How to realise that your limiting beliefs are nonsense – reframing explained

There’s a mental concept called a belief which naturally as humans we lend far too much credibility to. Our whole personal reality is defined by a massive set of these beliefs – good or bad. It actually doesn’t take very much to form one, but once they are formed they often go for years, or life-times, unchecked or unquestioned – all the while completely defining our behaviour.

 

The human brain is a learning system which loves to model the world in the way that if X, then Y. If someone is frowning at me, then they dislike me – for example. Now this belief, you can probably see, might not be the most useful or accurate belief to hold of the world. Perhaps you can see how it might be useful to have a different belief system – one which encourages social interaction rather than seeing other people as opposition.

 

Sometimes, however, these beliefs are a necessary and useful tool for manipulating our world. For example – if my fuel gauge is low, then it means I’m low on petrol. This is a useful belief in a lot of circumstance, and most likely if you scrutinize its base you’ll find out that it’s based on a lot of solid evidence and only a few assumptions (such as the assumption that your gauge is working correctly).

 

Reframing, otherwise known as reappraisal in the business world, is a set of techniques for manipulating, questioning, and deconstructing the underlying falsity of an unhelpful or limiting belief. It is often actually quite difficult to see just how useful reframing will be until after you’ve tried to apply the process. By the way if you’re struggling with it on your own this whole thing works tons better with two people.

 

 

 

This technique involves asking first what assumptions are being made to support that belief and then questioning the validity of those assumptions.

 

 

 

A) That white bread does not contain any ingredients which are unhealthy.

B) That white bread contains nutrients ingredients which are healthy.

C That eating white bread has no effects which are detrimental to my health.

 

In questioning each of these assumptions we would say, for example for A, could it be true that white bread contains ingredients which are unhealthy.

 

The answer, in my opinion, is actually yes it does (sugar, salt, grain-based flour which the body struggles to digest, etc).

 

 

This technique involves finding out what it is which makes a belief seem as if it is real. There are two ways of applying the technique – one is to question what it is that makes the belief real, and the other is to question how one would know if the belief were definitely false.

 

 

 

 

By examining a belief under the microscope often it will begin to just fall apart as it becomes clear that each of the assumptions is in-fact based on weak evidence.

 

 

This technique is to find a counter-example in the real world, and use it to show the absurdity of the limiting belief.

 

 

Many Olympic gold-medallists have asthma.

 

 

Albert Einstein dropped out of high-school and went on to become one of the most important scientists of all time.

 

 

This technique involves reappraising the importance of the implied consequence and considering that, maybe, there are other things which are more important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another great reframe is to consider what it would be like if you continued to hold the belief for ever. This is a good example of using negative motivation to break your old belief. The technique should demonstrate how unproductive the limiting belief is and therefore show it’s absurdity.

 

 

 

 

In the business world reframing is called reappraisal and it is used by top business execs and company CEOs instantaneously. In numerous studies very successful businessmen have been shown to be extremely talented at quickly reframing any limiting beliefs which arise in a situation in such a way that they have the most productive and positive view of their current environment.

 

Reframing is a skill, much like any other skill it improves with practice. If you want to get better I recommend setting aside 10 minutes a day as reframing time – take one limiting belief and use all the aforementioned techniques on it. Paper and pencil works better than just doing it all in your head, and doing it with a partner works better than pencil and paper.

 

If you want to learn more about reframing, or in-fact any NLP technique, Pete Casale runs an excellent website with high quality free information right here – NLP Secrets - Framing