The Power of Beliefs
The influence of beliefs on our lives is immense. Not only do they shape our experiences, but they are also remarkably resistant to ordinary logic or rational thinking. Abraham Maslow liked to tell an old story about a man undergoing psychiatric treatment. This man refused to eat or take care of himself, insisting that he was already a corpse. The psychiatrist spent many hours unsuccessfully trying to convince the patient otherwise. Finally, he asked if blood could flow from a dead body. “Of course not,” replied the patient, “since all physiological functions stop in a corpse.” The psychiatrist then suggested, as an experiment, pricking the patient with a pin to see if blood would flow. The patient agreed—after all, he already believed he was a corpse. Naturally, blood came out. The shocked patient exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned… corpses bleed too!”
The power of beliefs was further confirmed by an instructive experiment in which a group of children with average intelligence (based on test results) was randomly divided into two equal subgroups. One teacher was told that their group consisted of “gifted children,” while the other teacher was told their group was made up of “slow learners.” After a year, both groups were retested. Unsurprisingly, most of the “gifted” students scored higher than those labeled as “slow learners.” The teachers’ beliefs had a direct impact on the students’ abilities.
There are countless examples showing that our beliefs can shape or even predetermine our intelligence, health, relationships, creativity, and even our happiness and personal success. But if that’s the case, how can we learn to manage our beliefs so they stop controlling us? Many beliefs are formed in childhood, influenced by parents, teachers, society, and the media, long before we become aware of their impact or develop the ability to choose our own beliefs. Is it possible to restructure, forget, or change old beliefs that limit us, and create new ones that allow our potential to go beyond the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves? And if so, how?
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and language pattern techniques are effective new tools for changing mental frames and transforming potentially limiting beliefs.
Limiting Beliefs
The three most common types of limiting beliefs generally boil down to hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness. These beliefs can have a huge impact on a person’s mental and physical health.
- Hopelessness: The belief that a desired goal is unattainable, regardless of your abilities.
- Helplessness: The belief that the goal is attainable, but you are incapable of achieving it.
- Worthlessness: The belief that you don’t deserve your desired goal because of your qualities or behavior.
Hopelessness means not believing that your desired goal is even possible. Typical thoughts include: “No matter what I do, it’s useless. I want the impossible. It’s out of my control. I’m a victim.”
Helplessness means that even if you believe the goal exists and is achievable, you don’t believe you can reach it. This often sounds like: “Anyone but me could achieve this. I’m too weak or inadequate to get what I want.”
Worthlessness is when you might believe the goal is real and attainable, but you’re convinced you don’t deserve it. This is often accompanied by feelings like: “I’m a nobody. No one needs me. I don’t deserve happiness or health. Something is fundamentally wrong with me, and I deserve the pain and suffering I experience.”
To achieve success, it’s necessary to transform these limiting beliefs into hope for the future, self-confidence, responsibility, and a sense of self-worth and significance.
Our deepest beliefs often relate to our identity. Examples include: “I am helpless (unworthy, a victim),” “I don’t deserve success,” “If I get what I want, I’ll lose something else,” or “I have no right to succeed.”
Limiting beliefs often act as “thought viruses,” with the same destructive power as computer or biological viruses. A thought virus is a limiting belief that can become a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” undermining any attempt at healing or self-improvement. Thought viruses contain unspoken assumptions that make them hard to identify and overcome. Often, our most powerful beliefs remain outside our conscious awareness.
Transforming Limiting Beliefs
Many limiting beliefs arise because the question “how?” hasn’t been answered. For example, if a person doesn’t know how to change their behavior, it’s easy to form the belief, “This behavior can’t be changed.” If someone doesn’t know how to accomplish a task, they might believe, “I can’t succeed at this.” Therefore, transforming limiting beliefs often requires finding answers to many “how” questions. For instance, before addressing the belief “It’s dangerous for me to show my emotions,” we need to answer, “How can I express emotions and still feel safe?”
Both empowering and limiting beliefs are often built on feedback and reinforcement from people who matter to us. Our sense of identity and purpose is usually defined in relation to significant people—our “mentors”—who serve as reference points in the larger systems we belong to. Since identity and purpose form the framework for our beliefs and values, establishing or changing important relationships can have a huge impact on our beliefs. Clarifying or changing key relationships, as well as the messages received in those contexts, can often make the process of changing beliefs much easier. Building new relationships is often a crucial part of the long-term process of changing beliefs, especially if those relationships provide positive support at the level of identity. (This principle is fundamental to belief-change methods like reimprinting.)
Therefore, the following steps can help update and change limiting beliefs:
- Identifying and understanding hidden positive intentions;
- Recognizing any unspoken or unconscious assumptions underlying the belief;
- Expanding awareness of the cause-and-effect links or “complex equivalents” related to the belief;
- Providing information on “how to do it” and creating alternative ways to achieve the positive intention or goal behind the limiting belief;
- Clarifying or updating important relationships that shape our sense of mission and significance, and receiving positive support at the level of identity.