Welcome to The Belief Exchange
Here you will find articles that help you think, help you make changes to your behaviour and attitude and even help you know why someone reacts as they do and potentially what you can do to change it.
Years ago I remember reading T Harv Eker’s book Secrets of The Millionaire Mind, where within the pages were a list of beliefs that millionaires have that non millionaires don’t have, hence why they were not millionaires, and this intrigued me.
Since my first ever training in NLP, when the trainer presented the idea that we are what we believe, we do what we believe and we can’t do anything else, I vowed that I would focus exclusively on how to change my then, irrational and insecure making beliefs to ‘better’ beliefs. Twenty years on, and that’s what I have done and yes she was right, I now do things that I wouldn’t have dared to do before because of one thing, a change in my beliefs/perception/thinking.
I didn’t however focus on millionaire making beliefs, mine was focused on how to overcome my anxiety, fears, worries, concerns, and how to be happier, more focused, more empowered. more…. and yes again she was right, change your beliefs and you really do change your life, if that’s your focus.
This is how it works.
Below you will find the 7 step model that I use with myself, and my clients both in personal and in business to change their mindset, their perceptions, their thinking style, so that they can change what they do. So if you find yourself procrastinating, or worrying it’s not because there is something wrong with you, it’s because you have beliefs that make it so that it’s easy for you to procrastinate and worry and hard for you not to.
And you will find that no matter what area you are working on changing, you are only doing it that way because of the beliefs you hold, and if you were to change them, you would do something different. Similarly, if you find yourself feeling angry, upset, anxious, depressed, it’s because you have beliefs that make it so that the situation that triggered your response ‘makes’ you feel that way. And the thing that ‘makes’ you feel that way, is what you believe.
The Beliefs Exchange Model
- Event
- Perspective
- Feelings
- Reality
- Change
- Reframe
- Test
This model takes you through how to change your perspective on an event so that you will act differently in the same or similar event next time. The simplest way to describe how it works is it’s a mind changer. By changing your mind on how you view something, and it sticks, you will change how you react.
To illustrate. If you’ve ever believed that a favourite celebrity was a ‘nice’ person, but then in the news you find out that they had lied that the money they raised for charity wasn’t going to that charity, instead, they were using creative accounting to skim as much money off the top as they could get away with. And this information affected you at a personal or emotional level, you may now not only see them as being greedy or selfish, but also feel angry, or saddened by the behaviour.
In other news you hear that there a lots of job losses, or that businesses are finding it hard to cope in the current climate, and you work or run your own business, you may worry that you can’t pay the bills, you won’t make ends meet and that can spiral into you seeing yourself as homeless and shamed for ‘failing’ in business or being a poor provider for your family.
And to make matters worse, you now act out your fear or worry or angst in one or more of the ways presented in the list above, and all this happens because of faulty thinking- or should I say faulty perceptions.
So in order to change that perception so you react differently you need to get to the route of the issue, the belief that is making it so that you react ‘badly’
To take this through the model
Event– this is the event that triggers a reaction in you
Famous celebrity caught cooking the books
The news shows how businesses are failing faster than before
Perspective – this is what you currently believe about that situation
All rich people are greedy, they never care about anyone else
I’m never going to make it now, it’s getting too hard to make ends meet
Feelings
As a result of your perspective you now feel, anger, resentment, feeling that life isn’t fair towards you Or you think that something should be done to tighten the laws it’s not fair that they will get away with a slap on the wrist- again this leaves you feeling annoyed about it.
As a result of your perspective you now feel helpless, hopeless, scared or just worried
Reality
The famous celebrity got caught cooking the books there is nothing here that says that all rich people are greedy, or that they don’t care about anyone else, just the facts he was cooking the books
Recession reporting is a normal part of being in business
Change – use any technique you have that can change your perspective or borrow a friends
What are other ways to see the exact same situation?
Reframe– a fancy way of saying change your mind
It’s not that all rich people are greedy or that they don’t care about anyone else, it’s that some people no matter what their level of income is, want to test the boundaries and see what they can get away with
Even though it can be a risk to be in business for yourself, isn’t it more important to go for what you really want than to never give yourself the chance to make life better for you and your family?
Test
How do you feel now? Are the negative feelings gone as a result of your change of mind?
To be fair it would take more than just one go at reframing to change your mind and your feelings but you get the general idea.
Now these short examples show that worry, fear, anxiety can come from some random news item or from real events such as the recession. But equally you could be triggered by your child not doing well at school, your parents ageing and you need to make a decision about their welfare, or a friend has been taken ill, or you simply have too many responsibilities. Whatever the trigger, anxiety makes us act out in order to cope better, the irony being that that acting out doesn’t work.
So what beliefs are behind your behaviours that you’d like to change?
Tip an easy way to find out is to answer this question in relation to an actual event
Step 1: I believe that…..
Step 2: Once you have your beliefs- there’s usually more than just one, can you see now why a person who had these beliefs would react as they do? Or can you see that with those beliefs you are doing what you may not want to do or feeling what you may not want to feel?
Step 3: What beliefs do you want instead? What kind of beliefs would serve your purposes?
Step 4: Use a belief change technique to get rid of the old belief and install the newer belief
Step 5: Test- Can you take the action the belief was stopping you from taking?
If so congratulations, go and make merry. If not, then there are other beliefs that you haven’t reframed yet so just identify them and work through this process again.
NOTE: To be able to do this successfully you need to have a belief change technique at hand. If you’re NLP trained then you have a few to choose from, if not then youtube will furnish you with a number of them to use at your leisure, just type in belief change techniques. The second thing to note though is that affirmations do not work, neither does logic alone, you really need something that changes your perspective for this to stick.
Contact me here if you want my help
See you soon- Elaine
