I am referring to an emotional state. Often time when I ask the question "If you could change anything in your life, what would that be?"… 9 times out of 10 I get the response "I just want to be happy!" At that point I ask, "Well how happy do you want to be? 89.7 happy or 291 happy?" And also "How do you know when you have it?" Most people can't answer that question “why?” because "Happiness" is a state. In NLP a state is :
· Stated Ambiguously.
· Infinite and not measurable.
· Stated for Self/Others.
But the best thing about states is there are no steps to achieving them. You can get them by simply just writing an affirmation and you can have them NOW!
It is a known fact that if you smile you start to feel better and move to being in a better mood. And the longer you smile the better you feel both inside and out.
“So how do I get into a state that I want at a particular time?” is a question I have been asked several times. For a person that is plagued the problem of not enough _________... I will ask them if they have ever felt __________. Then “do you remember where you were the last time you had that feeling? Great, do you remember a specific time?... wonderful. Now I want you to float back into your body and see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel what you felt. And as you do this you will begin to associate back into that state. And as you do, you will feel the memory of that time and place come over your body. And before you realize it you have that exact same felling all over again.
Possible states that you can put yourself into:
· A time when you felt totally confident.
· A time when you felt totally loved.
· A time when you fell down laughing.
· A time when you felt totally powerful
I know that you will agree that these are only a few of the states that you can get yourself into and wouldn't be great to feel that way again.
What I want you to take away from all of this is you have control over your states. You are in control of your emotions. By focusing on even the briefest of moments, you can help change not only your current state, but how you view and interact with the world around you.