It makes me smile to think I have all these characters inside my head. Thankfully nobody sees them when I wander to the shops (in the old days). There’s Tube Man and ally, Sharon Horgan (she doesn’t know a thing about it), Shane, my brother or at least his voice and Superwoman has a spot too. She has her hands on her hips. That’s important. But for now I’m talking metaphors and anchors so Tube Man is the man.

Many of you who joined our International Coaching Week workshops raised questions about how to evoke the positive feeling of a particular experience. How to remember to call on your Allies. How to remember to keep your values front of mind.

Well, say hello to metaphors and anchors. I love metaphors. Because they’re powerful, brimful of meaning in just one or two little words. And I love them for how they live in our society under the radar. We see ‘dirty’ as a metaphor for ‘criminality’. ‘Dirty business’, ‘dirty money’. We talk about ‘hitting our heads off brick walls’. Right now, our NHS staff are on the ‘frontline’. A battle metaphor which brought with it other words like ‘Heroes’.

We coaches use Metaphor a lot. When it is difficult to find concrete language. When the experience is emotional and its easier to describe in imagery. I use a metaphor of Tube Man (the tall inflatable man with flailing arms you see outside car dealerships in the US) as a reminder when I need lightness. But the metaphor has additional qualities that come to me the moment I see Tube Man in my mind’s eye.

Find your metaphor when you want to connect with the positive feeling of a goal you want - a way of being or a behaviour. It only needs to have meaning to you. Print it - put it on the wall. Find a picture and keep it on your phone. Look at it often. Feel the qualities it brings to you. Create a metaphor or image for your ally. Think of the cue or trigger that will tell you it’s time to call on them. It could be an anxiety in the belly, a shortness of breath, a collapse in the spine or a conversation in your head. Identify your moment. In your mind, make the connection repeatedly between the cue and the ally metaphor. And feel the power of your ally.

Or when you want to be in your best state going into that presentation you’ve been dreading, perhaps you need an anchor.

An anchor is a cue or a trigger for a desired state or behaviour. When you have a situation that you know is stressful or causes anxiety then you can use anchors to put you in the positive state that you need to cope with it. Anchoring is routed (mixed metaphors, I know) in the work Psychologist, Ivan Pavlov did around conditioning.

Create an anchor for a specific state of being. Let’s say you want more confidence.

1. Think of a time when you were feeling confident. Relive the memory fully. Dial that feeling up. Where do you feel it in the body? What do you hear and see? How are you standing or sitting? Are there sounds or colours associated with this memory?

2. Now create a cue to remind you of this. It could be as simple as a small closed fist or a very deep breath or a stance.

3. Hold your cue or gesture for a count of ten. Release.

4. Repeat this and do it slowly. Enjoy it.

5. Come out of the state. Let go of the gesture. Notice what’s around you in the room. What can you hear? Have a look.

6. Now do your gesture again. Hold it for a count of 10. You will feel that confidence come flooding back. Repeat this to strengthen the anchor.

7. You’ve paired the gesture with the resource you needed - in this case, confidence.

You can use different memories to relive this feeling of confidence