One of the basic tenets of NLP is that in order to manage your life, you must be able to understand and manage your thought processes, thereby managing the outcome of any situation. Anchoring takes this one step further by helping you summon up a state of mind at will.

To start, think of the five sensory systems of NLP: visual, auditory, kinesthetic (feelings), olfactory (smell), and gustatory (taste). Now, think of how a single image, smell, or taste might bring up a related memory or feeling.

This is similar to how anchors work: by associating a sensory stimulus to a state of mind or feeling, you can generate that state whenever you want. It works just as a  ship's anchor does, to hold us in one state for as long as we need it.

The process for creating an anchor might seem complicated and difficult at first. But it's like any other activity that we learn: practice the steps one by one, slowly, and eventually they will become automatic. You will likely have to go through the process several times for each anchor.