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Top Tips for Top Totty at the Leap Year Challenge
27/02/08
Women can traditionally ‘leap’ towards marriage by proposing on February 29, but how many have the confidence to ask the question?
And if you’re a single girl, could you pluck up the courage to use the day to leap closer to someone by asking them out on a date?
Either way, women should know that feeling confident on the day can make a big difference to the answer for their question.
Matt Caulfield, a leading Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) expert, believes that with some of his top tips, you cannot fail to feel like top totty!
And according to ancient law, anyone who refuses a Leap Year marriage proposal must pay a fine, ranging from a kiss to a pair of gloves. So why not give it a go and let Matt’s expert advice guide you through it.
Build confidence through Visualisation
1. Go somewhere you won’t be disturbed for a few minutes.
2. Think of a time you felt utterly confident.
3. Close your eyes and go back that time, see what you saw, hear what you heard and feel how confident you felt.
4. Make the pictures bigger, brighter, stronger, bolder. Double the intensity of the feeling, until you feel totally confident - about an 8 or a 9 out of 10.
5. When you are ready, squeeze the thumb and index finger of either your right or your left hand together for a few seconds.
6. Open your eyes, relax and think of something else for a few seconds.
7. Now squeeze your fingers together and see how intensely the feeling comes back, it may take a few goes to get to the intensity of an 8 or 9.
You can repeat this with any other mental state you think will be useful: relaxation for example.
Mind Scripts
Also known as Affirmations and Mantras, these are ridiculously simple ways of changing your mental state and thought process. We often talk to ourselves in our head and how and what we say affects our mental state in either a positive or negative way.
If you say things like “I hope this doesn’t go badly, I bet he hates me” and then start running negative scenarios through your head, you are going to get into a negative mental state, this is going to affect your behaviour and become a self fulfilling prophecy.
If you say something more positive like “He will like me and I will like him” it will affect your mental representation and mood.
Simplicity and Repetition are the keys to this, if you just do it once or for a few minutes and forget it, it will not work, but if you do it consciously for a while and interrupt the negative talk with it every time you find yourself doing it, you will soon re-programme yourself to talk to yourself in a more positive way.
Mental rehearsal
Imagine the event going perfectly, exactly the way you want it to go.
If there are certain things you are worried might go wrong, don’t dwell on them, spend a few minutes thinking how you can deal with them, so you are prepared, but focus on the solution, not the problem. Once you are happy with the situation forget it and go back to focusing on the event going perfectly.
Controlling nerves and negative thoughts
A physical technique to deal with nerves and negative thoughts is to focus on your “centre”.
1. Find the point approximately 2 finger widths below you belly button, press gently with a finger and focus on that point
2. Think of the thing or event that is making you feel anxious or nervous.
3. Move your attention down to that point (hint: you may find it useful to imagine you nose is down there, o as you breath in and out you do so from that point)
4. Stand up straight and breath slowly, with your attention firmly placed on your centre
5. See how much the nervousness or anxiety has reduced.
6. Repeat as necessary.
During the proposal/question
Always communicate with an outcome in mind. The outcome is getting the person to say yes, so they have to like you and associate you with a good mental or emotional state. So your outcome for the communication is to get them in a good state (whatever state you want: friendly, happy, relaxed, excited, passionate…)
According to studies: body language comprises 55% of the force of any response, whereas the verbal content only provides 7%, and "paralanguage," or the intonation, pauses and sighs given when answering, represents 38%.
Tonality is everything!
So you must concentrate first on your body language.
Match their communication style
If they talk fast and animatedly about what they see things to be, talk a bit faster and a bit more animatedly yourself (but keep it controlled, don’t get manic! Make sure you still breathe properly, resonate properly and leave gaps between your words so you can be understood!)
If they talk measured and rhythmic, copy it (this is actually the one you want to aim for, it is the most measured and makes you appear the most confident – think George Clooney!)
If they talk slow and about how they feel, offer it back but don’t get too slow as you my come across dull!
Match their body posture
(but be careful, don’t be too obvious, you will look like you are taking the mick!), if they lean forward, you lean forward, if they fold their legs or arms, subtly fold yours, etc.
Matt Caulfield’s Comments:
“Luckily attractiveness has little to do with physical beauty. Look at the people who are considered attractive and how they are all sorts of different shapes and sizes.
“However one thing they have in common is knowing how to present themselves, both visually (how they dress to suite their shape), how they sound (what they say and how they say it) and how they feel (that air of confidence, charisma).
ENDS
For more information please contact Clive Reeves on 01543 501111 or email clive@wardlovett.com