Building Confidence via Anchoring
Anchoring is a way of drawing on past experiences in which you felt confident to help you cope better in the present. It's another powerful weapon in your confidence armoury.
An anchor is any stimulus that consistently triggers an emotion. To use an anchor you have to:
- Generate in yourself the particular set of feelings you wish to recreate.
- Programme your subconscious to associate those feelings with specific words and gestures.
- Use those words and gestures to trigger the desired feelings when required.
Sportsmen and women use anchors continually. For example, tennis players bounce the ball repeatedly before serving to calm themselves; most runners go through an elaborate routine to centre themselves, much of which is not strictly necessary to the actual performance; and the mighty All Black rugby team go through a series of rituals before each match to intimidate the opposition and fire themselves up.
You constantly anchor feelings in the nervous system whether you like it or not, so why not learn to use this to your advantage? Using anchors you can feel calm and confident, or energised and confident whenever you wish.
- Choose an event you shortly have to face, when you need to remain calm, but you fear could bring on nervousness. Start working on your anchor a few weeks before the event. Get into the relaxed state and recall a time when you felt really calm and confident. Relive it in as much detail as possible. If you can't think of a suitable time just pretend to be confident. If you have a good imagination, your subconscious won't know the difference. When the feeling is strong, put your thumb and fingers together and gently whisper, 'Cool, calm and confident'. The stronger the feeling, the more successful will be your anchor. Affirm that every time you make this gesture and repeat these words, these same calm, confident feelings will return. This is called 'installing the anchor'.
- Just before the actual event you were rehearsing, and if necessary during it, take a deep breath, put your thumb and fingers together and repeat your chosen phrase silently or aloud. Say it with conviction. Allow the confident feelings to flow through you. This is called 'firing' the anchor.
- Alternatively, install an anchor when you experience good feelings as you go about your activities. This is effectively what athletes do when they raise their hands above their heads as they break the winning tape. If they were to do this repeatedly they would find that simply raising their hands above their heads would trigger those winning feelings.
- Practise anchoring every day until it comes easily to you. The more practice, the better.
