In any Rob Moore blog, I try to offer advice to help build your self-confidence, motivate you, teach you better wealth leverage and many other techniques that can help you succeed in business. Today, I want to look at a couple of motivational techniques.
There are times when we all wish that we didn’t have to do a certain task, accept a certain responsibility, or fulfil a certain role. Whenever we feel like this, we have a choice: either we eat that frog before it grows, or we ignore it and come back to it when it has become a much bigger task than it was when it first appeared on the radar. You may have already realised that while we all know that the first option here is the smartest and most productive, many people regularly postpone the pain and go with the second option.
If you have ever done this, in this Rob Moore blog I’m going to give you a super-simple tip to help you break the cycle. It’s a piece of advice in the form of a question.
If you were to do that horrible, frustrating, nerve-wracking (delete as appropriate) task, how would you feel afterwards?
Bottle those feelings of success
It’s always easy to take the easy route when faced with a challenge that you aren’t looking forward to tackling. However, we all know that this often leads to guilty feelings that compound over time, meaning that we fail to progress and then later beat ourselves up for it. But how do you feel when you do triumph over that obstacle, and when you do eat that frog?
You feel great. You feel successful. You feel like a winner.
So, the next time you feel like that, you’re going to borrow that feeling. Try and compound it and capture it, so that you can return to it later. Recognise that it is an amazing feeling, and that you want to feel it again. This is a simplified version of a technique known as “anchoring”.
Anchoring
An NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) technique called “anchoring” allows you to capture the feelings of a moment or experience, just as I described above – but you can take it further, if you want to. Many people, particularly entrepreneurs, use anchoring to recall a positive moment, either to focus on during stressful times, to remind themselves of something important, or maybe even just to build their self-confidence when they are facing a challenge that they feel they can’t overcome.
Anchoring is a simple concept. It just asks you to focus on a particular feeling, taking in all the details and training yourself to remember as much of that moment as you can. Focusing on the uniqueness of a moment and its most powerful features help to make an experience feel even more significant. Some people who practice anchoring associate the feelings they are trying to record with a physical sensation – like pressing your thumb and finger together, or touching an ear – because it helps them to use this stimulus to help keep that anchor in place. Repeating that touching sensation later on can let people return to the feeling when they need it most.
Now, this is a Rob Moore blog, so I’m not suggesting that you try this if it all seems a bit too “woo woo”. The idea of anchoring doesn’t have to go as far as this NLP technique, but there are many entrepreneurs who swear by such things!
Self-confidence through anchoring
Once you have your “anchor” in place, whenever you find yourself faced with something that you want to put off, catch yourself. Just have that “parallel universe” moment and realise what you are doing, and then ask yourself, “How will I feel after I’ve done this?”
With those anchored feelings in place, it should be much easier to recognise that doing the task and chomping that frog down is only going to benefit you. It’s going to motivate you, hopefully building your self-confidence and determination to see the task through to the end.
3 seconds to realise that it’s never as bad as you think
Even without anchoring a moment, a tough task or a difficult challenge is never as bad as you think it’s going to be.
In the past, I used to deal with conflict via email or text, because I wanted to avoid talking or seeing problematic people face-to-face. The problem with communicating via email is that you can’t read the signs, you can’t see how the person has genuinely reacted to what you had to say, and words can be easily misinterpreted.
A few years ago, I told myself that as soon as I encountered a conflict, I’d pick up the phone and call them. This is even better than politely arranging to go and meet the person for a face-to-face coffee, because it is immediate and unlike a café meet-up it can’t be delayed. It’s like the 3-second rule, where you hold your breath for 3 seconds at a networking event or a social occasion and then force yourself to go over and talk to that entrepreneur, that potential partner or even that potential lover.
The moral of this particular Rob Moore blog is that it is always better to just take the plunge and do that difficult task at the moment it crops up. Because even without an anchored emotion reminding you that you’ll feel great after you do it, if you can press through that moment of hesitation, hold your breath and just do it, you’ll feel that sensation of triumph and success for real, whenever you choose.
You can read more about how to overcome difficulties and insecurities with this other Rob Moore blog post here
If you would like to learn how to get more done in less time, you can find my book Life Leverage here
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