n atural M eans

Anchors are set naturally when you’re not consciously trying to use an anchor.

This method will not be very important for what we’re trying to accomplish here. Just understand that this process happens all the time, whether you like it or not, so you might as well consciously use it to your benefit.

Let’s talk about a few natural anchors like playing music. If you listen to music that psyches you up, like rock, heavy metal or rap, this can act as a natural anchor. Notice that you can hear just the first couple notes of a song you love and it will instantly put you into an altered state compared to a few seconds before. If you use music, I advise people to actually listen to the same recording over and over again from workout to workout. The music will become strongly associated with your training time and can serve to put you in the necessary state. I’ve even gone so far as to loop a single song over and over. This idea works well to keep you in a peak state, but it will really annoy anyone else, so use it with care.

Any high level lifter will advise you to set up for a lift in the same way every single time. Why? It’s not just for technical reasons, the process of setting up can also act as an anchor. It can help put you into the state necessary for completing the lift. In the next part we’ll talk about doing this purposefully.

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The manufactured means of setting an anchor mimics the natural process except you’re doing it with intention behind it. When you are experiencing the state that you want to have in the future, you trigger the anchor right then to bring about the response in the future. You’re experiencing the desired state through a natural means, but you are setting the anchor at that time on purpose.

This is actually a normal process people practice in the gym. Watch any power lifter get under a heavy barbell before they do squats. They get under the bar in a specific way, have a specific way to position themselves before grabbing the bar, and stepping out of the rack before the lift. Every single point of this process is a habit that they have built and all these points are anchors that help to bring about their focus and peak state.

The anchors don’t have to be very overt, but I think having those anchors, in addition to all those habits and normal patterns to go through can give even better

results. The intention behind these behaviors is powerful. In essence, you will stack some of the normal anchors you already have along with even more powerful ones.

This was just one example of how to manufacture anchors.

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The last method is in some ways the easiest, because you don’t have to wait to use the visualization processes. The important thing to note with visualization is that when anything is vividly imagined, your brain cannot determine the difference between the image and what actually happens in reality. So you can use visualization to easily set an anchor. The basic process is to access the state you want, and then set the anchor.

But regardless of the way you set the anchor, you will want to practice it fairly frequently. If you do it five times a day for thirty days straight, understand that this anchor will be very well established. And not only will the anchor be well established but you will have better control of it, and the ability to use it at anytime.

For example, let’s say you’ve established a kinesthetic anchor. To make this anchor even more instant, you can practice it by visualizing yourself firing that kinesthetic anchor. It’s going to bring about the same response and when you have better control of your mental states, you’ll be able to flip to one state versus another instantly. But, you will be able to control your states much better through the physical practice of actually setting the anchors and bringing about that response.

I don’t want you to jump straight ahead and try to change your mental states. It takes some practice to be able to do it efficiently. Josh Waitzkin, world champion chess player and Tai Chi Push Hands competitor, discusses in The Art of Learning, the method of building up a long routine and then shortening it over time until you can get its effects in an instant. In some cases you may need something longer than a quick anchor, but by properly doing the steps as have been outlined, you can often get the effects quickly.

The basic way to begin setting an anchor, regardless of the method, is to first bring about the desired state. To do this properly, you’ll want to remember a time when you experienced that state before, then go deep into it, getting all the sensory details to put yourself fully back into it, then trigger your anchor.

When you’re setting an anchor, you have to get into the state first and then trigger the anchor. After you have the anchor established, the process reverses. You fire the anchor which instantly brings about that state you wish to achieve.