[pattern of behavior or emotion]?

Steps:

1. Generate a specific statement of the issue to work on – we call that a pattern. In our course LMT2: How to Master Behavior Change we tell you exactly how to define a clear pattern.
2. Ask What do you believe that would have you … [pattern]?

But you must be specific when you ask.  So after you help the client get a very clear pattern such as “When I get a big project at work, I feel anxious, then I avoid working on it.”  You would then ask the client “What do you believe that has you get anxious about big projects and avoid working on them.”

It’s that simple.  But I’m often surprised that people without training will ask all sorts of other questions that often get you nowhere such as the dreaded “why” question.

Why do you do that?

This rarely leads to finding a belief.  It usually leads to the client psychoanalyzing him or herself and   looking for some theory that will finally explain why he just can’t get motivated or sustain a lasting change.  And even if a person knows why they do something it doesn’t stop them from doing it – I know why I eat when I really want to lose weight because my mother gave me treats when I was upset as a kid.  It won’t change the behavior.

We know that kind of theorizing won’t help the client, so we don’t ask “why” we ask “what” as in “What do you believe that causes you to act and feel as you do?“

This is a good place to start even though the client may not always be able to give you a useful answer.  But sometimes they do.  Some clients will start giving you answers that are perfect beliefs to work on.  

Every once in awhile a client will start out saying that they want to get rid of beliefs.  But when I look deeper there’s always some result they want to get from eliminating those beliefs.  What they really want is to get rid of some behavior or emotion that’s interfering with their lives.  We teach you how to keep the focus on the results the client wants to get in our course LMT2: Mastering The Behavior Change Process.

In my example about the guy who avoids big projects, he might say “I don’t think I can do it” “I’m worried that I’ll fail and look stupid.”  This would help us see that he might have beliefs like “I’m not capable” , “I’m stupid” and “Mistakes and failures are bad.”

The second technique is to have the client generate thoughts that occur around the pattern they want to change.

Here are the steps …

2. Thought Discovery

1. 1. Imagine the problem.  Say to the client “Think about …” or “Imagine …”  
   2. Ask the client to notice thoughts.  Do not use doubtful questions such as “Are you having thoughts?”  In the past when some facilitators have asked that question, the person would often say “no.”  So ask them to notice.  You want them to assume thoughts are there.  And when they begin with that assumption they will usually find them.
   3. Write down the thoughts the client gives you.
   4. Then suggest beliefs to the client.

With Thought Discovery you’re basically having the client imagine doing the behavior they want to stop or being in the situation that makes them feel bad.

Once they imagine it, you have them tell you what thoughts they have that are causing their feelings and behavior.  You then use those thoughts to find the beliefs.

Kim – was in a loveless marriage.  She was miserable.  He was a nice guy but totally emotionally unavailable.   She already left a marriage where she loved her husband but he was abusive. When I asked her what her thoughts were when she thought about being in a loving relationship she said “Love is painful, stupid and dangerous.”   Her father used to beat her mother and when she asked her mom why she stayed with him she said “because I love him.”  She never realized that she had that belief.   She left her husband and is now married to a wonderful man for 13 years.  (I worked with her mom who was a thrice battered woman  and as a result she is also married to a wonderful man!  Imagine how that feels for me!  

The third technique we teach our students is to imagine someone else having the problem.

Here are the steps.

3. Fly On A Wall

1. 1. Imagine someone else is having the problem, see them as an observer would like a fly on the wall.
   2. Ask your client “What might they believe that is causing them to behave that way?”
   3. Write down what the client says even if the client doesn’t give you beliefs.  The words may point to some beliefs.
   4. Suggest beliefs.

Here’s an example of Fly On A Wall:

I had a client named Amber  who had a very high power job for a successful tech start up.  She told me that sometimes she’s uncomfortable when speaking, afraid of not knowing the answer.

So I used the fly on the wall  technique we teach in our course by saying

“Imagine someone else who had that problem.  What might they believe.”  

She said, “Maybe they’re worried about being wrong.  Maybe they think they think their world will end if they’re wrong.”  

That made it clear what her belief was.  “If I’m wrong my world will end.”  Every time she was wrong as a kid her father, walked out of the room disgusted.  The only time she got his approval was when she knew the “right” answer to something.

4. Use “exceptions” to highlight the pattern

1. 1. Have client describe the pattern
   2. Ask questions to find out when the pattern is NOT happening  “Are you always …?”
   3. Then ask the client what is different when the pattern is happening vs. when it is not happening
   4. Write down what the client says.
   5. Suggest beliefs.

This one is advanced and is most often used in later sessions when the pattern has changed a bit, but can be used in first sessions when needed.  Working with a client over time is learned in LMT2: Mastering the Behavior Change Process.

Example of Exceptions:

Joseph avoids working on the big projects he has. When he thinks about working on them he feels fear and then works on smaller easier tasks.  But when he works on smaller tasks it’s not a problem.  

So I asked him “What’s the difference to you whether a task is big or small?”

He said, “Well, I know I can complete the smaller tasks. I have doubts about completing the larger tasks.”

I asked, “And what are the doubts?”

“That I’ll screw it up in some way. That I don’t have the ability to do the big things well.”

That helped us discover that he believed “I’m not capable.”

5. Sentence completion.

Use this when you have some ideas of what the client’s beliefs might be or you think it might be hard for them to accept the suggestion of a negative belief.

1. 1. Have client imagine the problem.  For example a big project that he is avoiding.
   2. Come up with a partial sentence and ask the client to complete it.  For example “If I work on this project then …”
   3. Write down what the client says.
   4. Suggest beliefs.

Example:

I used this with my client Casey.  You know how every so often there’s an awkward silence in a conversation?  Well for her every silence was awkward.  She always had the feeling that people didn’t like her no matter how they were behaving towards her.  And so she would always be nervous around new people.

So to use sentence completion I had her complete the following ..

If somebody doesn’t like me it means …

She completed it with

• I’m not good enough
• I won’t get what I want

This helped her see that she had these two beliefs and that they contributed to her feelings around people.

Another point about this technique and this is true of a lot of them, it can help a client to realize they have a belief.  These words just come out and they feel true.  

For some issues there are certain beliefs that 90% of people with that problem will have, but a person might resist acknowledging the belief.  

So if a person has a fear of public speaking, he or she might be a high-powered business person who a lot of people look up to.  And sometimes they have a hard time acknowledging a belief like “I’m not good enough.”

But if they discover the belief through sentence-completion or one of the other techniques, they can accept it more easily.  We cover that in more depth in Mastering The Behavior Change Process course but I just wanted to give you that extra tidbit now.

Another client named Allan had a lot of fear around speaking up in meetings and voicing his opinions. He was nervous when all eyes were on him.  He kept getting passed over for promotions. He had gotten rid of a lot of common beliefs like you find in Natural Confidence but there was still some fear.

I had him do the following sentence completion to find some less obvious limiting beliefs.

“If all eyes are on me …”

He completed it by saying

“… then something bad will happen to me.”

“I’ll be in danger”

Which caused his remaining anxiety when he had to speak up in meetings.

This helped me find the following beliefs:

B: Being in the spotlight is dangerous.

B: It’s dangerous to be the center of attention

Today he is confident when he speaks in meetings and he’s being considered for a promotion

It’s time for number 4) How you can develop the skills to produce lasting changes in your own or your client’s feelings and behavior.  

I’m going to show you exactly how to do that with my 5-step formula.

What I’m about to tell you is the exact formula for how to use the belief-finding techniques to produce lasting change in emotions and behavior.  

So let’s just review …

You’ve got the five basic techniques for uncovering beliefs.  

You know the one question NOT to ask.  

You know why you need techniques because clients often don’t know ALL of their limiting beliefs.  

And you know that you do need to find every belief in order to produce complete changes.  

When you learn the five steps, which we teach in our course LMT2: Mastering The Behavior Change Process you’ll be able to change just about any behavior or emotion that’s keeping your life or your clients lives from being as fulfilling as they can be.   We call our formula for behavior change the Lasting Change Process.

There are five steps and I’m actually going to show them all to you so you can see exactly what it takes.  

And I’m going to be showing you some examples that will make it all real to you.

Leah Lamb is a student of ours who lives in Boynton Beach, Florida.  As a result of everything she learned she said

“I stopped procrastinating, felt more confident and was more at ease and excited about life.”

After she learned the five steps in our training, she went on to start her own belief coaching business helping clients produce lasting changes in their lives.  That was back in 2014.  Since then she’s helped a great deal of clients produce lasting changes including many who are in addiction recovery.  The Lefkoe Method changed her life but TLM Trainings have allowed her to totally transform the lives of many other people.

“The Lefkoe Method was recommended to me by one of my mentors.  I completely jumped in and started working with a facilitator.  Over a period of about 6 months, I worked on and eliminated many beliefs like I’m not good enough, I don’t deserve to be happy, I’m not smart enough, I need to do everything right, mistakes and failure are bad and many others.  I began to see results in my life, I had stopped procrastinating, felt more confident, was more at ease and excited about life.

As a result, I became trained to facilitate the process with others so that I could make a profound difference in people’s lives.  I love the work that I do and love celebrating the results that my clients create as a result of this work.”

Leah Lamb
Creator and Founder
Recovery in Transformation

Another student of ours is Martine Forest, the owner of a Human Resources Firm in Canada.

Many human resources firms help companies with something called an Employee Assistance Program (EAP).  These programs typically help employees who are experiencing personal problems cope with them much better.  

As a result of taking our trainings especially Mastering The Behavior Change Process, she was able to go beyond typical human resources work and actually help a business’s employees change their behavior and emotions.

Taking LMT2: Mastering The Behavior Change Process has made a big difference to me and my clients because now we are not only eliminating beliefs randomly but we are able to target a specific pattern and eliminate the pattern. It really changed my practice because it is much more efficient and clients can experience the changes from week to week.

Now within 3 to 4 sessions we can eliminate a pattern. Most of my clients say that they never thought that they could change so quickly.

I strongly recommend LMT2 training and all the Lefkoe training. I like it’s so much that l’m in the certification program.

Thanks for this wonderful Method it really changed me life and my practice.

— Martine Forest

Here’s the Behavior Change Process

1. Distinguish between the client’s surface problems and the behaviors that cause those problems

Step 1 is to distinguish between the client’s surface problems and the behaviors that cause those problems.  Often a client will give you a problem that can’t be directly addressed with TLM.  For example, the client might say “I never have enough money” or “All my relationships end badly.”  We can’t directly change these problems by finding beliefs.  We have to find the behavior pattern causing the problem.

For example one client told me that he drove away his previous wives because of his needy behavior.  He changed this by getting rid of beliefs like “I’m not loveable” and “what makes me loveable is being needed.”    But if he had tried to get rid of a belief like “Women will leave me” that wouldn’t change the fact that he was behaving in a way that caused them to leave him.  That belief caused his behavior which created his relationship problems.

So once you’ve found a behavior that causes the client’s problems, it’s often not clear how to use this information to find beliefs.

1. Get a complete statement of the behavior pattern to give you strong ideas of what beliefs the client might have – helped by the four pattern templates

Step 2 is to get a complete statement of the client’s pattern of behavior or emotions.  Often a client will give you a mish mash of information and it’s hard to figure out what to focus on and what questions to ask.  So we devised four pattern templates that encompass every pattern a client could ask for help with.  This allows you to focus like a laser beam on the most important part of a client’s issues.  And each template tells you exactly what to ask the client and what kinds of beliefs to look for.

But even when you’ve got a super-clear pattern to focus on and a strong idea of what beliefs the client might have, the process won’t work unless those beliefs are real to the client.

1. Find beliefs and eliminate them

That’s where Step 3 comes in.  In step three you use the five techniques we discussed today to help the client discover their own beliefs, which makes those beliefs real to the client.  And since many of our clients don’t even know what beliefs they have, this allows you to find their beliefs so you can eliminate them and produce lasting changes in behavior.

However, after you do this in your first session with a client, your job is not over.  Very few clients will get rid of an entire pattern in one session.  So what do you do if you get rid of every belief you found in that first session and the pattern is not completely gone?

That’s where step 4 comes in.  

1. Check for changes, Redefine and Repeat steps 2-3 until the pattern is gone.

After eliminating beliefs, you’ll want to check in with the client to find out what changes have been made and what still needs to be changed.  You’ll then redefine the pattern and find more beliefs until the problem is solved.

This part is essential to helping a client make deep and lasting changes.  Don’t settle for just some improvement.  Help the client get rid of the problem completely and they’ll be so grateful to you for your thorough work.

1. Celebrate changes

Even when the early changes are small, you’ve accomplished something incredible.  A problem the client has had for years is starting to break down … and you’ve done it not with horrendous amounts of effort … but just by eliminating a few beliefs.

Give your client a sense of progress by celebrating even the small early changes.  This will get them motivated to work on a pattern until no trace of it is left.

And with a step-by-step process under your belt you can do this.

As I’ve mentioned, I have a training program that teaches you how to use these steps to make lasting changes in behavior and emotions.

That training is called LMT2: Mastering The Behavior Change Process.

This training will allow you to make lasting changes in your behavior and the behaviors of those you help.

It will be available in the next few days.

So keep an eye out in your inbox until then.