Your Own Valentines Day Success Story

Today is valentines day, and there's quite a bit of talk about it- you know what I'm referring to, and most of the discussion isn't on the positive side.  I've had a variety of valentines day experiences from classically mushy to bizarre to lonely to indifferent but this year I've figured out the secret to a successful valentines day.  One of the many amazing techniques NLP focuses on is called anchoring.  Simply put anchoring is when a certain stimulus causes a certain human behavioral/emotional reaction.  Anchoring can occur both accidentally and purposefully.  My favorite accidental example of anchoring was my aversion to cherries for 17 years up until last year.  When I was young I would get horrible ear infections.  I remember being out to dinner with my family and ordering a piece of cherry pie from my favorite restaurant.  At the very moment I ate the first bite of pie, I felt the awful beating in my ear meaning that I was getting an ear infection- from that day till just last year I refused to eat cherries.  Logically the cherries did not cause the ear infection but they were just the stimulus that happened to be in the picture the moment my ear infection started so I anchored myself in a cherry aversion, accidentally of course.  Purposeful anchoring happens when you impose a certain emotion on yourself and associate it with a certain trigger so that you can feel that emotion almost on command.  In my NLP training I learned how to enable my clients to feel any emotion they desire on command and in addition I can also do this to myself.  So how does this all tie into Valentines day?   Well it seems like everyone relies on another person to make or break their valentines day experience.  If you have the picture perfect valentines day then you're on cloud nine; if you're expectations aren't met in whatever capacity then it's a disappointing/lonely/miserable day.  If you're comparing it to last year or your best year or your worst year then who knows how great or awful you're feeling.  This emotional roller coaster that valentines day is associated with sounds about as appetizing as a the gelatin at the bottom of the gefilte fish jar- so let's change or anchor valentines day as a positive experience forever.  I just put together my facebook page for Beth Smolen Life Coaching on Saturday.  I could have launched it that day but I decided to wait until today to do it.  Why?  Because launching it is a big deal for me; it makes me really proud/happy/ excited for myself.  So why not do something wonderful for myself on Valentines day so I get whatever fabulous feeling the hallmark cards suggest I get?  Now for the next year and perhaps forever, Valentines day will be marked in my mind as the day I put my professional self in the public eye on facebook and that's something for me to smile about.  I've created that positive association with the holiday on my own; and perhaps I'll have other people doing special things for me on this day, but either way I created my own Valentines day success story.  You can make V-day enjoyable as well by doing something great for yourself too.  So your happiness on February 14th no longer lies in anyone else's hands; knowing exactly what will make you happy and doing it for you will ensure an amazing from here on in.  Happy Valentines Day...please help make my day a little better by clicking the like button on my facebook page below. Beth Smolen Life Coaching