Victim to Victor - Removing Limiting Beliefs and Taking Control

‘Beliefs are the rules of your life, the rules you live by.  These rules may be liberating and empowering and give you permission to get your goals and live your values.  They may also be obstructions, making goals impossible or leading you to believe you are not capable of getting them’ (Coaching with NLP, Joseph O’Connor and Andrea Lages)

One of the most powerful abilities a coach has is to educate their clients that they can change limiting beliefs.  The results are more often than not, phenomenal.  This thesis will explore how limiting beliefs are formed, some examples of common limiting beliefs and tools and approaches used to change limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs.  I will then explore the transition from living by unhealthy unconscious habits to supporting the new positive, empowering belief system in the Here and Now thus building self esteem and confidence.

Our beliefs are built up from our life experiences from the moment we are born.  We build our beliefs based on what our parents, friends, colleagues and the media tell us, and from our life experiences.  When we are children we are taught right from wrong and learn daily life skills from our parents, teachers and friends.  Our experiences teach us what we can achieve – a good parent is like a great coach and will encourage and champion us to challenge ourselves, thus building self-esteem and creating empowering beliefs. 

Sometimes though, we develop beliefs that do not serve us and hold us back from achieving our best.

Some examples of common limiting beliefs may be:

• I am too old

• I am too young

• I am too fat

• I am not a good parent

• I am not a lucky person

• I am not worthy

• No pain, no gain

• I can’t get what I want

• I’ve had my chance at happiness

• I can’t work a computer

• I can’t drive a car

• I can’t climb a hill

These limiting beliefs may be formed by being told by others that they are true, or by a past negative experience.

The only thing that makes a limiting belief true is if we act as if it is.  If we re-educate ourselves and choose only empowering beliefs, what will be the outcome?  If we are to believe Abraham Maslow then we would be well on the way to Self Actualisation, more on this later.

My experience tells me that we live in a negative society. It is as if British modesty has gotten out of control and now the competition is to see who is most miserable rather than competitive achievement.  This is one of the factors that have driven me to become a coach – I have seen the light so to speak and want to educate as many people as I can that they CAN change and happiness is well within their reach.  It is my belief that anyone can change their limiting beliefs and that, provided they are committed to themselves, it WILL change their life forever.  So, how do you change a limiting belief?

You change it by shifting the focus from a limiting belief to a positive, empowering belief.  Sound simple?  It is.

If we focus on the negative then that is what we will seek and find.  For example, how many dieters stick a ‘fat photo’ on the fridge in the vain hope it will stop them from comfort eating?  By focussing on the negative ‘fat’ image it merely compounds all the negative feelings that have caused the comfort eating in the first place thus perpetuating the cycle! 

There are many approaches and tools that are used by coaches and counsellors to change a limiting belief and we will explore a few of them later in this section.  However a process can be applied here. 

1. Identify and vocalise the limiting belief

2. Choose a positive, empowering belief

3. Prove the positive, empowering belief

4. Reject the limiting belief in favour of the new positive, empowering belief.

Taking each step in turn then:

For many, the first step is the easiest.  All too often we are keen to excuse ourselves from happiness by proffering our limiting beliefs to anyone who will listen – the first step as coach is to get the limiting belief into a specific statement that can then be addressed.  Once it is in the open, we as coaches can challenge the belief.   

What happens however if your client is not keen to vocalise their limiting belief?

Joseph O’Connor and Andrea Lages offer the following method to identify limiting beliefs.  (For the purposes of this assignment, the worksheet has been slightly abridged; however the content remains the same)

Identifying Limiting Beliefs Worksheet

• Ask the client to think about an important goal

• Ask them, while keeping that goal in mind to say out loud, each of the following sentences, stating their actual goal in place of the words ‘my goal’.

• As they do so, both you and the client should give a score from 1 to 10 where 1 means that they do not believe the statement, and 10 means they completely believe the statement.

1. I deserve to achieve [my goal]

2. I have the skills and abilities necessary to achieve [my goal]

3. It is possible to achieve [my goal]

4. [My goal] is clear

5. [My goal] is desirable

6. [My goal is ecological

7. [My goal] is worthwhile

By working through the example shown above, it is possible to identify where there may be obstacles to the client achieving their goal – this is where limiting beliefs lie.

The second stage of the process states ‘Choose a positive, empowering belief’.  These are generally in the form of positive ‘I am’ and ‘I can’ statements.  For example:

• I am worthy

• I can get what I want

• I am outstanding at maths ;-)

• I am great with money

• I can run my own business

• I am happy

This may feel uncomfortable for clients at first as this new belief will be in direct conflict with a belief that they may have held for many years.  It is important for the client to vocalise this new belief and, in my experience, to commit it to paper.

The next stage of our process to change a limiting belief is to prove the new positive, empowering belief.

This is where the focus shifts from the negative, limiting belief to the new positive, empowering belief.  There are many ways to do this and it is important to find what is right for your client.  For some, visualisation may help in which case Curly Martin’s techniques of visualising an empty suitcase and a tabletop may be enormously useful.  Very briefly, evidence and reference to the belief is either placed in the suitcase or used as a table leg to hold the table top up – the more clothes (references) or table legs (references), the stronger the belief, empowering or limiting.  For others a different approach may be more effective.  I am currently using a process with my clients that deconstructs the limiting belief whilst at the same time builds the new positive, empowering belief.  This method has been adapted from a tool used in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and involves clients using two Belief Record Sheets.  At the top of the first sheet is the new belief and at the top of the other sheet is the original limiting belief.  Clients are then encouraged to find and record any and all evidence that supports the new belief whilst at the same time recording any and all evidence that will disprove the limiting belief.  I have found this approach to be enormously effective as the 2-stages compliment each other and compound the focus onto the positive.

If the client has been 100% committed to removing their limiting belief and the coach has done their job correctly, stage four of the process happens automatically and the client will reject the limiting belief in favour of their new positive, empowering belief.

Although the process is now complete and many clients will have rejected their limiting beliefs, some may find it harder to let go.  This may be due to the fact that they have lived by these limiting beliefs for a very long time and it can be a frightening prospect to discard them so quickly and completely.  What can we do as coaches in this situation?

When talking of Internal Barriers Sir John Whitmore says in his book ‘Coaching for Performance’,

‘I find it is often more productive to allocate time and focus to provoking and assisting people to let go of the old rather than to teaching the new.  Once they let go of the old, the new rushes in to fill the vacuum.  Remove the blocks and the potential emerges.’

For some refocusing on the ultimate goal can be enough.  If the client is led to their end result and really experiences what the goal will look, feel, taste like it can really aid them in letting go of what is holding them back.  For others the process may take a little longer as there may be more limiting beliefs to explore before the client can reject the current one. 

Transition is where self-awareness is learned.  Up until now clients have been living by their limiting beliefs in a predominately unconscious state.  Now these limiting beliefs have been rejected by the client and until their new positive, empowering beliefs take hold they find themselves in a very conscious state – I have had one client who described this state as ‘an awakening’ – always looking for evidence to support their new beliefs and disprove their old ones.  The client is now living in the Here and Now, and it is in the Here and Now that self awareness begins.  From a coach’s point of view this is an exciting time but for a client it can be quite a scary prospect and it is important to be aware of this for your client and for you to support them in the best way that you can for them.

Many habits will have been formed around the limiting beliefs that have been rejected and the client may feel a sense of loss during the early stages.  Some habits associated with limiting beliefs may have been a comfort to the client and they will have to learn new habits that support the new positive, empowering beliefs.

Let me use an example of a habit that was broken due to the rejection of a limiting belief.  (This is actually one of my own experiences.)

For many, many years I held onto a lot of limiting beliefs particularly around my appearance.  As I began to address these beliefs I became much more self-aware and realised that I had developed a habit of unconsciously comparing myself to anyone whose company I happened to be in – always unfavourably I hasten to add.  With my rejection of the negative belief system that I held I realised that my habit was in conflict with my new belief system and had to go.  Whilst I knew that my habit was bad for me and kept me from having any self-esteem I was scared to let it go as it was also comforting in some way.

By practicing positive self talk and the self talk interrupt process I broke my unhealthy habit of negative self talk and replaced it with a similar habit of looking for a positive comparison until I chose to relinquish the habit altogether and now no longer compare myself to others. 

The above example mentions the use of the ‘Self Talk Interrupt Process’ and is enormously useful in the transition phase as the client is experiencing everything in the here and now and learns that change and choice is well within their control.  Let me expand a little on the process.

I first met Self Talk Interrupt whilst studying Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and then again when I read ‘The Life Coaching Handbook’.  We all have a running dialogue in our head, imagine if you will cartoons with the devil in our image sitting on one shoulder and the angel in our image sitting on the other, telling us what we should and shouldn’t do.  Who controls this dialogue?  We do!  It may sound simple but once our clients realise this, our job as coach becomes much easier.  This is the first step to identifying that anything and everything that goes through our minds is there because we put it there and that it is our choice that it remain there.  Self talk interrupt is simply identifying a thought that pops into our head that we do not wish to be there, interrupting it as soon as we become aware of it and CHOOSING to replace it with something more useful to us.  As with everything else, the more we practice self talk interrupt the more adept we become at it and eventually we become ‘unconsciously competent’ at removing unwanted thoughts from our minds.

With practice new healthier habits are formed that support the healthy belief system and this newfound self-awareness gives way to increased self-esteem and confidence. 

Learning to live in the Here and Now and be self aware is a huge step to realising that everything in your life is your choice and is actually within your control – the first thing to do is to let go of what is holding you back.

‘So often is it when we let go of the need for control that we gain control’

(Sir John Whitmore, ‘Coaching for Performance’)

Now our clients are well on their way to their new life so how do they stay focused and motivated?

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, took the understanding of human nature to a new level when he began to study successful individuals rather than dysfunctional ones.  He concluded that all human beings could attain fulfilment and is probably best known for his ‘Hierarchy of Needs’.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Very briefly Maslow’s model illustrates the most basic of human needs – food and water – right up to Self-actualisation.  The hierarchy shows the priorities of humans and individuals will seek to meet these needs from the bottom up.  Once we as coaches have educated our clients that it is up to them how far up the hierarchy they choose to climb, many will find their needs met and look for the next challenge.  This in itself will keep them focussed and driven.  The power of experiencing choice in action is a phenomenal motivator.  As coaches we can help re-focus our clients should they need us in the future.  It is my drive to support my clients to reaching a self-actualising state SHOULD THEY CHOOSE TO.

Maslow writes the following of self-actualising people:

• They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them

• They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions

• They are creative

• They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others.  Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives

• They feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life

• They have a system of morality which is fully internalised and independent of external authority

• They judge others without prejudice, in a way that can be termed objective

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Sir John Whitmore believes that the bottom four tiers of the hierarchy of needs can be addressed by what he calls ‘Tell Culture’ i.e. employment or career which provides money for food, water, shelter and safety and a sense of belonging to a family or company.  It may also bring esteem from other colleagues.

It is in the two highest levels of the hierarchy where coaching can be most beneficial, both personally and in business.  Individuals are seeking more worth from their careers than purely financial reward and a highly developed sense of self-esteem encourages many of the traits found in self-actualisers quoted above.

It is an exciting time to be embarking on a career as a coach.  Awareness is increasing and we are truly in the privileged position of educating and making a huge difference to those we coach.  Success and achievement is infectious and many individuals and companies are beginning to value themselves and their colleagues more than ever.  I am in the fortunate position of being able to envision a time when achievement and success will once again be en vogue.  And who knows what we as human beings will achieve next? 

Armed with the knowledge that any limiting belief may be removed from our psyche, we can achieve anything.  I shall leave you with an inspiring tale, courtesy of Tim Brownson of A Daring Adventure:

‘The Sydney to Melbourne snakes across Australia’s beautiful south east corner covering a distance of almost 550 miles and is considered a real man killer even by seasoned ultra-runners. In 1983 Cliff Young decided to enter. Cliff was not your average athlete; in fact he was not your average anything. Most of the entrants were super fit runners in their prime, whereas Cliff was a 61 year-old cowhand with little competitive experience. There were calls for him to be banned for his own safety, but whereas the rules excluded runners that were too young, nobody could see anything discriminating against people being too old. So the organizers allowed Cliff to run and strike a blow for pensioners the world over.

It was a hot day in Sydney when Cliff turned up wearing overalls and galoshes over his work boots inviting howls of derision from some of the 150 competitors and growing interest from the press corps. He did not collapse after a few hours or even die as some had predicted; in fact he did rather well. Cliff Young went on to not only finish the 550-mile race, but to win it. Nobody had told him he was supposed to stop for a rest every evening, so he just kept on running whilst others took sleep breaks. Cliff Young decided what was possible for him, not his family, his friends or even society as a whole, he set his parameters in life and he set his own beliefs about what he could achieve. Who decides what you can achieve?’

Let us be victors never victims.

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