The Hidden Mistakes That Prevent Beliefs From Going Away

One reason so many people are able to learn to ride a bike is because it’s always immediately clear when you’re not riding well.

How do you know your balance is off?

You can feel it.

How do you know when you didn’t steer wide enough for that turn?

You crash.

But with The Lefkoe Method it’s possible to make a mistake and not know about it right away.

In fact, you might not know about it until 20 minutes later when you ask the person you’re working with, “Is that belief still there?”

And if they say yes, you’ll have to figure out what went wrong so you can make sure the person gets rid of the belief.

But what if you could figure out when you are off balance a lot sooner?

What if you could figure out that something is not working when it happens?

In today’s lesson, I’m going to give you the answer to these questions.

I’m going to show you the part of the process in which people most often make mistakes without realizing it — Alternative Interpretations.

I’ll show you how to know when this step is going well … and how to know when it is just not working.

That way you’ll know when the bike you’re riding is a bit wobbly so you can regain your balance before it falls.

Let’s get started.

Three mistakes people make with alternative interpretations

So what’s the first mistake people make when going through alternative interpretations?

Not making sure that each alternative is real to the client (or themselves).

Years ago before we had our training approaches nailed down I witnessed the following exchange between people learning this process.

Facilitator trainee: What are other ways of interpreting how your parents criticized you besides “I’m not good enough?”

Client: I don’t know.

Facilitator: Maybe they were wrong to criticize you?

Client: I guess so.

Facilitator: OK and another one is they had bad parenting skills.

Client: Maybe.  My mom was a pretty good at listening to us though.

Facilitator: And another one might be …

What’s the problem here?

The client is giving signals that each interpretation isn’t quite working, but the facilitator just keeps going.

Of course, we don’t want to push an interpretation onto a client …

… but we also don’t want to just keep running them off without making sure the client is really engaged in this part of the process.

If the client does not fully take in the alternative interpretations, the rest of the process just won’t work.

How do you avoid this problem?

First, make sure to ask a diagnostic question after each alternative interpretation.

You ask “Does that interpretation seem valid to you?”

If they say “Yes” and you can hear in their voice that they get it, you can move on to another one.

If they say “No” or something else you’ll want to acknowledge that the interpretation you gave didn’t work for them.

You might also see if you can find an interpretation that works,

Whatever you do avoid asking “why” as in “why doesn’t it work?”

This is because people will often give unhelpful answers to this question.

Instead you can ask “What doesn’t work about it?” or “What would make it work better?”

People tend to respond to those questions more constructively.

The second issue that gets in the way of making alternative interpretations effective is when …

The client just can’t seem to come up with any alternatives

Some facilitators solve this by coming up with all of the alternatives themselves.

And while this works sometimes, it’s not always the best approach.

Instead, it’s better to ask leading questions.

For example, let’s say a client has the belief “I’m not important.”

The events that led to the belief were his parents were always busy when he asked for attention.

The client has a hard time seeing any alternative interpretations.

The facilitator has some ideas but instead of offering them she decides to see if she can lead the client with some questions.

So she has the following dialogue:

Facilitator:  Were your parents pretty obsessed with their work?

Client: Yeah, I think that would be pretty fair to say.

Facilitator: So one interpretation is they ignored you because you weren’t important … or maybe they ignored you because …

Client: … because they were so wrapped up in their work?

Faciliator: Does that seem like a valid interpretation to you?

Client: … Yes … yes it does.  They really were.

Facilitator:. And so their ignoring you didn’t mean you weren’t important right?

Client: Right.  It mean they were too focused on their work.

A dialogue like this takes just a bit longer than making a suggestion, but now the client is fully engaged and will be better prepared for the other steps in the belief process.

However, there are times when you will need to suggest alternative interpretations … and the client keeps saying “yeah but.”

If the “yeah but’s” aren’t handled well, then the process won’t work as the client won’t accept them and won’t be able to get rid of a belief.

So what do you do?

Fortunately, this problem can almost always be avoided.

Consider the following scenarios

Facilitator: Maybe you weren’t important then but you are today

Client: Actually, I still don’t feel important today

Facilitator: Maybe your parents thought you weren’t worthwhile but others do

Client: I’m not sure others see me as worthwhile

This kind of dialogue is more likely to happen when you have a client that actually agrees with their negative beliefs.

So what can you do here?

The solution is in how you phrase the alternative interpretations.

Notice that both interpretations compare the present to the past.

You want to avoid that because it will only work if the present is better than the past … it might not be.

So what do you do?

Instead, phrase alternatives using absolute language.

So instead of saying …

“Maybe you weren’t important then but you are today”

Say …

“Maybe you weren’t important then but that doesn’t mean you would NEVER be important”

Instead of

“Maybe your parents thought you weren’t worthwhile but others do.”

Say …

“Maybe your parents thought you weren’t worthwhile but that doesn’t mean no one EVER would.”

These statements are hard to disagree with.

And they take advantage of a simple element of human psychology.

Most people have an automatic knee-jerk reaction to absolute statements.

Tell someone that something is ALWAYS or NEVER the case, and their minds immediately start to think of exceptions to the rule.

Summary

So to sum up …

The biggest mistake people make with alternative interpretations is not making sure they are real, to the client.  

You can avoid this by asking diagnostic questions such as “Does that make sense to you?”

Second, it can be a problem if your client can’t come up with any alternatives.

You can provide them all, however it’s more powerful to help the client by asking leading questions.

Third, when you do provide alternative interpretations, your client might say “yeah but” as they explain why it doesn’t work.

To avoid this problem, use absolutes in your alternative interpretations.

Now in the three lessons I’ve sent you over the last few days, I’ve discussed the first three of the eight steps of the Lefkoe Belief Process and some of what can go wrong when using each step, so you can better help yourself and others eliminate beliefs.

You’ve seen that by learning specific principles a mystifying process can become understandable and repeatable.

One student wrote to us after the training …

For all possible pitfalls or difficulties in the process tools are given on how to deal with them, so that I feel perfectly able to do this process with anybody who is suffering from limiting beliefs.

Joseann Freyer-Lindner

Finland

You will gain the same confidence when you take the Lefkoe Method Training 1: The Belief Elimination Process.

Here’s what you get in this valuable learning experience …

*Having the ability to help a person (including yourself) eliminate a limiting belief in 30 minutes or less

*Having people tell you, sometimes with tears in their eyes, about the changes you helped them make

*Having clients or family or friends say “I’ve walked around feeling bad for so long, I can’t believe it’s gone” … often said months after you helped them change

*Having freedom from many of your own limiting beliefs and the resulting confidence and self-assuredness this brings

Here’s what another recent student had to say about his experience:

In the past 5 years I have invested in some very expensive personal development/coaching programs and each time they’ve left me more frustrated than I began, as I didn’t experience the breakthroughs I wanted to achieve.

Since the training, I have learnt more about myself (experiencing breakthroughs on a daily basis) and about other people in just a few weeks, than I have learnt in the vast majority of my life. The changes are instant and suddenly you observe the world from a different perspective with absolutely no effort (nothing to remember, nothing to recite on a daily basis), it is just you being 100% authentically you.

I started out first as a skeptic (with an open mind) now I honestly wish I learned this a lot sooner.

My advice to anyone considering this program, would be, give it a go what do you have to lose?

Clyde

London, UK

What Clyde said is typical of what most students say.  

This course empowers you to change your life and the lives of others.

We will be offering the Lefkoe Method Training 1 starting tomorrow at 5am Eastern Time.

The course is 8 weeks long and delivered through video presentations and assignments that we review and give you written feedback on.  This ensures that you truly get the material and that any misunderstandings are corrected early.

The class will be limited to 30 people due to the amount of personal attention we give.  So make sure to check your inbox for an email from us tomorrow.

We look forward to teaching you how to eliminate beliefs and change lives … including your own.[/text_block]