About Beliefs, Part 2
Choosing beliefs
Sometimes, when they're examined in the cold light of day, and it's obvious they make no sense, beliefs change spontaneously. You don't, however, have to wait or leave it to chance. You can choose new beliefs at any time. As Anthony Robbins says, 'You're not just a leaf on the wind'. Sometimes all you have to do is think of the beliefs that would empower and assist you in achieving your goal, and act as if you have them already. If that doesn't work, and the issue seems deep rooted, you may need to use an NLP belief change pattern.
Belief change pattern
NLP offers many ways of challenging and changing beliefs. The following example, devised by Richard Bandler, provides an opportunity to transform an old belief into one you would rather have, using the submodality distinctions.
1. Think of a belief you would rather not have because it limits you in some way.
2. Identify the submodalities relating to this belief. What is your internal representation of it?
3. Next, identify something you're in doubt about. By doubt we mean something you're unsure about, something that may or may not be true. Explore how you represent this internally. What are the submodalities?
4. Use contrastive analysis to identify the differences between the old belief and doubt. Belief and doubt, for instance, may be in different spatial locations.
5. Test each submodality that you've noted as being different by exchanging the submodality relating to the old belief with its counterpart in doubt. Change each one back to the way it was originally before moving on to test the next.
6. Ask yourself what new belief would you like to have instead. Make sure you state this positively and that it's described as something you want rather than something you've already achieved. Before pressing ahead stop and reflect for a moment about the possible consequences of having this new belief. How will it affect other people or other areas of your life? Make changes to your new belief to account for these.
7. You're now ready to change your belief to doubt. Leaving the content the same, change one or more of the most powerful submodality differences you found before in Step 4. If, for instance, you see an internal moving picture like a film you might change it for a still photograph.
8. Now go on to change the content from the old belief to the new one using another submodality shift. One way to do this may be to move your representation of the old belief off into the distance so that you can barely see it. Then have it return as the new belief.
9. Change doubt to belief by reversing the submodality changes you made in Step 7 and keeping the content the same. This might mean exchanging the still photograph for the moving picture. If you sense any resistance to the change you need to redefine your new belief. Go back to Step 6 and make sure you have expressed your belief positively and have dealt with every possible consequence.
10. Test by checking that your new belief is automatically represented by the new submodalities.