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Probably one of the things that gets in peoples way the most is the beliefs they have about themselves, their capabilities and the world they live in. Your beliefs determine how you interact with the world. Your beliefs are usually formed as generalisations which limit us or liberate us in some way.
To believe in good things, what I'm talking about is the ability you have to believe in what is useful and to stop believing in what isn't useful. We all have many, many beliefs about almost everything. You like me, may have heard of certain NLP Trainers believing that their only belief was that they had no beliefs. This, itself was a belief. The truth is that everyone has beliefs because the only time we communicate and do not communicate our beliefs is when we are describing our experience as we are having it.
The first thing to realise is what beliefs you have that do not work well for you. There are certain beliefs that restrict you and cause you to live in a world of limits, negative feelings and damaging, reoccuring patterns. When you examine your internal dialogue or write out your thoughts, you will discover many beliefs that you have that determine how you feel about yourself and your life. One trick is to look out for the words 'because' or 'means' as they immediately reveal beliefs.
They indicate two main kinds of beliefs. Cause Effect Beliefs and Equivalence Beliefs. Cause Effect Beliefs are beliefs which ascribe one behaviour or experience (A) to cause something else (B) and Equivalence Beliefs are beliefs which connect a behaviour or experience (A) with another experience (B) as if they are the same. For example, a cause effect belief might be: 'I feel bad because you criticized me' (Criticizing me (A) causes me to feel bad (B)) or an equivalence belief might be 'You ignore me and that means you don't love me' (You ignoring me (A) means that you don't love me (B)).
Once you become aware of all the beliefs that you have when you talk to yourself, talk to yourself about different areas of your life. Keep writing down all the beliefs you can spot.
Next, examine each belief and ask how useful is it for you to have that belief. If the belief is not useful then challenge it and ask yourself the question 'How do you know?', ' Who says?' and 'How do you make the connection between the A and B in either the Cause Effect or Equivalence beliefs. Find counter examples that destroy the belief and find a few of them. The idea is to get you to sow seeds of doubt about the beliefs that don't serve you.
You can understand then, more usefully, what beliefs would be more useful to hold. The thing is that you have a choice of what you believe. Once you are aware of the beliefs you have, you will discover how you filter everything through those beliefs. Whenever you believe something, that will determine how you view everything connected with that something. So, it is crucial that you understand how to develop the most flexible perspective on whatever you believe in.
Some things are worth believing in. Freedom, Love, Happiness, Cheerfulness, How wonderful you can be... these are all examples of things that you can believe in. Instead too many people believe in nonsense and believe in made up explanations about their 'problems'. As Dr Richard Bandler once said 'When you believe in a problem you make it real'. So the key is to destroy the old beliefs that were not useful and design brilliant beliefs that are worth believing in.
This process can completely transform your world because it is about understanding that we live in our beliefs and when you can choose them, you can choose your world. When we talk about life enhancement, we are really talking about helping people to figure out what they want and then helping them to get it. Probably the most important thing they need to take care of in order to get what they want is their beliefs.
Begin today... to believe in yourself and how much more is possible than you ever considered. Begin today... to believe in all the opportunities that exist out there to make your life more wonderful. Begin today... to believe in a fantastic future full of all your hopes and dreams. Believe and you can help make it real.
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