I’ve recently started to run the Park Run 5K, it’s quite incredible that I’m actually at this stage as just over one year ago I wouldn’t have been able to run to the bar for last orders!

I did the Couch to 5K program using the the BBC app and have managed to get my time down to about 31 minutes.

But I hate running. Oh yes, every step is pain!

So I as I’m running my first Park Run 5K I’m thinking, “This is so demoralising, there are people SO far ahead and I am SO sloooow”.

I’m beginning to wonder why I even bothered to run in Park Run, there’s no way I’m going to get a good time.

And yet, when I crossed the line I realise I’ve taken nearly 2 min off of my best ever time and I ran it in 28 minutes 10 seconds.

I’m absolutely astounded.

So now the question, where does our motivation come from?

In NLP we have a series of meta programs. These are programs or filters we all run in our mind e.g. big picture thinking vs detailed thinking… And one of those programs is called a “Frame of Reference Filter“.

An internally referenced person will draw motivation from themselves, they will know when they are doing well and don’t need other people to tell them. Many entrepreneurs are internally referenced, they go about doing what they do and stay motivated despite what others say.

An externally referenced person will draw motivation from others. They will seek affirmations from other people. They know they are doing a good job when they get confirmation from others.

I know that I have a tendency to be externally referenced. I know that I like to hear that I’m doing a good job from other people and I use the external world to tell me whether I’m doing okay or not.

Isn’t it interesting that during my first Park Run my external reference predisposition informed my internal dialogue to tell me I wasn’t actually doing such a good job.

It turned the whole 5K into a disappointing slog… Right up until the last minute when I realised that my internal dialogue was wrong and I’d actually run faster than ever before!

Wow, it was all in my head…

1. So are you internally or externally referenced?
2. Do you need other people to tell you you are doing a good job, or do you just know?
3. How does this then inform your internal dialogue?

The first stage in utilising and changing how we think is to recognise these patterns in ourselves.

Now that I recognise that my external referencing leads my internal dialogue to speak negatively to me… I can choose to ignore it.

Or I can choose a different external reference, rather than referencing myself against other people I can reference myself against my own timings, my own pace, my own personal best.

Every day is a new day to learn something new… And isn’t that amazing?

I talk more about meta programs on my NLP personal development membership program, it looks at how we can use these basic filters to improve success for ourselves and our teams.

Did you enjoy the Olympics?

Do you perhaps feel more motivated afterwards?

The UK athletes certainly seemed to thrive on the motivation that the crowd gave them, winning more medals than we have for many years in Team GB. But why is this, surely if an athlete has trained then the training is all that is required to get them to gold?

What input did the crowd have on their training? How did the crowd manage to influence the muscles and tendons that drove Team GB to such great successes?

I find these questions fascinating as once the athletes had trained, the thing which really drove them to success was what was going on in their head! So can we capture this, can we understand what went on in their head… And can we bottle this!

My firm belief is that this extra factor really can be bottled (okay, so perhaps not literally) and used at will.

So how do we do this?.

Is there a particular smell, sound, film or music track that triggers an old in motion a you? Perhaps there is a smell or sound that is linked to an intense emotion from your past, and all that you need to do is to smell that smell or hear that sound and the emotion comes flooding back. This is the essence of anchoring in NLP and as a way that we can tap into emotions at will.

This natural anchoring happens when an emotion is at its most intense, and there is then an associated action that subconsciously links the emotion and action together. In other words let’s say there is a song that makes you cry because it reminds you of when you broke up with our girlfriend or boyfriend many years ago, what probably happened was that when that emotion of sadness was at its most intense, that specific music track came on the radio or was played in the car. Your unconscious mind made a link between the music and the emotion, and all that your unconscious mind then needs is the trigger of the music and it has a way to recall the emotion.

We can use this natural phenomenon to deliberately recall emotions such as motivation, excitement or happiness (for the hard-core and NLPers, yes I know these are states and not strictly emotions!).

Did you know that your mind cannot tell the difference between a very vivid imagination and reality? We can also utilise this fact in anchoring.

If you want to be able to access a state of intense motivation all you need to do is to vividly recall a specific time when you felt totally motivated, you need to imagine seeing that time through your own eyes, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling the emotions of that intense motivation. Then, when this feeling is at its most intense, simply touch your forefinger and thumb together. Your unconscious mind will then use touching of your thumb and forefinger together as a trigger to access that state of intense motivation.

You simply then need to repeat this process over and over, thinking of a different specific time when you felt totally motivated. Then imagining this time, looking through your own eyes, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling the emotions of intense motivation-then when those feelings are at their most intense touch your forefinger and thumb together.

I suggest you do this at least five times, continuously stacking more and more of the intense emotion of motivation onto this physical anchor of touching your index finger and thumb together.

What you will then find is that when you need a state of motivation, all you need to do is touch your forefinger and thumb together and you will find it easier to access that motivational state. The more you practice this, the easier it will become.

So, what I am really hoping for, is that the athletes used this anchoring technique to anchor the feelings of the intense motivation that they got from competing in front of the home crowd at the Olympics this year. If they did they will be able to use this anchor in the Olympics in four years time and perform just as well.

Here’s to Rio 2016…