Anchors are one of the fundamental concepts behind NLP.

Definition of anchor : a central cohesive source of support and stability;

Anchors are created from the time we are born. They are an index reference to something that happened. The first time we burnt our hand we created an anchor from the feeling of pain to fire. This is so that in the future when we see fire this triggers the anchor and we remember pain.

Not all anchors are useful, especially as we are no longer running around trying not to get eaten. For example, how many people in the world do you think have issues with relationships because they were hurt earlier in life. Quite a lot as you can imagine. And how many people don’t achieve as much as they know they can because of fear. Somewhere in their past there is an anchor to the fear of failing.

Luckily for us, NLP can access these anchors and break the negative ones. We can also build positive ones to enable us to achieve exactly what we want.