I once worked with a client that had been \’sent\’ for coaching. The remit was to improve their performance. They had a monthly sales target, which they were underachieving by 66%.
In the initial session the coachee spoke about \’not being as good as her colleagues\’, which had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a coach, I know that most limiting beliefs are really just an echo of the past. I tend to find that the majority of these limitations are created between the ages of 0 – 7. In NLP, we call this the \’Imprint Phase\’.
At this time of our lives (0 – 7), we believe pretty much whatever we are told, because we haven\’t yet developed an analytical mind. You only have to look at when children stop believing in Father Christmas! For example, if you were told you were \’not as clever as your brother\’ the unconscious mind takes this on board as an unquestionable truth.
For this particular client, there had been an unfortunate event at school at around age 6. The teacher had held up a word and the client had volunteered the answer, but mispronounced it. She was chastised and the limiting belief, that she \’wasn\’t as good as her classmates\’, (now peers), was formed.
So how did we resolve this? I used a technique called EFT, (The Emotional Freedom Technique) which dissolved the belief. This stopped her obsessing about what her colleagues were doing, which made her work more efficiently. She was bolder in her approach, which enabled her to gain more work. There were also some other practical things we did to help her to be better organised.
The end result was that she exceeded her target by 33%…and was even better than her colleagues 🙂
