46 Part I: Introducing NLP
Changing beliefs
Some of your beliefs can empower you, while others can limit the way you
think and hold you back. The good news is that beliefs can and do change.
Take the example of the four-minute mile. For years athletes didn’t believe
someone could run a mile in less than four minutes. Roger Bannister
achieved this aim in May 1954. Soon after, even this record was broken sev-
eral times over.
Are you thinking, ‘But why would I want to change something that glues my
world together?’ Yes, beliefs do hold your world together, but ask yourself
whether it’s for better or for worse. If a belief is holding you back, change
it. If you find you need the security blanket of the old belief, you can always
change it back.
When you think of a belief you have, you may make a picture, have a feeling,
hear something, or experience some combination or all three of these sensa-
tions. These qualities of your beliefs – visual (pictures), auditory (sound),
and kinaesthetic (feelings) – are called modalities, which can be fine tuned
using submodalities: qualities such as brightness, size, and distance for pic-
tures; loudness and tone for sounds; and pressure, heat, and location for feel-
ings. Check out Chapter 6 for much more on senses and modalities.
One way of changing a belief is to adjust its submodalities. This process is
useful because it helps you to loosen the grip that a limiting belief has on
you and reinforce the effects of a positive belief, in order to develop a more
empowering belief. Suppose that you can’t help but be drawn to people and
have long been told that being subjective is bad – changing your belief to
‘I’m good with people’ can make a huge difference to your confidence when
dealing with others. Similarly, if you know that you’re good at art, this belief
can help you branch into a more art-based career. You can find out how to go
about changing a belief in Chapter 10.
As a member of the human race, what beliefs are holding your ‘isms’ (sexism,
ageism, racism) in place and whose ‘isms’ are you allowing to box you in? A
cluster of beliefs is called a belief system. A belief or belief system can support
a particular value. Values are the why you do something. Beliefs direct your
behaviour, which then helps you to fulfil a value – provided of course your
unconscious mind creates no conflicts.
Working with your values
Values are the ‘hot buttons’ that drive all your behaviours and are your
unconscious motivators and demotivators: you act because of your values.
