How to Change Your State: Warrior Mind Podcast #385
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In this episode of the Warrior Mind Podcast I’m going to talk about your state, the importance of it and how to change it.
How to Change Your State
This article was originally published on February 4, 2018 by Mike Miller
http://nlpapprentice.com/nlp/how-to-change-your-state/
How to Change Your State
There’s a lot of misinformation about NLP floating around on the Internet. One of the major sources of errors online about NLP is with state and how to change your state.
Obviously, some well-meaning sales, marketing and success experts don’t know what “state” is. If they did, they wouldn’t say such things as, “it takes a lot of effort and skill to change your state.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. It happens to us all day long.
For instance, I dropped by my Mom’s house today for a quick visit. In the span of 45 minutes, I was happy, bored, frustrated, insulted, sad, empathetic, and was filled with warm feelings of love and affection.
That’s a different state just about every 6.5 minutes. They happened automatically. I didn’t even try to evoke them.
What is State?
State is … well let me ask you, “how do you feel right now?”
Are you happy, sad, ready to learn, lustful, hungry, bored, excited … or something else?
However you experience and define that feeling you have right now. That’s your state. It is essentially the label of your experience of yourself in the world right now.
It’s not just feelings though. It’s the entirety of your current thoughts, feelings and emotions, along with all the sensations in your body.
There is a thousand labels for how you can feel at any given moment. You may know them as, love, tired, forgiveness, anxiety, charity, fear, freedom, curiosity, on edge, centered, calm, excited, fascinated, jealousy, anger, depression, blessed, kindhearted, frustrated, fractious, greedy, clear, etc.
They can be thought of either as good or bad, empowering or disempowering.
As you would expect, it feels good to pursue highly desirable states and equally awful when thrust into undesirable states. But whatever state you are in, you can be certain that specific states are good for specific things.
Why is State Important?
Here’s some odd examples to help you understand:
imagine getting out of a warm bed, putting on your boots and jacket and walking out a door onto the deck of an Alaskan crab boat, rocking violently as the freezing splash of ice cold sea water sprays your face – drenching you and chilling you to the bone.
Now imagine, accidentally answering your phone and tentatively saying, “hello?” to someone on the phone while you are having sex.
Now imagine walking into a boardroom 10 minutes before you have to give a presentation to your boss, your boss’s boss, the CEO of the company, and 25 other colleagues – but you had delegated the presentation creation and haven’t actually seen it yet.
In any of the strange experiences above, would you be in the right state to cast crab traps, speak to someone on the phone, or give a presentation?
Let’s all agree that for everyone but the most kinky of us, the answer to all three scenarios above is no. We answer “No” because, we all agree there would be no way we could adequately function in those scenarios – our inability to perform would be evident for all to see.
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These examples prove why state is important. When you are in “unresourceful” [un-resource-full] states you ensure a less than satisfactory performance on tasks. But when you are in “resourceful” [resource-full] states, your odds of performing at the peak of your abilities are highly increased and success is almost certain.
We have a range of states we go through in the course of our lives. Our life’s states span from high peak states to low depressed states and everything in between. We can also consider that we have an average of them all: a balanced state, or baseline state.
When we are in peak states, we are “on top of the world” able to blast through any difficulty. When we are in low states, every small annoyance (e.x. burning your hand with cheese) derails your life.
Many hope by hanging on to a specific peak state indefinitely they will accomplish amazing feats and achieve their success goals quicker and easier. Fortunately, it’s not only impossible, it’s destructive. We need to move through different states for both psychological and physical reasons.
Why should a sprinter be amped up and in the peak performance zone 4 hours / 4 days / 4 months after the race? When a parent comes home from work, should they be in a focused work state while they are spending time with their children?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to learn to shift our states by exerting light control to guide them most of the time, while training and developing our skills to elicit and evoke them on demand when we need a peak state?
How do I get Into Peak State? How Do I Change My State of Mind?
Before I can tell you how to change your state, I have to ensure I clear up five items of misinformation first.
First, in NLP it’s just called state.
But authors, writers, experts, etc. who use NLP without telling you it’s NLP have changed the name because “state” doesn’t work well as a keyword on search engines. So the name has changed to include the words “mental” state, “emotional” state, “peak” state or state “of mind.”
That’s an issue because state isn’t just your mental state. It’s not just your emotional state either. It’s the sum total of your entire, complete, full experience of your mind, body, and emotions – conscious and unconscious in this current moment.
Second, a peak state sounds great, but what does that mean and how do you do it? Those who claim to know how to use the term, point to patterns of behavior that help you enter them but they have it twisted. Here’s just one example:
7 Tips On How to Keep in a Peak State at all times
- Watch your physiology. …
- Read before important events. …
- Use some pump up music. …
- Speak with inspiring individuals in your network. …
- Look forward to an inspiring event. …
- Add Superfoods. …
- Go out and achieve something awesome
A lot of that is all wrong; you’ll understand why in a minute. Some of these suggestions will change your state, but some won’t – like Superfoods. It might be a good idea to incorporate Superfoods into your diet, but unless it’s laced or you are freakishly sensitive to food, Superfoods aren’t going to change your state.
Third, I hope no one ever has to stay in a “peak” state at all times. States are intended to be under your control. If you can turn them on, you should be able to turn them off, or better yet, switch them as appropriate for the environment you find yourself in.
Fourth, the above article doesn’t mention all the state change options you have available. There are actually different levels – let’s call them simple and advanced. Simple is easy, but you go advanced because, if you want to get into a “peak” state, you will want to do it fast and easy. If you have to read a book to get into a state for an important event, how much do you have to read and how long will it take? Wouldn’t being able to induce a specific state instantly be a better solution?
Fifth, most experts from a range of fields (sales, marketing, leadership, success) will tell you that changing states is hard, or takes a long time. They are wrong. It’s very easy to change your state quickly if you have the right stimulus – like your boss walking up to you and saying, “Can I see you in my office” and walking off. And, if you practice changing states in your spare time, just like practicing guitar for 10 minutes a day, you will find you can quickly learn to change and adopt a variety of states near instantaneously.
Desired State: Confidence
External Physical Postures: Stand open, upright, hands on hips like a superhero or Elon Musk.
Internal Feelings: Strong, at ease, sense of calm and peace while being able to easily deal with any situation or person – and have the person wanting to hang out with me and buy me a drink.
Visual Images: Hanging out with Frank Sinatra and George Clooney, Laughing at good jokes, I’m in a $5,000 armani suit – cape flowing from my shoulders. On an overcast day, the clouds part and a ray of sunlight illuminates me. I begin to glow, gold and white hot from within.
Auditory Sounds: I hear the words: “God Mode: Unstoppable Confidence!” Then thunderclaps and I hear a stadium full of spectators screaming “YEAH!!!” at the top of their lungs and begin chanting my name! I hear random admirers scream, “I love you Mike!,” “You got this!,” “Go get ’em!”
And then I notice the sensations ripple through my body as I say the word “Confidence” to myself, hold my left pinky with my right hand in that certain way and fully connect with the sights, sounds, feelings, and emotions of the experience.
Then, I change my position and think about something else.
Then I do it again and try to heighten – fully associate into the experience – again. Rinse and repeat as many times as I like.
After I reinforce it a couple times, I test it by saying the word “Confidence” to myself, holding my left pinky with my right hand in that certain way and fully connecting with the sights, sounds, feelings, and emotions of the experience. That way I ensure it’s ready to use whenever I need it. We’ll get deeper into all that in level 2.
For now, be thinking about the states you want to create and start making an inventory of the external physical postures, the internal feelings, the visual images, the auditory sounds, and the olfactory smells and gustatory tastes that represent or characterize or make you think of a specific state – and start practicing. You will thank me when you are on top of your game, loving every minute of it, getting noticed in your organization, able to increase the bond and love with your partner, children, people you know, and surprising and exciting yourself about what you have achieved and what that can mean for the future.
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