Another way to think about behavior is that it's organized around some very durable things called "beliefs," Whenever someone says something is important or unimportant to do, it's because she has a belief about it. You can think about all behavior as being mobilized by the beliefs that we have. For example, you probably wouldn't be learning about NLP if you didn't believe that it would be interesting, or useful, or somehow valuable. Parents wouldn't spend lots of time with their infant children if they didn't believe it would make their children turn out better later on. Parents used to keep young children from getting too much stimulation because they believed it would make them hyperactive; now they give their children lots of stimulation because they believe it will aid their intellectual development.

Beliefs are really phenomenal things. Beliefs can compel perfectly nice people to go out and kill other human beings for an idea, and even feel good about it, too. As long as you can fit a behavior into someone's belief system, you can get him to do anything, or stop him from doing anything. That is what I did with the father who didn't want his daughter to be a whore. As soon as I pointed out that his abusive behavior was exactly the way pimps treat whores, he couldn't do it anymore without violating his own beliefs. I didn't compel him to stop "against his will," whatever that means. I made changing fit into his belief system so completely that he couldn't do anything else.

At the same time, beliefs can change. You're not born with them. You all believed things when you were children that you now think are silly. And there are things you believe now that you didn't even think about before . . . taking this workshop, for example.

The word "belief" is a somewhat vague concept to most people, even when they'll gladly go out and kill for one. I'd like to demonstrate what beliefs are made of, and then show you a way of changing them. I'd like someone to come up here who has a belief about yourself that you would like to be different. I want you to think of a belief that limits you in some way. Beliefs about yourself are usually more useful to change than beliefs about the world. So pick one that you think would make a real difference to you if it were different.

Lou: I have one.

As if the rest of them don't! Don't tell me what that belief is. I just want you to think of that belief that you'd rather not have. . . . Now set that experience aside for a moment, and think of something you're doubtful about. It might be true, or it might not be; you're really not sure. . . .

Next I want you to tell me how those two experiences of belief and doubt are different. I want you to do the same thing we did earlier with Bill and his understanding and confusion.

Lou: Well, my belief is a big picture. It's bright, vivid and very detailed. Doubt is a much smaller picture. It's dimmer and fuzzier, and it kind of flashes on and off.

OK. Those are pretty clear differences. I can't help noticing that belief is straight ahead of you and doubt is up to your right. Are there any other differences?

Lou: Well, belief nearly fills a big frame and there is very little room for background. Doubt has a lot of background, and there's no frame.

The next step is to take this list of differences and test one of them at a time, in order to find out which of them are most powerful in changing belief to doubt. For instance, Lou, take the picture of belief, and try making it smaller. . . .

Lou: That makes it seem a little less real, but it doesn't change it very much.

OK. Bring it back to its original size, and then try removing the frame from around the belief picture, so that you can see more of the surrounding background. . . .

Lou: When I do that, the picture automatically gets smaller, and it's less impressive.

OK. So the frame brings size along with it, and has more impact than size alone. Change it back to the way it was originally, and then change the focus of that belief picture so that it becomes fuzzy. . . ,

Lou: That doesn't change it much.

Change that belief picture back again, and then make it dimmer. . . .

Lou: When I do that it starts flashing on and off, a little bit like doubt does.

So changing the brightness also alters the flashing. Change it back again, and then take the belief picture and change its position. Move it from the center of your visual field up to your right. . . .

Lou: That's weird. I feel all kind of floaty, and I can feel my heart speed up. When I start to change the position, all the other things start changing, too. It gets smaller and dimmer and out of focus; the frame fades away and it starts to flash on and off.

OK. Move that picture back to straight ahead of you. The location of the picture changes all other elements, so that is the submodality that is most powerful for Lou in moving something from belief to doubt. But before we do that, we need to have something else to put in its place. Lou, do you know what belief you would like to have in place of the belief you now have?

Lou: Well, I never really thought about that in detail.

Start thinking about it now, and be sure you think about it in positive terms, not in terms of negations. Think of what you do want to believe, not what you don't want to believe.

I also want you to frame that belief not in terms of an end or goal, but in terms of a process or ability that would result in your getting that goal. For instance, if you'd like to believe that you know NLP, change it so that you believe you can pay attention, and learn and respond to feedback in order to learn NLP.

Lou: OK. I know what I'd like to believe.

This new belief is stated in positive terms, without negations, and it has to do with a process leading to a goal rather than the goal itself, right? . . .

Lou: Yes.

Good. Now I want you to do what we call an ecology check. I want you to take a little time to imagine how you would act differently if you already had this new belief, and think of any ways in which this change could be a problem for you, or the people who are close to you, or the people you work with. . . .

Lou: I can't think of any way that it could be a problem.

Good. We'll call that the "new belief." Set it aside for a moment.

Now I want you to take that big picture of the belief you don't like and move it all the way over to where your doubt is. As you do that, the picture will lose its frame and get dimmer, smaller, fuzzier, and start flashing. . . .

Lou: OK. It's over here now, and it looks just like that other doubt picture.

Good. When it flashes off, have that picture of the old belief disappear, and then have the picture of the new belief flash back on. ...

Lou: OK. The new belief is flashing there now.

Now take that picture of the new belief and move it back to the center of your visual field. As it does this, notice how it develops a frame and gets bigger, brighter, sharper, and more vivid. . . .

Lou: This is incredible! It's right there where the old belief was. I feel like my whole body just got out of prison, and I can feel my cheeks are flushed.

Right There are a lot of other nice changes going on, too. You can take a minute or two to let those changes settle in, while I respond to a question or two.

Man: Why can't you just take the picture of the desired belief and change it to make it into a belief – the way we made confusion into understanding?

When you made confusion into understanding, there wasn' t any other understanding already there to get in the way. You can even have several understandings of the same content without their necessarily conflicting with each other. A belief tends to be much more universal and categorical than an understanding. When you already have a belief, there's no room for a new one unless you weaken the old belief first. Typically the new belief is the opposite of the old belief, or at least very different in some way. Have you ever tried to convince someone of something that is the opposite of what he already believes? Usually the existing belief will prevent him from even considering the new belief. The stronger the belief, the more that will be true

Think of it this way. Let's say a person believes X is good, and you succeeded in installing a new belief "X is bad" without changing the old belief. What would you create? . . . What is likely to happen if someone fervently believes in two opposing ideas? One way to deal with that situation is to become a multiple personality. One belief organizes the person in one way for a while–then the other belief takes over and reorganizes the person in a very different way. That's not what I consider a very evolutionary change.

Woman – I want to ask about the "floaty" feeling that Lou reported when you first tried changing the position of the belief

Well, that kind of response tells me two things. One is that I've discovered a submodality change that really makes a profound difference in her experience. The other thing it tells me is that she doesn't yet have a new belief to put in its place. Have you ever had an experience that shattered an old belief, but you didn't have a new belief to put in its place? Some people drift in a haze for days before they can reorganize. That often happens to a person when she gets fired from a job, or a friend or relative dies. I once talked to a man whose college philosophy professor shattered a major belief of his. He said he dropped out and went around in a fog for over six months. I want to have a new belief all "waiting in the wings" before I permanently weaken the old belief.

Now let's come back to Lou, and do a little testing. Lou, is that new belief still there?

Lou: (She looks straight ahead and defocuses her eyes.) Yes. I keep checking to make sure. I have a hard time believing that it could be so easy to do.

What happens when you think of the old belief?

Lou: (She looks up to her left, and then smiles.) It looks kind of dried up now.

It's certainly not where it used to be. This is another way of checking what I've done, and of course I pay more attention to her nonverbal cues that to her words. Now we have a five–minute follow–up. (For information about a videotaped demonstration of this Belief Change Pattern, see Appendix IV.)

I want you all to try out this pattern in groups of three. One of you will be programmer, one will be client, and one will be an observer/consultant. I'll review all the steps again for you before you begin.

1. Belief: "Think of a belief you have about yourself that you wish you didn't have, because it limits you in some way, or has undesirable consequences. How do you represent this belief in your internal experience?"

2. Doubt: "Now think of something that you doubt. It might be true or might not be: you're not sure. How do you represent this doubt in your internal experience?"

When you ask your partner to think of something she doubts, make sure it's something she's unsure of. If she says something like, "I doubt that's a good idea," what she may really mean is that she believes it's not a good idea. Doubt is when you waver from thinking something might be true to thinking it might not be true; you just don't know.

3. Differences: Do a contrastive analysis to find and list the submodality differences between Belief and Doubt, just as you did before with confusion and understanding.

4. Testing: Test each submodality on your list of differences one at a time to find out which ones are the most powerful in changing belief to doubt. After testing one submodality, change it back to the way it was originally before testing the next one.

5. New Belief: "What new belief would you like to have in place of the belief that you now have and don't like?" Be sure this belief is stated in positive terms, without negations. "I can learn to change in response to feedback," rather than "I won't be unable to change what I do."

Also be sure that your partner thinks of the new belief in terms of an ability or a process, rather than having already achieved a desired goal. "I believe that I can learn to change and maintain my weight" is a useful belief. "I weigh 107 pounds" is not a very useful belief, especially if she actually weighs 350 pounds! We want to mobilize new abilities, not install new delusions.

You also need to ask the person to check for ecology: "If you have this new belief, how could it cause you problems?" "How will your husband or your family respond to you differently if you have this new belief?" "How will this new belief affect your work?" etc. Modify the new belief to take into account any possible difficulties.

Your partner doesn't have to tell you what the new belief is. All you need is a word to identify this new content.

6. Belief to Doubt: Keeping the content the same, change the unwanted belief to doubt by using one or more of the most powerful submodalities you discovered in step 4. For instance, if the two most powerful differences were movie to slide, and close panorama to distant framed picture, have the panoramic movie slow to a still slide as it moves away and becomes a framed picture.

7. Change Content: Using some other submodality, change the content from the old unwanted belief to the new desired belief. Use something she already does, or any gradual analogue method. For example, if she flips pictures back and forth in doubt, she can flip from the old content to the new content. You could have the old belief picture go off into the distance so far that it's impossible to tell what it is, then have it come back with the new belief image. You can have the picture get so bright or so dim that the old content disappears, and then have it come back with the new content, etc.

8. Doubt to Belief: Keeping the new content, change doubt to belief by reversing the same submodality changes you used in Step 6. If shifting location to the right changed the old belief to doubt, you now shift location back to the left to change the new content from doubt to belief. As you do this, be very alert for any "resistance," or difficulty that your partner has. If the new belief is stated poorly, or has any negations in it, some part of the person may object to it. When you encounter objections, honor them, gather information, and back up to step 5 to redefine the new belief.

9. There are several ways to test. You can ask "How do you think about this new belief?" Ask for information about submodalites, and use nonverbal behavior to confirm (or disconfirm) the verbal report.

10. When the new belief is in place, the old belief will probably change to the submodalities of disbelief. If you find out how the old belief is represented now, you can compare that with the submodalities of doubt, which you already know, or with the submodalities of disbelief, which you can find out by asking the person to think of something else she firmly disbelieves.

I've often said that good NLP work is 95% information–gathering and 5% intervention. The first five steps are setting things up for the intervention. That makes it easy to make the actual intervention smooth and fast. Remember, brains learn quickly; they don't learn slowly. If you get it all set up ahead of time, it's a lot easier to do a good job. It's a little like setting up a whole string of dominoes, and then tapping the first one.

Go ahead and try this pattern now, in groups of three. I know some of you have questions; many of those questions will be answered by the exercise itself. The questions you still have later will be a lot more interesting after you have had some experience of actually trying out this pattern. My answers will make a lot more sense to you, too.

Now that you've had some experience trying this, let's take some questions and comments.

Man: When I made the belief change, I had a lot of profound internal sensations. It felt as if there were a lot of little fish swimming around in my brain and my body, and the two people observing saw a lot of visible shifts, too. Is this typical?

When the belief is a major one, that's a typical report. Core beliefs organize a lot of a person's behavior. When you make a change in a core belief, you often get a profound internal reorganization. If it's a more peripheral belief, the changes aren't as striking.

Man: I found it hard to think of a useful belief to change. I'd like to hear some content examples of what people changed. Woman: I've been struggling and struggling for years to lose the last five pounds to get to the weight I want to be. It's easy for me to get close to the weight I want to be, but I've always believed I had to struggle and fight to control myself in order to lose that last five pounds. So I changed my belief that it was hard, to the belief that it will be easy to lose those last five pounds. What a relief; I feel so much more relaxed,

Man: I worked with her on that, and it was really nice to watch her go through the change. Her face, her voice, her whole body — everything was a lot more relaxed afterwards.

Woman: I've had a runny nose and I changed the belief that I couldn't do anything about it. I was amazed, because I can actually feel my nose beginning to dry up.

Man: I started with the belief that it was dangerous for me to drive at night without my glasses. I wanted to change it to the belief that I could safely drive without my glasses at night. Then my partner pointed out that my desired belief was a goal, and that it might be dangerous to change to that belief, I might go driving at night thinking I was safe when I wasn't. So we changed to the belief that I can learn to drive safely at night without glasses. I think I was really working on a much more general belief that I couldn't learn, period. I have a sense that this will affect much more than just driving at night; it seems much broader than that.

Great. Changing the belief that you can't learn something is useful for a lot of people. Many people try something once, don't succeed at it, and conclude they can't do it and they can't learn to do it. I know a man who "knew" he couldn't play the piano: "I sat down at the piano and tried it once, but nothing came of it." I start off with the belief that as long as you have most of your brain cells intact, anyone can do anything. You may need to chunk down the task, or learn to do it differently, and it may take you a while to get good at it, but starting with the belief that you can learn will take you a long way. My belief may even be wrong sometimes, but it makes it possible for me to do things and get results that I would never even consider if I assumed people were genetically incapable.

Man: Several people are using firewalking as a way to change people's limiting beliefs. Can you comment on that?

If someone believes they can't do something like firewalking and you get them to discover that it's possible, that can certainly shatter an old belief, particularly if they're told, "If you can walk on fire, you can do anything!" However, there's no way to carefully specify the new belief that gets put in its place. I read about one person who went through a firewalk and said, "Now I believe that I could be standing right at the explosion of a nuclear warhead, and it wouldn't affect me." If he's lucky, he won't ever get to test that belief, but it's an example of the kind of junky beliefs that can get installed that way. If you install beliefs that way, people often put in beliefs that don't relate to evidence or feedback. One firewalk teacher is calling himself "the foremost NLP trainer," when he hasn't even been certified as a master practitioner, much less a trainer! Some of his other beliefs have even less evidence for them.

I know that some people have gotten some very useful belief changes from doing the firewalk. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The problem with firewalking is that you have little control over the new belief that takes the place of the old one. There are enough bizarre and dangerous beliefs in the world without adding to them with a random process.

Another problem with something like firewalking is that it tends to install the belief that it takes a really dramatic external event to get you to change. I'd rather install the belief that change happens constantly, and easily, and making it work for you is a matter of understanding how to run your own brain. It doesn't take walking on hot coals to do that.

There is a completely separate issue of whether firewalking is actually something that's difficult to do or not, and whether the six hours of evangelistic preparation makes any difference in being able to walk on the coals. A reporter from the Rolling Stone timed people as they walked across and found a range of 1.5 seconds to 1.9 seconds, with an average of about 1.7 seconds. The length of the walk was about 10 feet, so if you have a 30" stride you can easily make it across in 4 steps — two on each foot. That gives a maximum of less than half a second of actual contact per footstep. Firewalkers make a big deal about the temperature of the coals—1,400 to 2,000 degrees — but they don't mention that each foot has only two contacts with the coals lasting less than half a second each. When you pick up a hot coal that's landed on your carpet to throw it back into the fireplace, your fingers probably contact the coal for about that long— and your fingertips are much more sensitive than your feet.

Burning requires heat transfer, not just temperature, and the contact time is only one factor in heat transfer. Another factor is conductivity. Let's say you're in a cabin in the mountains and you get out of bed in the morning when it's 20 degrees below zero, and one bare foot lands on a steel plate, while the other lands on a sheepskin rug. Even though the rug and the steel are both at 20 degrees below, the steel will feel a lot colder than the rug, because of it's greater heat conductivity. The conductivity of charcoal is greater than sheepskin, but a lot less than steel. Ask the next firewalker you meet if he's willing to walk the same length on a steel plate that's at the same temperature as those coals!

There is an additional factor that physicists call the "Leiden–frost effect." When there is a significant temperature difference between two substances, and the cooler one is a liquid or contains liquid, a thin vapor layer forms to create an insulating barrier that reduces heat transfer significantly.

All the evidence I have indicates that a ten foot, 1.5 second firewalk is something' anyone can do, with or without evangelistic preparation, but very few people think they can do.

Woman: Some people have beliefs that don't seem to influence their behavior much. For instance, I have a boss who always talks about how people should be nice to each other, but he's usually mean to people himself. How do you explain that?

I try to understand how things work, not "explain" them. There are several possibilities. One is that this belief is not really something he believes, even though he talks about it. A lot of "intellectuals" have beliefs like that which have no effect on their behavior. In that case you could use the belief change pattern to make his belief into one that is subjectively real enough to affect his behavior.

Another possibility is that his belief is real enough, but it's selective: other people should be nice to him, but he doesn't need to be nice to them, because he's special. Kings, dictators, and some movie stars are like that. Beliefs aren't always reciprocal.

A third possibility is that your boss' belief is real, and reciprocal, but what he thinks of as "being nice" seems "mean" to you. In the 60's a lot of humanistic psychologists would hug everyone too hard because they believed it was a nice thing to do, without noticing whether the "huggee" liked it or not. They'd also go around insulting people, because they thought it was always good to be honest and tell the truth. The crusaders believed that saving souls was an important thing to do, and they didn't care if it was sometimes necessary to kill the body in order to do it.

The process of changing a belief is relatively easy, as long as you have the person's consent. It's a little tougher if the person doesn't want to change a belief. I've also presupposed that you can identify a belief that's worth changing. Sometimes that's not obvious, and it may take some work to determine what someone's limiting belief is. Often the belief that the person wants to change isn't the one that actually limits his behavior.

My principal goal here is to teach you a. process that you can use to change a belief. However, the content that you put into a belief is also important. That's why I asked you to be sure to do an ecology check, as well as to state the new belief in terms of a process, rather than a goal, and to state it in positive terms. I asked you to do this belief change process without knowing the content of the new belief, because I know that some of you would get lost in the content and have trouble learning the process. After you have learned the process thoroughly, you won't be as likely to get lost in the content. When you're working with your clients, it's a good idea to know something about the content, so that you can verify that the new belief is stated in positive terms, is a process rather than a goal, and that it's likely to be ecological. Beliefs are very powerful things; when you change one it can do a lot of good, but if you install the wrong one, it can do a lot of harm, too. I want you to be very careful about the kinds of new beliefs you go around installing in people.