I mentioned last week about my affinity with certain music tracks and how those musicians can say what I am feeling in such a beautifully expressive way – in the same way ‘a picture paints a thousand words’, I do think songs capture an essence in a similar way.
I notice, when I am walking the dog around the park, that both my mood and my pace are affected by the playlist I am listening to – when I play my ‘running’ playlist, I march around the park at a fairly swift pace. In fact, I have even been known to break into a jog when Taio Cruz ‘Dynamite’ starts playing, just because of the rhythm – and believe me, that is a sight to see, especially when I am wearing my wellies!
So what happens when I use that to my advantage, and select my playlist to affect the mood I wish to create! During morning walks, I play something stimulating, to create a buzzing mood to start my day (and to keep me going). Evening walks are now accompanied by my meditation or yoga playlist, although I have not mastered the skill of levitating around the park…yet!
Of course, NLP Professionals already know this as anchoring our state, and using an external stimulus to create a particular mood (state). And as with a lot of NLP, many of us do this naturally, because that is what NLP is all about – modelling excellence in human behaviour and breaking it down into effective strategies that anyone can then use.