again by pressing together your same finger and thumb strongly for a few seconds, then step out of the circle.

5) Now standing out of the imaginary circle, test your anchor by pressing together the same finger and thumb on the same hand that you used before. Ramp up the feelings as much as you can to intensify them and the anchor as much as you can. Repeat this 4-5 times.

Now you can use this anchor whenever you need the feelings to be at your best. Your body and mind will remember these helpful emotions as they have now been ‘anchored’ or linked to the action of pressing your finger and thumb together. To intensify the memory, you can also silently repeat the words happy, calm, confident at the same time as using your anchor.