Beliefs of Excellence are those beliefs, which seem to be a key for most successful personalities, analysed during the evolution of NLP. It would be an interesting exercise to see, how you would react in your circumstances, if you hold that belief to be true to your own self. The new belief need not be true, but just an assumption that this is true, may bring in a change in behaviour in you. By studying that change & relating it to your earlier experiences & evaluating the impact of new behaviour, if you feel, if the new outcomes are interesting and helpful to you, then you may think of holding on to the new belief. If you feel, the new belief is not helping you...Yes! You can stay with your old belief itself. If you need to tailor-make that belief to suit you...Yes! You can do it. NLP has no standard rules & it believes that every person is unique & hence every one can have their own rules of life & only by understanding the rules of each other, we may be able to learn & understand other's priorities, by which we learn to respect them & make this world a more better place to live. After all, the person with the most flexibility in thinking & behaviour, has the best chance of succeeding. Some of the NLP belief systems, which may be useful in this context, are...

1. The Map is not the territory!
This Belief is one of the basic and fundamental concepts in NLP and it is one of the most powerful lessons, I learnt from NLP. The meaning goes like this...let me take an example from relationships...we all have an understanding of this world. To some extent, we know how those people, whom we are close with, think and based on this understanding, we have some expectations. It is when the expectations are not met, we get upset/angry with those people and ask for an explanation. This belief just explains that those expectation that we have, are based on our understanding and our understanding is mostly incomplete. It is said that there is always a gap between our understanding and the real person and that gap comes to light, when our expectations are not met and this can be perceived as an issue to get upset or an opportunity to understand things that we never noticed earlier. This is what is referred, as the map is not the territory. The real personality could be very different than to what we have perceived and expect them to be. This belief gives us a flexibility, where our expectations could go wrong and hence an opening towards learning, about things which we are very confident of and when you have this mindset, you may not be surprised, when any one whom you think you know well, behaves differently

2. Experience has a structure!!

Experience has a structure. In my opinion, this belief means that every experience that we have in today's life is based on our perception, which is again based on what meaning we make, from what we noticed. It can be easily explained that as human beings, we are mostly accustomed to capture only a part of the information around us and hence there may be always something more that we may have to add on, which may give a very different meaning to what we have perceived. Understanding the structure of any experience, i.e., understanding the process of making meaning from what is noticed, may be helpful to deal with that perception, to evolve clarity.

3. People Behave Perfectly!!! (according to them)

In my opinion, this belief means that all people do their best, in any given situation. If we put ourselves, in their shoes and see the options, that are available to them, based on their knowledge and experience, it may be limited and their choice is most probably the best choice, out of the limited options available to them. Understanding this belief, for me, gives an important clue towards understanding their limited choices and the possibility of increasing their choices by giving additional inputs, useful to them and helping them to perceive the whole situation differently and to change volutarily, rather than being forced and thrusted upon. For me, this is the art of communication.

4. There is a Positive Intention behind every Behaviour!!

This belief means that every behaviour is backed by a positive intention, either to oneself, or some other particular person or to every one or likewise. Just believing this, gives us the patience to deal with any kind of behaviour and helps us to analyse, what would be the positive intention, behind that behaviour and to whom is it positively intended. When one thinks in these lines, it gives new insights, about the personality and if we can increase the options available to them and find out if there is a way to safeguard their positive intention and at the same time, address our priorities. Then there is a way out.

5. If you do what you always did, you shall get what you always got!

This is one of the powerful belief, that resulted in lots of change in me. This is self-explanatory. Many times, in life, we keep repeating the routines and complain about the outcomes, wasting our precious time. This beliefs helps us to shift our attention to the process, from the outcome and explains that it is the process, that leads to the outcome and the more we are concerned about the process and bring in change in the process, the more likely that we may be able to change the outcome.

6. If what you are doing is not working, you have to do something else, anything else!

This is the sequel of the earlier belief system. It just takes us a bit further that, if we need a change in the outcome, we may have to change the process. This flexibility in adopting and trying new choices continuously, till we get what we want is the key to learning and constructive change.

7. The Meaning of the communication is the response you get.

This just means that taking ownership, for the results, one gets out of his communication, is beneficial. What if, we don't take?? When we don't take ownership, it results in a situation, where both the parties blame each other (though not directly, most of the times), for the cause of the communication gap, but not doing anything to improve the situation. When both the parties involved in the communication doesn't take responsibility, and expect others to change, without changing themselves, then possibly there is no way out When one takes ownership, he/she looks for what are all the assumptions that he/she had about the other person & makes it a point to take into account those assumptions, in future communications and accepts to change and thereby inspires and invites the other party to change, then possibly the situation will be under control. Interestingly, Newton's III law says, "For every action there is an equal & opposite reaction" This belief can be otherwise stated as "The quality of the response is based on the quality of communication"

Reference:

“NLP at work” by Sue Knight - Nicholas Brealey Publications, Second Edition -2002

Recommended Further Reading:

1.“NLP at work” by Sue Knight - Nicholas Brealey Publications
2. “Unlimited Power : The New Science of Personal Achievement” by Anthony Robbins