It’s that time, less than 2 months until the big day. As I was writing out my LONG list of to do’s leading up to the big day, I started to feel extremely nervous. Not the “cold feet” kind of nervous, but the “crap do I have time to get it all done” nervous. The more I let myself feel nervous and less than resourceful, the more anxious I got. So in true coaching fashion, I asked myself what can I do, to help manage my state of being leading up to the wedding. What came to me was a simple yet effective NLP strategy called “Circle of Excellence”. It made me feel a ton better and so, I share it with you. Try it out and you’ll see how quickly you can shift your thinking!
Circle of Excellence Steps:
1. Start by imagining a circle on the ground in front of you. If you have trouble conjuring up this image, do what cartoons do, and just pull a circle out of your pocket and place it on the floor.
2. Make your circle unique to you, add color, texture, sound, etc.
3. Then ask yourself what state(s) of being you would like in your circle. For example in my case I wanted to be “sharp”, “positive” and “efficient”
4. You then need to think of a time when you had those states of being. Once you identify such a time, step into your circle fully accessing the time where you had the appropriate states of being. If you have different examples for each state, then access them separately, e.g. 1st think of the time you felt sharp, step into the circle fully accessing the time you felt sharp, then step out of the circle. Think of the time you felt positive, then step into the circle again accessing the time you felt positive, etc.
5. Once you’ve added all your states of being to your circle, step into it one more time thinking about carrying this “Circle of Excellence” with you in the future. For example, I visualized myself running all my wedding errands with these feelings and to make it even more vivid I saw myself crossing out to do’s from my list.
6. At this point you can give your circle a name or symbolic representation to remind you of this way of being. You can also pick up your circle and put it in a pocket or throw it on your head as a hat… whatever works for you so that you feel you are carrying it with you moving forward.
I hope you find this tool as useful as I did. For more information or questions check out my website at www.insightscc.com
