Why we have limiting beliefs and how they affect us

Robert Dilts developed a framework, Logical Levels that provides a clear and powerful way of understanding why we do the things we do, and how complex it is for us to even consider changing them.

An adapted version of Dilts Logical levels illustrates his theory as follows:

Environment relates to the experiences we have from birth: how, where and when we were raised and every single thing that has happened to us on that journey. Whilst it is easy for someone raised in the West, to a wealthy family and with high levels of intelligence to believe anything is possible. It is much harder for someone from a repressive, poor background where seemingly no one progresses to share those beliefs. Even within each environment we are heavily influenced by those around us, what they believe and what they teach us to believe. ‘This is the way things are done around here’ is a good example.

Behaviour is all about the decisions we make as it is these decisions that drive our results (what we get). However the decisions we make are often based on the skills and capabilities we believe we have.

Skills and capabilities are what we learn to do and are developed through natural ability and lots of practice. In his book Bounce, Matthew Syed analyses why top performers become so. His conclusion is that we need, on average, 10,000 hours of purposeful practice to become an expert in something. Therefore the more we do something the better we will get at it, but first we have to believe that we can do it.

Beliefs and Values develop over a long period of time from both our environment and our experiences. They are the foundation of what we do, the actions we take and the decisions we make. They are the guiding light that steers us through the complexities of life by giving us a roadmap to follow. They are the things we hold to be true, facts of life, irrefutable facts. However they are not actually any of those things they are just our personal perception of the truth. In reality many of our beliefs are self-limiting, holding us back from doing and achieving the things we could achieve if we believed in them. These beliefs whether self-limiting or empowering are derived from our identity.

Identity is who we see when we look in the mirror. Only you know the true you, every thought, every feeling and every fear. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, what do you see when you look in the mirror? Identity is the key to who we are, what we do, the decisions we make, what we can achieve and is ultimately driven by our purpose in life.

Change

So to affect true change we need to look at our identity, understand how this affects what we believe to be true, the skills we develop and the decisions we make. This can be achieved by working from the bottom of Dilts Logical Levels up, and it is usually helpful if we get someone else to ask us the questions to remove our bias. This process is a great way of helping others through difficult change or even just understanding why they are doing the things they do.

An example may be:

As you can see there is nothing wrong with this person’s identity or values but they have created a belief that is limiting this person to only call a prospect after the prospect has invited them to do so. They will be sitting in their office on their high moral ground while others are closing their potential sales. There is not a lot of work to do here to get this back on track, because all we need to do is work on their belief whilst respecting their identity and values, but the outcome could be significant.

If you want to find out more about how our behaviour is built on our identity, and how this can help your team, call us on 01273 463854 and we would love to explain more.