So you’ve read about NLP, and the famous anchors. Today, in this moment, while your staring at this screen feeling a great sense of anticipation, I’m going to tell you the secrets to ACTUALLY using anchors POWERFULLY =). For those of you who’ve tried using them, I bet you’ve had limited success.

But first, a quick myth I want to bust. Anchors is not a new concept invented by NLP. The concept was first formally discussed from research by Pavlov on his dog, and has been known as ‘classical conditioning’ in psychology for a very long time.

Now, to the good stuff =). Don’t begin to feel too amazingly excited, I wouldn’t want you to fall off your chair. Note: this article does not teach anchors from scratch, it teaches how to make them WORK.

So here is your basic structure:

1. Elicit the state (“when was the last time you felt amazingly good?”)
2. Anchor the state (Snap your fingers, tilt your head, smile dramatically etc.)
3. Strengthen the anchor (explained later)
4. Fire the anchor baby!

Now I’m going to explain why your anchors have not been working, and how to make them work, step by step.

1. Elicit the state.

An example. A PU buddy of mine is anchoring the feeling of ‘attraction’. He says “You know when you feel really attracted (hand gesture) to someone…” And carries on his routine. The anchor was the hand gesture. He then says “Let’s go for some coffee (fire anchor; hand gesture)”. She declines.

Why does this not work?

HE DID NOT ACTUALLY ELICIT THE STATE. This is a huge problem with novice SS’ers. You think you are eliciting the state with the embedded command “you feel really attracted”, but, look at her body language. Her eyes did not move up, she did not change when you said that, and she is continuing just to agree and nod her head with your statements. Best ways to TRULY elicit the state is to get her to imagine a time when she was actually attracted. E.g. “Just before your ex asked you out, when you knew he was going to do it, and you feel those butterflies heating up inside of you, can you remember how you felt?”

Now that is much more powerful =). You will see their eyes move up as they visualise the experience, their heart rate increase and they may even blush. Notice the creases on the side of their eyes as they smile or feel embarrassed.

That is how you elicit a state. No point anchoring something that isn’t there. Other examples include:

“I bet you couldn’t remember the last time you felt amazingly attracted to a guy?” (Watch them. They may carry on looking right at you and say something, but they have not entered the state. Wait for the eye movements and body language.)

“When you just feel so horny for a guy do you get embarrassed and try to hide it?” (Presupposition).

“Have you ever had the experience of feeling love at first sight? Or was it lust?” (Make them really experience the feeling by asking them to question it).

Right, on to the next stage. You’re going to have these girls so wet =), I hope you’re not bad people!

2. Anchor the state.

EVERYBODY I’ve seen who uses NLP (which isn’t that many people, do be fair) does not anchor at the right time. You have to time the anchor. Say a girl laughs, and you want to anchor this laugh.

Now, most people would see her laughing and think “SHIT, she’s laughing, I better anchor!!”, and so they anchor as she’s laughing. Bad move! You’re anchor now elicits the state “I have been laughing, now I am calming down to a boring state again”. You MUST anchor JUST BEFORE she laughs. Now I know you can’t tell the future (I can, because I’m C&F), but when you crack a joke which you know will be funny, then anchor the punch line, not the laugh. Ok? Good =).

The hand gesture in my first example is not a very strong anchor. Instead, make the anchor more distinct, such as a sound (click tongue), or a big smile. I integrate kino and squeeze their shoulder. You have to strike a balance between a distinct anchor and one that is easy, portable and not stupidly acrobatic.

Better still, notice her primary mode of understanding. This is called many different things in many different disciplines, so I will just say, is she more of a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic (touch) person? You can tell this by what adjectives she uses, e.g. “I SEE what you mean”, or, “Yeah I HEAR you”. Of course they’re usually not that obvious. If she is kinaesthetic, touch her for an anchor. Auditory, then click your fingers. Visual, then tilt your head and make a unique stare.

Next!

3. Strengthen the anchor.

It’s not a great idea to fire the anchor right after you’ve made it. Because whilst time is on your side (i.e. the anchor has not faded away due to time), you have not been able to strengthen it yet.

So, strengthen the anchor in the simplest way by simply re-using it again and again when she is in the same state. This is an example of fractionation.
I have an anchor for people accepting things as simply touching my shoulder. I notice as soon as I touch my shoulder, before I even say “So let’s go for a coffee,” they already nod their head! =) I haven’t even said anything yet!!

The other way to strengthen your anchor is to use sliding anchors, stack your anchors, amplify your anchors or amplify submodalities. But I’m too lazy to explain those to you. It is beyond the scope of this article.

4. Fire the anchor baby!

When you fire it, maximise the impact by entering the state yourself (this can be used when creating the anchor too, as you should be creating rapport and pacing and leading, so they will match your state), use an embedded command, and give a brief pause to let them experience the feeling.

Remember though, you have to time the firing of the anchor too. If you say “So let’s go for coffee”, and then fire the anchor, you will have much worse results than if you fire the anchor during your statement.

This is because you have let her form a reaction and then are changing the reaction with your anchor, but it is easier to CAUSE the initial reaction with your anchor, simply by firing it a little earlier.

Now, this is dangerous =), so don’t go too crazy with your anchors! Hope you have had a pleasurable and extremely informative read after you sit back and enjoy how amazing you’re gonna be in the field =).

good read, any suggestions for practicing it outside of the field? does it work if your practice target knows your trying "something"?

Yes, NLP was not developed for PU, far from it. I use it all the time. I use it to anchor myself into certain states, I use the milton model for hypnosis, I use it in sales in my day job (best salesman where I work), etc etc.

And yes to your second question to, it does work if you are "trying something" with a friend or someone. In fact, my closest friends who are in the know and I always use NLP techniques on each other. With anchors, even when my mate knows that me squeezing his shoulder is an anchor, it still works, because it's classical conditioning. Knowing that a girl is trying to seduce you doesn't stop yourself from being seduced, does it? =)

great stuff gamble, thanks =)

Wow, you are instantly my favourite person.

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great read ... thanks

Good stuff Gamble.
Anchoring is not a difficult thing.
If anyone wants to see it in action, there's tons of videos on youtube.

Look at movies of Kenrick Cleveland
or this guy explaining using sliding anchors;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J67ykNNelt8
it's brilliant.

I try to use simple anchors like when I talk about someone like for instance my last girlfriend being "very attractive" discretely pointing at my chest when I say it.

My question is can you anchor several feelings with the same gesture?

Like also say "she.....was very easy to like" & also use the exact same pointing gesture on the second part, or would that blow the first anchor out, or can you stack on them & get simultanous feelings.

Also If I had my beer in my hand, when I make this gesture (seems to make it more comfortable for me to gesture) would that help, hurt, or have no impact as long as she could see my hand pointing back clearly at me when I want to anchor those feelings.

i think you can stack and anchor on top of one another .. lookup steve jones on youtube .. hes got some great advise

my question is whether a click of a pen would do the trick also .... could that be an anchor

As long as these are not contradictory, like you anchor both handsome and ugly to the same thing, which would be an act of redundancy.

Feel free to motion towards yourself at any point you mention positive attributes, while motioning away from yourself when mentioning less than positive ones.
Yeah ?

what are some ways you can make anchors ........ touching chest or neck doesnt soudn like something i could be doing when creating the anchors ... can a click of a pen do the same thing

Any stimuli can be made into an anchor, preferably one that doesn't happen all the time, since it will soon be diluted or fade.

Touching her arm, going a down a fraction in tonality, tilting your head, nodding, winking, snapping your fingers, clapping your hands together,

Basically any way which slightly differs from what you normally do.
If a hypnotist is with a previous subject, the voice he uses (usually a deeper voice, slightly slower perhaps) will act as an anchor to the previous state of trance, so the subject will soon re-experience that state.

If you want an effective sexual anchor with a partner, bite her neck gently right before she comes with you. In time this will turn into an extremely powerful anchor to the sexual state, which you can play around with, (try letting your lips brush against her neck at a party, and watch what those beautiful eyes beg you for sex.)

So, bottom line; Any External Stimuli can be made into an Anchor. (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic(touch), Gustatory(taste) or Olefactory (smell)).

You really should explain it because, I really appreciate the way you explain things easily + the fact that sliding anchors are so powerfull for emotions/feelings.

when do u anchor in the first senario?

right before the peak. (right before the feeling is the strongest)