Have you ever stopped to think about the problems in your life? And have you maybe realised that there have been very few problem-free times in your life? The thing is, pretty much everyone has problems of some sort, but people have problems at different levels.

There was possibly a time when you learnt to drive? And when you learn to drive it can take a lot of concentration to do it well. Even a simple distraction like someone talking too you while you drive through a tricky intersection can be enough to put you into a sticky situation. But as you became more competent at driving it is likely that this isn’t a problem anymore – maybe you’re even one of those people who can have the radio on, be talking to a passenger and in the back of your mind be working out what’s for dinner?

So the thing is, as you become more successful at things you will find that what may have been problems in the past are no longer problems. So when you do have problems, they are higher quality problems. In the driving example there is a good chance that even the most experienced driver could find a high quality problem if they blew a tire at a high speed! Through these higher quality problems you will become even better at what you’re doing – so welcome them in, commit to finding out what there is to learn and let them become second nature for you in the future.

Enjoy the problems of today, for the solution may be second nature tomorrow!

One of the key parts of Neuro-Linguistic Programming is the ability to model people with successful behaviour. This post is an introduction to modeling and shares the basics for creating a model.

Steps in Modeling

The basic steps in modelling are:

1. Find someone or someone’s behaviour that is worth modelling, ideally a model of real excellence. It is really important that the person you are modelling is better than just ‘okay’ and is getting truly excellent results – it isn’t worth bothering with people only getting average results as you’ll get the results of the person you model!
2. Find their:
   • Beliefs and Values. These are important to obtain their Model of the World. Use standard Value Elicitation techniques and then discover the beliefs around each value as appropriate. Find both enabling and disenabling beliefs and values – this area is often the most neglected in the modeling process.
   • Strategy (Mental Syntax). Their strategy is vital to re-create their results. The less you presuppose the more you will learn. It is important to leave your preconceived ideas at home so that you get each and every part of their strategy – if you miss anything then you’re unlikely to get the same results that the person you’re modelling gets!
   • Physiology. This relates to their body. Depending on what you are modeling the key is often to find out about their breathing and the next most important is their posture.
3. Install this in yourself. Try on the model and see how it feels. Use the model and make sure you get the same results as the person you modeled – if you don’t then find out what was missing and install it again until you get their results.
4. Design a universal training. Once you have a reliable model that generates results for you then you can install it in others who also want the results. By designing a training this will enable you to share it with others.
5. Train others. This is where you get to put your universal training to the test and share your model with others.
6. Train trainers. If your model is in high demand then it may even be worth training other people in how to share your model.

There are two main ways to do modeling, Imitation and Cognitive Approach. Imitation is where you do it yourself and then model yourself to see how you did it. While the Cognitive Approach is much more analytical and based on talking to someone who is already getting the desired results. The Cognitive Approach is useful in more complex results where it isn’t possible to just imitate the other person.

Outputs of Successful Modeling

Successful modeling creates four outputs:

• A training on how to do it more effectively
• Selection criteria (This beats training every time!)
• Man-Machine Interface
• Man-Man Interface

What next?

What could you successfully model? Is there a behaviour that someone you know has, that you would like to share. This would be a great opportunity to try your hand at modeling – give it a go and see what happens!

Neuro-Linguistic Programming has a powerful negotiation model that can be used for creating agreement between two parties with very different opinions. The process of negotiating is quite straight forward:

1. Gain rapport between both parties
2. Discover the positions of each of the parties in the conflict.
   1. Make sure agreement is possible.
   2. Make sure that both parties can make a decision.
3. Begin with one side (generally the least solid side) and Chunk Up the Hierarchy of Ideas until you get beyond the boundaries of what the position originally was. You will know this when the original position becomes meaningless. It is important to keep them associated while chunking up.
4. Chunk Up the other side using the same technique.
5. Separate intention from behaviour and use a conditional close such as:
   1. “So, if you get <highest intention of both parties> then however we do it is okay, isn’t it?”
6. Chunk both parties down only as quickly as you can maintain agreement.
   NB: If maintenance of agreement is not possible then chunk objecting party higher.

Agreement Frame

While using NLP in a Negotiation Context it is also important to use the Agreement Frame. The Agreement Frame is really powerful for creating and maintaining agreement by modifying several key words. Essentially the Agreement Frame means:

• Don’t use the words BUT or UNDERSTAND
• Use phrases like:
  • ‘I agree with you and…’;
  • ‘I respect your situation and…’; and
  • ‘I appreciate your position and…’.

Have you ever met someone who can tell you every reason why something didn’t work out for them? Maybe someone let them down, maybe the economy wasn’t right or maybe the planets haven’t aligned like they were supposed to. I have a cute little saying that people who are using (B)lame, (E)xcuses and (D)enial have made their own BED and they need to lie in it! I call this the ‘victim mentality’ – because people who believe this will behave like victims.

For, even though it is easy to blame, make excuses or deny the situation, it doesn’t allow you to do anything about it. And, what would you prefer? A problem that is beyond your control, or a problem that you can do something about?

Wouldn’t it be empowering if you believed everything in your life was under your control? I strongly encourage you to take control of your life. To take (O)wnership, (A)ccountability and (R)esponsibility for each and every thing that is or isn’t happening in your life, right now. Because approaching your life with OARs means that you can row your boat in whatever direction you want it to go. I call this the ‘champion mentality’ – because people who believe this get the results of champions!

Live life as a champion. Choose to take Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility.

Reframing is a powerful NLP technique for changing how you feeling about what is happening, without changing what is happening. It is a linguistic tool and useful in nearly all client situations as it helps people loosen up their model of the world and start to think in new ways.

This video shows Jamie Smart explaining the difference between the two types of reframes, context reframes and content reframes:

Enoy!

Want more information about reframing? If you want more information about reframing then you will really enjoy the book Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning by Bandler and Grinder.

This video demonstrates a woman’s eye accessing cues based on how she is asked to think. Using Sensory Acuity a lot of information can be learnt about what is going on inside somebodies heads. While eye accessing cues are not 100% reliable, they are often quite telling – as you will see in this video.

This post may seem slightly esoteric, and in some ways it is, but it has the potential to make a massive difference in your life. If you think about the people that are having successes that you want it is quite easy to see what they are doing right. But the thing is, there is a lot of things that those people may have done wrong to work out what the ‘right’ thing to do is.

This is because to learn we need to get results that make us change our behaviour, for if your behaviour was perfect you would already have the success you desire, right? So in many ways the speed in which you achieve success relies on the speed at which you fail. Or to put it another way, the speed at which you push your boundaries and learn more successful behaviour.

But if your ultimate success relies on potentially many short-term failures, well, are they really failures? Or have they become steps towards being successful? That’s right, failures are simply feedback steps towards becoming successful! So next time things don’t go to plan you can stop beating yourself up about what you did wrong. Instead you could feel really glad that you have had this learning, because, as long as you get the learning, that feedback has taken you yet another step closer to your ultimate success!

There is no failure, only feedback.

Recently we covered the topic of Anchoring and there has been some excellent feedback on Facebook (Thanks everyone!) about it so far. This post is discussing Resource Anchors. A Resource Anchor is a specific type of anchor that, when fired, will put you into a really resourceful state. They are especially useful in situations where you feel unresourceful and want to think clearly so you can do your best.

A month ago, not long before I began my travels, I was traveling late at night back home from Pinjarra (A town about an hour south of where I lived) along the Freeway. Pinjarra is a rural area and the freeway was unlit by street lights, only my sole headlight lit the way. As it came closer to the city the speed limit dropped from 110 to 100 and, as you can probably guess, I didn’t. It didn’t take long for the flashing police lights to fill my mirrors and I pulled over to hear what they had to say. You may know that feeling when you hear the sirens and see those lights behind you… it isn’t a nice feeling – sort of a sinking feeling in my stomach that made me want to say “Oh no!!!”. Anyway, I’d come prepared and rather than letting the crappy anxious feeling consume me I fired a resource anchor – instantly my state changed and I started feeling confident, powerful and at peace. Rather than having a squeaky nervous voice with the Policeman I was able to speak calmly and confidently and properly represent myself in the situation.

This is the value of a Resource Anchor – it allows you to become resourceful in situations where it would be so much easier to be anxious, worried or nervous. And all it takes is the foresight to create one! Hopefully you have read my previous article on the Basics of Anchoring, but if you haven’t then you’ll probably want to read that before going any further with this article:
- Read The Basics of Anchoring

This particular technique for creating a Resource Anchor is called The Ring of Power.

The Ring of Power

This process is a quick and easy to way to create a Resource Anchor in yourself.

1. Stand up with a small space in front of you.
2. Imagine a brightly glowing circle on the floor in front of you.
3. Remember a time when you felt totally motivated, a specific time. And as you begin to really feel totally motivated step forward into the brightly glowing circle.
4. As soon as you notice the feelings begin to subside take a step backwards out of the glowing circle.
5. Repeat Step #3 to #4 with as many positive states as you can remember – the more the better. I would suggest a minimum of five powerful states to create a really powerful Resource Anchor. Some states you may wish to try could be:
   - Totally Powerful
   - Totally Loved
   - Totally Energetic
   - Totally Confident
   - Totally Ready
6. When you have added all of the positive states then break your state (Ask yourself if you can smell coffee – works every time!).
7. Now you need to test it. Imagine the brightly glowing circle in front of you on the floor and step into it! You’ll feel those feelings again (If you didn’t then see the notes in The Basics of Anchoring post about what to do in that situation)
8. Step back out of the circle. Imagine yourself picking it up off the floor, rolling it into a ring and placing it onto one of your fingers (Any finger is fine, but remember which one!). If you preferred you could imagine it as a bracelet or other piece of jewelery/clothing.

Now that you have created this Resource Anchor you can use it whenever you want to in the future. Simply imagine yourself taking off the ring in your mind, seeing the glowing circle on the floor and take a single step forward into it.

Enjoy the results!

Resource Anchors are particularly useful in stressful situations. Some of my favourite situations where I regularly suggest Resource Anchors include:

• Job interviews
• Court cases
• Discussions with people you have a strained relationship with
• When becoming more assertive
• Public speaking
• Performers before they go on stage

And many, many other situations! After all, when couldn’t it help to feel motivated, loved, powerful, confident, ready and energetic?

What is anchoring?

Anchoring is a Neuro-Linguistic Programming term for the process of associating a state within a person to an external stimulus. Or, in simpler terms, it is the ability to have someone feel a certain way just by letting them see something, hear something, feel something, smell something or taste something.

Have you ever been listening to the radio and a song has come on that just makes you feel like dancing? Or walked into a house to smell something cooking that has taken you back to how you felt in the past with family or friends? Or is there an animal that someone can just mention and it will send a shudder down your spine (Think snakes/rats/insects/spiders/etc.)? If there is, then you’ve experienced an anchor. An external stimulus has made you feel a certain way, without you consciously deciding to feel that way.

The truth is that our worlds are FULL of anchors. The people we like have lots of things anchored to them that make us feel good. And the people we dislike have lots of things anchored to them that make us feel not as good. And these anchors are so strong that often they will over-ride our other senses. Could you imagine seeing a politician on TV that you didn’t like? The chances are that the politician could be saying something you would really agree with but the negative feeling you have from just seeing/hearing him is enough for you to disagree with him. Anchors are powerful things!

So what? What is the use of anchors?

Anchors are useful because not only can we have our stated changed by existing anchors, we can also create new ones. Imagine if you had an anchor that by listening to a certain song it would put you into a really good mood. Imagine if you came home and felt crap. Like, really crap. But because you knew about this anchor to that certain song you ca just start listening to it and the bad feelings would disappear… wouldn’t that be great? Well the truth is, that it really is that simple. Anything that we can feel in our nervous system we can anchor to something we see, hear, feel, smell or taste. But there are a few tricks to successful anchoring that make it more likely to work.

How do I successfully create an anchor?

At any time that a person is in an associated, intense state where a specific stimulus is applied at the peak of the experience the two will be linked neurologically.

The success of an anchor depends on these five things:

• The INTENSITY of the other persons internal experience (If they are experiencing a really strong internal state then the anchor is going to be more effective)
• The TIMING of the anchor (You want to anchor as they go INTO the state and release just after the anchor peaks – see Timing below)
• The UNIQUENESS of the anchor (The more unique it is, the easier it is to recall)
• The REPLICATION of the stimulus (How well you manage to replicate the stimulus – if you anchor a touch on their knee you’ll find it more effective if you touch them in exactly the same place on their knee, as opposed to touching them a few cm to the left or the right)
• The NUMBER of times you anchor it (The more times you anchor it, the more effective the anchor will be)

So when you want to create an anchor in yourself (Or in someone else) these are the key factors to be aware of.

Timing

As mentioned above, one of the keys to successful anchoring is timing. This image shows a graph with the rise and fall of an emotional state being represented by the black curve. You want to begin anchoring as soon as you see them going into the state and stop just after they peak in that state. Why? Because we are talking about micro changes in the other person you will need really good Sensory Acuity to spot the changes. Even with amazingly good sensory acuity there will always be a slight delay between them entering the state and you noticing them entering the state. Likewise, when the state stops improving/growing you will only know because your Sensory Acuity spots the changes in their physiology. And by the time you notice that it is dropping and release the anchor it will have already peaked and be on the decrease. This diagram below hopefully makes it clearer how to time the application of an anchor:

As with most change work, your ability to get into rapport with the other person, and to experience the state yourself, will greatly add to the success of your anchoring.

Pulling it all together…

So, to pull it all together. Say you wanted to anchor a state of confidence in someone else you would follow this basic process:

1. Find someone who is comfortable working with you as a volunteer or a client
2. Gain rapport with the other person
3. Ask if it is okay for you to touch them on the knuckle during this exercise (You can anchor people anywhere but the knuckles are unobtrusive and generally unique enough to work well. Keep in mind the factors mentioned above when choosing your stimulus to maximise the chance of success!)
4. Have the other person remember a really intense past experience where they were confident (The easiest way to do this is with a script like, “Can you remember a time when you were totally confident? *wait for yes* Can you remember a specific time? *wait for yes* As you go back to that time now… See what you saw, hear what you heard and really feel the feelings of being totally confident…”)
5. As they remember the past experience use your Sensory Acuity to notice as they begin to enter the desired state of being Confident. As they enter the state, start applying a stimulus (So start to firmly press to one of their knuckles, say on their index finger. This pressure doesn’t need to be very hard, just hard enough so they can feel it)
6. Use your Sensory Acuity to detect them starting to leave the state, as it peaks, and remove the stimulus (So remove your touch from their knuckle. If you are unsure about the timing then review the Timing section above)
7. Break their state so that they go into a different, unrelated state to what you just anchored (This is so that you can test getting it back. I find a question like “Do you taste cheese?” quite effective. Just as effective is a question that turns their focus to something else such as “What colour are the walls of this room?”)
8. Re-apply the anchor and use your Sensory Acuity to test whether they return to the state (If they return to the state then CONGRATULATIONS you have successfully installed an anchor! If you didn’t notice a change then check they are intensely associating with the state and make sure your stimulus is unique enough. If it is intense and unique enough then repeat the process several times and the repetition will assist in building a stronger anchor)

What’s next?

Find yourself a willing volunteer and ask if they will allow you to practice anchoring with them. Try some positive states like anchoring a feeling of Confidence, a feeling of Excitement or even a feeling of Bliss. If you can find the words for it then you can feel it. This article is just about the basics of anchoring. In the future stay tuned for articles about what you can do with anchors, such as stack them, collapse them as well as more advanced anchoring techniques, such as chaining anchors.

Have you ever known there is something you should do, but you didn’t do it? Now, you probably have a really good reason for not doing it, but the end result is you probably don’t have what you want right now.

It may sound silly but I often work with people that know exactly what they need to do, but they aren’t doing it. Procrastination is something that many people have turned into an art form, but it is rarely an art form that is serving them! So what can you do?

The most important step is ALWAYS taking action. When you set a goal, or decide to do something, take the first step towards it before you leave the room.

What do you want to do? What could you do right now, straight after you finish reading this, that would get you closer to that result? And with the answer to that question… GET STARTED!

The most important step is always taking action.