by Kevin Hogan, D.C.H.

Sometimes a simple swish pattern doesn't "take." Maybe reframing didn't cut it. A useful tool that not only can be directionally creating and goal acheiving is a propulsion system. A propulsion system can be one of several patterns that are dovetailed together to use old anchors or triggers that once created negative or useless reactions and now use those same anchors to design new responses.

Imagine that you are getting out of your car to make your next sales call may be a stimulus for fear or anxiety. This is a generally negative reaction to a past experience that created the anchors. Now you can design a new chain of emotions, internal representations and responses that will allow you to circumvent the previously installed reaction and give you a desirable response.

Here is the first module of one method for doing this. There are many of course.

1. Imagine the cue for the older more negative reaction.
2. Imagine the desired response or result of this trigger from here on out.
3. Determine logical steps that will comfortably move you from the cue to the response.

Consider the old trigger of leaving the car in your sales situation. Imagine reaching for the door handle and decide that your desired internal response and representations should be that of subtle confidence from now on. A logical sequencing from the trigger to the subtle confidence might include:

• touch doorhandle
• recall of time when you were effective and successful in a sales situation. (A very specific scene from this event.)
• recall a specific event when you were well received in such a way that it allowed you to feel proud.
• recall a specific event when you were absolutely certain you would accomplish a goal that was challenging.

Anchor in a, b,c,d on the pinky, ring, middle and forefinger. Fire the anchor by touching your thumb to the specific finger. Do not move onto creating a new anchor until you have a powerful set of internal representations in each presently created anchor. Once you have successfully anchored each desired anchor to its specified finger, fire the anchors at random. (d,b,a,c,c,a,b,d) until there is no conscious consideration of creating an internal response to the finger anchor. You now have a true stimulus/response creation.

Next, you will want to fire the anchors in their proper order, from a to d. Fire them with your thumb and spend as much time as is necessary with each anchor until you completely feel the positive feelings associated with each event. Once this is accomplished, immediately move to the next anchor/finger then the next and next. At first this four step process may take 2-5 minutes. However, your goal will be to move from a to d in less than five seconds. (It is theoretically possible that all four anchors could be fired simultaneously and that discussion can take place under a separate cover.)

Once you have the ability to fire off the anchors in less than five seconds, you have successfully brought your emotional and kinesthetic responses from the past, into the present and fired them into the future. By creating a simultaneous set of representations and not only a sequential set of representations you are in one sense creating a "designed state." Of course the importance is not in the theoretical but in the practical application in your day to day life.

This is only one very brief description of how a propulsion system can be created. You will probably discover additional methods that are superior to this one. For a useful article that deals with how to play NLP games with your mind to create new patterns, read through the other NLP articles on this web site!

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