Coaching with NLP For Dummies®

Changing Beliefs through the Senses

NLP considers beliefs as pivotal to change because beliefs drive behaviour powerfully. (Chapter 5 demonstrates the link between beliefs and behaviour with Robert Dilts's Logical Levels model.) The deep structure of beliefs shows up in the surface structure of everyday speech and action. One of my most successful business coaching clients believes that ‘money is everywhere I look’. This belief has led him to set up and sell profitable businesses from Scandinavia to the Baltic, China to Europe; he's always finding opportunities.

Distinguishing between limiting and empowering beliefs

Beliefs are assumptions that may or may not be true; however, you act as if they are true. Limiting beliefs hold clients back, while empowering ones shift them towards their goals.

As a coach, challenge assumptions or limitations that you hear in your clients' conversation and sponsor the ones that enrich their lives. Yet be aware that the most influential beliefs are held at an unconscious level.

NLP offers various processes to unpack the structure of limiting beliefs and generate more useful ones that empower clients. In the following section, you discover the role submodalities can play in shaping beliefs.

A client holds on to a limiting belief for a reason. Discovering ...