Do you have a fear of public speaking? Many do, public speaking is one of the most common phobias along with spiders out there. As a Life Coach, many clients come to me looking for over come there fears and when delivering a public speech to ensure they come across as professional as possible.

NLP uses several various techniques to help you overcome fears and phobias, today we will discuss the NLP Technique; The Circle of Excellence, which was originally designed to help people access self-confidence when giving speeches.   

The Circle of Excellence is a spatial anchor whereby you draw an imaginary circle on the floor which you ‘stepped in-to’ to install new and additional resources such as confidence.

The C.O.E. can be used to summon up the confidence to perform a skill of task to the very best of your ability. You can use it if you have a fear of public speaking, before an interview or important meeting, to play your best shot in sport and in many other instances.

If you are new to NLP techniques, read the guide first before completing it.

The Circle of Excellence Technique – Step by Step

1. First think of a future situation when you would like to feel at your best and most resourceful self. Draw an imaginary circle on the ground in front of you; make it about three feet in diameter.

2. Stand up and let yourself go back in your memory to a time when you were very confident, abundantly confident. Get back to it strongly; see what you saw and hear what you heard. Notice what you are feeling and how good it feels reliving that moment. This allows you to access your confidence in the future easily.

3. As you start to feel the confidence building up, step into the C.O.E. Notice the colour of your COE, does it have a sound, what sound is it?

How is your posture and breathing right now? Notice the position of your feet and hands, the tilt of your head. When the feeling of confidence is at its fullest, step out of the circle and leave your positive confident feelings, colours and sounds inside the circle.

As you step out of the CEO- Break stat, by shaking off.

Complete step 3, three more times you can live over the same experience making this experience stronger or add new positive emotions from other past experiences. Each time re-live the past experience as if you were there now and leave your emotions (use colours or symbols to represent them) in the COE.

4. Can you now think of a specific time in the future when you want to have that same feeling of super confidence? Imagine being there now, see and hear what will be happening just before you want to feel confident. How will the scene unfold? What is happening? What is the cue to knowing that it is nearly time to step into the C.E.O.? This could be the opening of an office door (for a job interview) or stepping onto a stage or being introduced to an audience (for a public speech)

5. As you imagine yourself being at this future event, imagine this future you, using the COE. As this future you steps into the COE, feel the confidence there for you again, the colours, the sounds, the confident breathing and posture. Imagine the scene unfolding exactly the way to want it too with all your confident feelings and resources fully available for you. Imagine that everything went as well as it could possibly go – even better then you thought possible, remember how confident you are feeling.

6. Now step out of the circle again, leaving those confident feelings there in the circle. Outside the circle, take a moment and think again of that upcoming event or situation. You’ll find you’ll automatically recall those confident feelings.

This means that you’ve already reprogrammed yourself for that upcoming situation and you are already feeling better resourced for it. When the time comes you will naturally feel more confident and if you want to add more power to those positive feeling, your circle of excellence is only ever one footstep away.

This technique needs to be practiced at least 3 times fro it to be fully effective, I often use the CEO to get me in the right frame of mind when completing working task such as my CV Writing Service or preparing to see a Life Coaching in Manchester client, as a always perform at a better rate when I am confident and feeling positive.