The Beauty of a Resourceful State

MINDSET  ·  NLP  ·  STATE

By Daniela Fukumothi  ·  April 2026

Have you ever had one of those moments?

Where everything just clicked. Where you felt sharp, capable, almost unstoppable — and then wondered how to get back there? That feeling has a name. In NLP, we call it a resourceful state. And the good news: it’s not luck. It’s a skill.

What is a resourceful state?

One of the most powerful presuppositions in NLP states: “There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states.” Read that again. It means the problem is never you — it’s the state you’re in. And states can change.

A resourceful state is when your thinking, feeling, and behaviour are all aligned, synced, and working together toward something. It’s a moving-forward moment. It’s when you have clarity to access your mind, your experiences, your abilities, and consciously choose the best combination for the situation in front of you.

An unresourceful state, by contrast, is when — consciously or not — you block access to your best resources by thinking, feeling, or behaving in ways that keep you stuck.

A quick but important nuance: a resourceful state doesn’t necessarily mean a positive or cheerful emotion. Sometimes the state that gets you through something hard includes a dash of fear, a spark of healthy anger, or a quiet determination that has nothing joyful about it. That’s okay. We’re not sorting emotions into “good” and “bad” here. We’re asking: does this state help me move forward and do this well? If yes — that’s resourceful.

Also worth noting: a resourceful state is not necessarily a peak state, though a peak state is always resourceful. Each situation might call for an entirely different combination of resources. That’s part of what makes this so fascinating — and so worth developing.

You’ve been there before — let’s find it

Think of the last time you had to do something challenging. The final stretch of a tough workout. A presentation at work. Saying no to someone when it would have been so much easier to say yes.

Picture the workout moment: you’re tired, a voice in your head says “give up” — and then something shifts. You think, almost out loud: “I can do this. I can do hard things. I can do ten more reps. I can do anything for one minute.” You summon the energy. You finish. And you feel capable, strong, even a little mighty.

That was a resourceful state. The right combination of focus, self-talk, and physical energy — all working together.

Now replace the workout with the presentation: feeling ready and prepared, thinking clearly about your content, walking in head high with a steady voice. Same structure, different situation.

How would it feel if everything you had to do could be approached in this kind of state?

The three levers you can pull

To access a resourceful state, you can work with three things: your focus (what you’re paying attention to), your self-talk (what you’re telling yourself and how), and your physiology (how your body is showing up). These three feed each other. Change one, and the others start to follow.

In NLP, we call the bridge between the body and a specific state an anchor — a conditioned trigger that brings a state forward on demand. A superhero pose. A song. A deep breath. More on anchoring — and how to summon an empowered state intentionally — in the next post.

Your self-concept is made of experiences. Your states are how you access them. What’s one situation in your life right now where a more resourceful state would make all the difference?

With love, from your coach and support system,

Daniela

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