Shinota - Articles - BELIEFS OF EXCELLENCE

BELIEFS OF EXCELLENCE - Do you know how your beliefs play in your life?

Ashok

Beliefs of Excellence are those beliefs, which have helped many people to be successful. The founders and early practitioners of NLP analysed the beliefs of many successful people and have listed the most effective ones for us to hold and benefit from. It would be an interesting exercise to understand how you would react if you hold a particular belief to be true. The new acquired belief need not be true to reality, but just an assumption that this is true may bring in a change in your behaviour. If the outcomes are helpful to you, you can think of holding on to the new belief. If you need you can tailor that belief to suit you.

NLP treats every person as unique and hence every one can have their own rules of life and only by understanding the rules of life held by others can we be able to learn and understand their priorities. By this we learn to respect others and make this world a better place to live.
After all, the person with the most flexibility in thinking and behaviour, has the best chance of succeeding.

Some of the NLP beliefs are given here.

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 to, think and based on this understanding we have some expectations. It is when the expectations are not met that we get upset/angry with those people and ask for an explanation. This belief explains that the expectations that we have are based on our understanding of others and our understanding is mostly incomplete. It is said that there is always a gap between our understanding of the person 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 to as the map is not the territory. The real person could be very different from what we have perceived and expected them to be. This belief gives us flexibility. When you have this mindset, you may not be surprised when some one you think you know well behaves in ways you did not expect.

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2. Experience has a structure

Experience has a structure. In my opinion, this means that every experience that we have in life is based on our perception, which is again based on what meaning we make from what we notice. 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 than 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.

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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 step into their shoes and see the options that are available to them based on their knowledge and experience, it may be limited and their choice would most probably be 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 voluntarily rather than being forced. For me, this is the art of communication.

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4. There is a Positive Intention behind every Behaviour

This means that every behaviour is backed by a positive intention, either to oneself, or to some other person or to every one. 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 it is positively intended. When one thinks in these lines, it gives one new insights about the person.

If we can increase the options available to us and find out if there is a way to safeguard positive intention and, at the same time, address our priorities, then, there is a way out.

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

This is one of the powerful beliefs, that helped me to effect a lot of changes 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 belief helps us to shift our attention to the process from the outcome and it is the process that leads to the outcome and the more we are concerned about the process and bring about change in the process, the more likely it is that we are able to change the outcome.

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

This is the sequel to the earlier belief. 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 effective constructive change.

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

This just means that taking ownership for the results one gets out of one’s communication is beneficial. What if, we don't take ownership? 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 communication gap, not doing anything to improve the situation. When both the parties involved in the communication do not take responsibility, and expect the other to change without changing oneself, then possibly there is no way out.

When one takes ownership, one looks for all the assumptions one had about the other person and 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, possibly taking the situation under control. Interestingly, Newton's III law says, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. " This belief can be otherwise stated as "The quality of the response is based on the quality of communication".

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Reference:

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