Choosing your working and anchor topics is an important part of the Head-Gut Check process.

Working topics are the issues about which you are looking to find some clarity through engaging your intuitive understanding and perception. Anchor topics are used to generate specific types of information about your working topics.

Working topics:

The working topics are the issues, alternative options, or situations you are wanting to explore. It is important that the working topics be clearly enough defined in your mind that you can easily maintain focus on the topic during the Head-Gut Check session. Your working topics should also be relatively distinct from one another, so that as you focus on each topic in turn, it will be only that topic in your mind.

It is generally a good idea to stick with 2-3 working topics. 

Some examples of working topic groups:

Example 1:

1. Get a business degree
2. Get a philosophy degree
3. Travel the world

Example 2:

1. Job A
2. Job B
3. Stay at current job

Example 3:

1. Spend more time on sales
2. Spend more time on professional development
3. Status Quo

Anchor topics:

You should always use "Prefer" as one of your anchor topics; comparing responses using "Prefer" to your working topics provides information about your attitude towards the working topics at a deep level - how much do you really like, or feel good about, the working topic(s)?

Another anchor topic that is often used is "Myself" - by using "myself, as I really am" as an anchor topic, you can get a measure of how identified you are with your working topic(s). How much is the working topic really consistent with me, with who I really am? 

When evaluating alternative options or choices, it is often useful to use "the ideal option/path/choice" as an anchor topic. Comparing results of your working topic(s) to the ideal, you will get a sense of the relative closeness to your concept of the ideal situation each of the alternatives is.