Are The False Self’s Limiting Beliefs Always False?

After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful.  Here’s the first in the series.  I’ll post the others over the coming months…

Q1. This afternoon, when you were talking about Self and False Self, you said that limiting beliefs of the False Self are never true, that they’re always false… but how can they always be false?  How can you be so sure?

“We need a quick recap on what we covered earlier before I answer your question.  You see, from conversations I’ve had today, I know some of you assumed that when I talked about False Self limiting beliefs I was referring to “I can’t do…” style beliefs.  But I wasn’t.   

So let’s be what we mean by beliefs, limiting beliefs, the False Self and in particular the high-level limiting beliefs I was referring to when I said they’re never true.

While we’re talking about them, don’t assume that “I can’t…” beliefs are always limiting beliefs.  You see, a limiting belief, by definition, has to limit you.  So for example, I believe I can’t win Wimbledon.  But it’s not a limiting belief.  After all, I’m 57, I was never great at tennis and I haven’t picked up a tennis racket in years – more than that, I don’t feel limited by this belief.  It doesn’t limit my potential, nor does it affect my relationships or my state of mind because my goals and values and priorities lie elsewhere.  So it’s not a False Self belief.  So do you see why we need a quick recap before I answer your question?

Beliefs

So… a quick recap.  First, what are beliefs?  They are simply the ideas you hold to be true – that’s what gives them great power over you; they seem to be true.

And limiting beliefs are beliefs that prevent you from fulfilling your potential, that lock you into unproductive mental, emotional and behavioural habits.  They take away your power to choose your responses to outer events, including other people’s behaviour, causing you to blindly react – usually in the way you’ve always done.

So what is the False Self?  It’s the sum total of all your limiting beliefs.  It’s a mental construction; a scaffolding of limiting beliefs.  But it has no beingness at its core, unlike Self.

Levels of Mind

Now do you recall that I said today your mind has four levels: Higher Mental Mind, Lower Mental Mind, Emotional Mind and Physical Mind?  They represent a hierarchy with Higher Mental Mind at the top and Physical Mind at the bottom.  Keeping things simple, you store your sense of identity, your self-image, in Higher Mental Mind.  Your thoughts flow from Lower Mental Mind.  Your feelings are created in Emotional Mind.  And your behaviour takes place at the level of Physical Mind.

Do you remember the example I gave you involving Chelsea versus Barcelona and the behaviour of the crowd when Torres scored in the 92nd minute and how it showed this hierarchy in action?  You saw how self-image (or identity) beliefs in Higher Mental Mind controlled thoughts, feelings and behaviour.  Do you recall what drove the fans’ behaviour when he scored the goal?  It was their feelings.  And what controlled their feelings?  Their thoughts (“we’ve lost, we won’t win now” or “we’ve won, they don’t have time to score two goals”).  And what was driving their thoughts – and therefore their feelings and behaviour?  It was their self-identity or self-image (“I am a Barcelona fan” or “I am a Chelsea fan”).

False Self & Limiting Beliefs

As I explained today, at the core of the False Self are limiting beliefs about who you are (your self-image) and how the world works (worldview) and of course they reside in Higher Mental Mind, at the top of the hierarchy.  When I work with clients, I aim to help them see their self-image and worldview limiting beliefs as these are the ones that control all the others.

In the context of leadership, the most important self-image limiting beliefs are those to do with your sense of significance (importance), competence (ability) and likeability (trustworthiness).  Limiting beliefs in these three areas have a marked effect on your ability to connect with people, build trusting relationships and influence them.  And these are things leaders must do if they are to be effective; whether you are dealing with peers, bosses or people below your level.

So you can say that self-image limiting beliefs in these three areas are the key ones to work on as a coach.  And now I’m starting to come back to the question you asked at the beginning because, you see, these are the very limiting beliefs that, in my experience are never true once you’ve unearthed and examined them.  These are, you could say, beliefs that start with the words “I am…”.  For example, “I am not good enough.”  But this is only one example.

A limiting belief like this causes a person to feel shame.  Walking through life with the shame of not being good enough (or not being significant enough, or not being worthy of another person’s love or trust) is incredibly painful.  It’s not an acute pain, it’s a chronic pain, but it’s always there in the background.  Because of this pain, we develop ways of coping, of surviving, with the unconscious feelings of shame and so we create defence mechanisms.  These come in the form of subsidiary beliefs that flow from the core negative “I am” belief and they eventually emerge as behaviour.

Impact of Limiting Beliefs

So, for example, someone who believes “I’m not good enough” will unconsciously want to avoid making mistakes, being proven wrong or experiencing failure because they all bring the painful sting of humiliation.  So a follow-on belief might emerge in Lower Mental Mind like, “I can’t assert myself in such and such situations or with so-and-so person.”  And this will flow into a next-level belief in Emotional Mind that says something like, “If I try to assert myself in those circumstances or with that person I’ll make a mistake or make a fool of myself and I’ll be humiliated and that’s too terrible to contemplate.”  And this belief will create a junior belief in Physical Mind along the lines of, “I must never be humiliated, so I’ll avoid any behaviour that puts me at risk of it.”

Now when I work with coaching clients I always help them find the beliefs lying at the root of their limiting behaviour and mental states.  And these root limiting beliefs are all always self-image beliefs (e.g. “I am not good enough / I am insignificant / I am a ruthless, unpleasant person…”) or worldview beliefs (e.g. “It’s a dog eat dog world / You can’t trust anyone”).

How Do I Know They Are Always False?

So now we’re clear I was referring to the most powerful False Self beliefs, I’ll return to the question at the beginning.  How do I know the limiting beliefs at the core of the False Self – notably the self-image beliefs – are always false?  Well, I’ll give you two answers.

My first answer is that in nearly 3,000 hours of executive coaching, I’ve not met one that was true.  Not one.  No exceptions.  I can’t share client details with you because that’s confidential, but that’s my experience – and that’s what led me to say False Self beliefs are always false.

My second answer is that the most powerful self-image and worldview limiting beliefs are always extreme – there’s no ifs and buts about them.  Indeed, they are too extreme to be true.  They don’t say “sometimes” and “occasionally”.  They’re universal in that they claim they will always apply in certain circumstances and, more than that, that they’re permanent, that there’s no escaping them.  That’s what makes them so powerful.  But it’s also what makes them so obviously false when you examine them in detail.

But all this is just talk.  You’ll only know for certain that none of your False Self beliefs are true when you take the time – either on your own using the Self Enquiry technique in chapter 9 of The Three Levels of Leadership, or with an executive coach – to expose them, define them in writing and examine them in detail.  You see, their power over you depends on you being unaware of them – they need to lie in the darkness, undetected and undefined.  It’s much harder for limiting beliefs to control you when you recognise them and see exactly what they have been telling you.

As I said, when I’ve done such work with clients, they always learn that their limiting self-image beliefs are false.  Without exception.  And that’s when they can let them go, gaining greater mental and emotional resilience and interpersonal effectiveness.”