Yesterday I wrote about beliefs in a posting about Milton Rokeach’s wonderful, touching and thought-provoking book The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.  This book raises an issue which is present in all our lives – the seemingly intractable nature of some of beliefs.  I am thinking especially of those beliefs formed in childhood which continue to have a strong emotional resonance and often to hold us back, even when our thinking brain knows they are irrational and has every proof that it’s time to let them go.  Thinkers in the field of neurolinguistic programming (or NLP) have coined the term “limiting beliefs” to describe such beliefs and offer techniques for changing or out-framing them.  These are the beliefs that, quite simply, hold us back.

Recently, the issue of limiting beliefs turned up for a client in one of our coaching sessions.  Positioned in a new and senior job she reported significant progress across a number of areas.  Everything was on track.  Why then, I wondered, did she not seem more happy and optimistic?  When I explored this with her up came a stonking great limiting belief: roughly, if I celebrate my successes and expect too much (hence “great expectations”) it will all go wrong.  As part of our discussion, she recognised that if only she could celebrate her successes more she would feel less anxiety about the future and be more relaxed.  Still, knowing this was not enough to allow her simply to let go of her old belief.  (It rarely is).

There are all sorts of ways to respond to a limiting belief.  One way, for example, is to act as if it isn’t true – in the words of Susan Jeffers to feel the fear and do it anyway.  Using this approach implies, in this case, taking small steps to notice and celebrate each success as it comes.  The benefit of this approach is that, over time, we have real experiences that demonstrate our old belief is not true.  This is about beginning to walk new neural pathways.  Another way is to demonise the part of us that holds the belief, calling it our “gremlin” for example, subjecting it to ridicule and, in this way (or so the theory goes) laughing our limiting belief right out of town.  Perhaps you can guess that I’m not a great fan of this approach, both because I prefer a more compassionate approach and because I’ve seen how often the limiting belief, banished in this way, continues to exercise a powerful force in the lives of the very person who has dismissed it as rubbish.

At the same time, part of making changes is to recognise that you don’t have to have all the steps to your end goal mapped out in advance.  Sometimes it’s enough to know that you don’t want your life to be circumscribed by the power of a limiting belief and to ask yourself, if this is my end goal, what might be my next step?  This question draws on the wisdom of the person who is going to make the change.  For me, a useful first step when it comes to limiting beliefs is simply to get curious – not with the aim of changing or suppressing your limiting belief, but simply to understand the territory you’re in.  To this end, I offer some questions to ponder next time you find yourself bumping up against your own limiting beliefs:

• What is the belief you’re holding?
• What is the impact in your life of holding this belief?
• What more might be possible if you didn’t hold this belief?
• What part of you is holding this belief?
• What does it want for you?
• What relationship do you have with the part of you that’s holding the belief?
• What relationship do you have with the belief itself?
• Was there ever a time in your life when you remember not holding this belief?  When?
• Does anyone else in your life (especially but not only family) hold this belief?
• What is it you’re really wanting in relation to this belief?
• What else do you know about this belief?
• What more does this belief want to tell you?