Anchoring technique
With Coronavirus running rampant around the world, people everywhere are understandably concerned and scared. The level of fear and panic being displayed on the news each night is not only worrying to see, but I’ve found it fascinating to notice how people react when their existence is perceived as being under threat.
Many of you would have seen vision of people stockpiling goods from supermarkets and stores all around the world. The craziest item to fly off the shelves has of course been…toilet paper! But why!?
Whilst there are plenty of theories about what the heck is going on (is the world really coming to an end!?), the one theory that I found intriguing was that toilet paper represents some level of control that we can have in this uncontrollable situation. If we can maintain our own cleanliness, then that gives us a sense of certainty, consistency, and stability, and can make us feel safer and more secure in an insecure environment.
This got me thinking about what we can do as performers to create a stronger sense of control and stability on stage. Obviously performing is an often uncontrollable and unpredictable beast, with emotions of fear and anxiety bubbling to the surface, adding to the uncertainty of it all.
So what can you do to stabilise yourself before charging out on stage?
Recently I’ve been researching the technique of ‘Anchoring’. This concept is based around the psychological principals of Classical Conditioning, a type of learning done through association. First developed by Russian psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Ivan Pavlov, it involves coupling a particular emotional state (confidence, courage, excitement etc.) with a simple physical action, such as pressing your thumb and index finger together. With practice, you are soon able to trigger the required emotional state by simply performing the physical action.
We already have anchors as part of our everyday psychology, but most of them occur automatically and unconsciously. If I say “spiders” or “snakes”, your reflex response might be to shudder in disgust or fear. If you smell freshly baked bread coming out of the oven, then you might recall the thought of your mother baking when you were a child. For me, the smell of freshly cut grass brings back memories of my dad mowing the lawn every weekend during summer. These are all sensations that have deeply ingrained associations with one another.
Anchoring is a great tool to use when getting ready to perform, by eliciting the emotions and energy that will help you achieve the result that you want. This is a commonly used technique for public speakers, and can also be used in any performance situation, such as exams, sports events, job interviews, and of course for you on stage.
So to get started, here are a few steps to follow:
1. Work out how you want to feel when performing on stage. Do you want to be more confident, courageous, determined, or focused? What would this feel like and how would it help you perform better in the future?
2. Then create your anchor trigger. This is an action involving some sort of physical touch that can be easily and identically replicated. It could be squeezing your thumb and index finger together, tapping one of the knuckles on the back of your hand, or squeezing a specific part of your leg. Keep it simple and discreet, but don’t make it something that you do on a regular basis, like clenching your fist, as you’ve probably got an association attached to this already.
3. Take some deep breaths, close your eyes, and recall a time when you strongly felt your desired performance emotion. It doesn’t have to be in a performance situation, but needs to be something that you can vividly recall in your mind. SEE what you saw in this moment. FEEL what you felt. HEAR what you heard. Let the feeling increasingly build and intensify, like you are turning up the volume knob on your stereo.
4. As you feel the emotion building, perform your anchor trigger and hold it for 3-5 seconds, then release. Doing this creates a strong association between your emotional state and your trigger.
5. The next step involves breaking the state of mind that you are currently in. Open your eyes and start to think of something that’s completely unrelated. You could go for a walk for a minute, do some mental arithmetic, or read a page in a book. Just do something to distract yourself and make you forget about what you’ve been doing.
6. Repeat! This is where we condition the anchor through repetition to make it automatic. Again, visualise your peak emotional state – See it, feel it, hear it. When you’ve reached this heightened state, use your anchor trigger and hold it for 3-5 seconds. Then step away and break state.
Do this as many times as you can in one sitting, and start to lengthen the time between each repetition. Then test your anchor trigger and see whether you can generate the desired feelings without any visualisation.
How did you go? Share your experience in the comments, and download the anchoring guide below to help you in your practice!