Part 2 of 4: What is the biggest mistake people make when “trying” to unlearn beliefs?
A patient walks into an optometrist’s office. He says, “Doc, I have a headache and my visions is blurred.”
The optometrist walks to a shelf, picks up a pair of glasses and says, “I bet these will fix it.”
The patient frowns.
What’s wrong in this scenario?
The doctor failed to diagnosis the patient and just jumped at the first “solution” he saw.
Unfortunately, when we are trying to change ourselves we often make a similar mistake. We know beliefs cause our problem and then we try unlearning the first belief that comes to mind without first verifying that it causes the problem.
When people make this mistake, they end up spinning their wheels. They work on belief after belief and nothing seems to change in their lives.
This is very time consuming and extremely frustrating.
I’ll show you how to avoid this frustration by presenting you with Jane’s story.
Jane procrastinates … a lot. Whenever there’s something really important that she needs to do she either doesn’t do it or … she does it at the last minute.
In fact one year she procrastinated paying her taxes so long that she had to go to a post office that was open until midnight to get her letter postmarked by 11:59 p.m.
As you can guess, her life is harried and stressful because of her procrastination habit.
After reading a few books and doing some reflection she correctly figures out that beliefs are what cause her to procrastinate.
She decides that she must believe “I’m a procrastinator.” If her identity is that she’s a procrastinator wouldn’t she just, well … procrastinate?
While this seems obvious and seems to make sense, there’s a problem with this idea.
It’s kind of like a chicken and egg situation. Except when it comes to which came first—the beliefs or the behavior—I can give you a definitive answer.
If we accept the idea that beliefs are formed from experiences, then we have to ask ourselves, “What kinds of experiences would lead us to conclude ‘I’m a procrastinator?'”
The answer: Experiences of procrastinating.
If that’s the case then the belief I’m a procrastinator couldn’t have caused her procrastination. It came about because she already had the tendency to procrastinate.
So her procrastination habit must have been caused by other beliefs.
And because this is the case, if Jane does unlearn I’m a procrastinator, what kinds of changes will we expect to see in her procrastination?
Little to none.
But then how can Jane find out what causes her to procrastinate?
Here’s one way:
She can think of a task she’s putting off and notice the thoughts and feelings she has about that task. For example, she has a report to write that’s due in two weeks. When she thinks about filling it out here’s what comes to her mind:
I might screw it up.
They’ll think my ideas are stupid.
My writing isn’t very good.
Here are some beliefs that would cause those thoughts:
I’m not good enough.
I’m not capable.
What I have to say is not important.
Can you see how these beliefs would cause her to procrastinate on writing her report and on many of the other things she puts off for later?
Unlearning these beliefs would make positive changes in her behavior.
Now let’s fast-forward a few weeks after she has found and unlearned every belief that originally caused her procrastination.
Jane notices she no longer procrastinates on most things. She’s paying her bills on time. She’s turning her reports in on time and sometimes early with no last-minute headaches.
Here’s the process that Jane went through.
- Identify the problem behavior
- Notice the thoughts and feelings you have before you do the behavior
- Find beliefs that cause those thoughts and feelings
- Unlearn the beliefs
When there is something you want to change about your life you can use the same steps.
These steps can be a lot of work to do on your own and if you don’t identify just the right beliefs not much changes.
Fortunately, we’ve done a lot of this work for you. In our Natural Confidence program we’ve identified the 19 beliefs that cause some of the most common problems people have, such as procrastination, fear of rejection, worrying about what others think of you, and beliefs that keep you from having unshakeable confidence to achieve your goals in life.
You can find out more here about the Natural Confidence program, an interactive digital course that eliminates the 19 beliefs that get in your way.
In this email you discovered how to avoid a serious mistake in identifying your beliefs. In the next one I’ll show you how to avoid another big mistake people make when trying to change or help others change.
Love,
Morty
Creator of the Lefkoe Method
