Jump Starting Your Mojo!

In NLP terms, it is commonly referred to as the Circle of Excellence or Ring of Power.

Your circle of resources, in the context of my new book (How to Perfect any Skill and have your friends begging for your secret!) , will help you:

• Get into a positive state of mind before an important “big event”
• Reframe unpleasant feelings about an experience
• Reset a negative frame of mind or thought process

The basic technique involves remembering a couple (2-4) of strongly positive memories. You associate with and then anchor them allowing you to call upon this resourceful state when it would be helpful to you.

THE PROCESS

1. Choose a colour (perhaps your favourite one), object, sound, word or some other mechanism – you want something that subtly triggers your association with the resource.
2. Imagine or visualize a circle (or similar shape) in front of your feet, in your chosen colour.
3. Within the circle, you “see” yourself (perhaps as a holographic image) experiencing one of your positive memories. Be mindful of how you look, sound and feel in that moment.
4. When the memory is clear and strong to you, literally step into your circle. Feel yourself surrounded by the positive feeling and blanketed by your coloured circle. Then visualize your object, or hear your chosen sound or word as you are being enveloped by your colour.
5. Stay in the moment until you hear your inner chatter about this experience, then step out of the circle to disassociate from it. (You can do without inner chatter in your circle of resources, hence the stepping out to prevent that.)
6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 for each of your memories. Basically you want to build each one of them together until this resource is strongly embedded with your chosen trigger.

EMBEDDING THE NEW BEHAVIOUR

Once you’ve completed steps 1 through 6, check your trigger to make sure it works as intended – immediately creating a resourceful state of mind through association.

For example, practice with a work meeting that didn’t quite go to plan because one of the participants challenged your ideas in a personal way and has left you with an unpleasant feeling about the overall experience. Or use the technique to help you prepare for a public speaking engagement where you might be feeling anxious. The reassuring comfort this affords – knowing you have a relaxation technique to support you before you walk on stage (or during if your feeling is one more likely to emerge in delivery).

USE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN

Now you can place your newly acquired resource in your personal bank. Call upon it whenever it would be beneficial to you!