Recognizing Choice Points:
Step Beyond Limiting Beliefs

By Suzanne Samson

What do these 3 people have in common?

- A woman waves to an acquaintance on the other side of the street and gets no response; she thinks, "Well, I don't like her that much anyway."

- An employee reading the bulletin board in the company cafeteria skims past the announcement that a company softball team is forming, reminding himself that "I'm not really good at team sports."

- A team member who suggests a valuable new idea and, when the group doesn't immediately embrace it, falls silent; she can almost hear her mother's voice saying, "Don't be pushy!"

Each has made a decision based on incomplete or outdated information – one that supports a limiting belief that is likely to restrict future behavior.

The woman's belief is that response to her gestures always indicates whether she can or will develop a friendship; she is likely to act distant the next time she sees the acquaintance, and the friendship is less likely to develop. The employee's belief is that he has to be "good at team sports" to enjoy or contribute to the team; he may not even go to the softball game to cheer the team on. The team member's belief is that doing more than mentioning a new idea is "pushy" and inappropriate. She may be even more hesitant to suggest a new idea at the next meeting. In each case, unconscious habitual thinking has strengthened a limited belief and closed off new possibilities.

Why do we do this?

Oddly enough, hasty decisions based on incomplete information actually helped our earliest ancestors to survive. The "fittest" were the ones who didn't wait to see the stripes on the saber-toothed tiger before running – a shadow of a certain size was enough to set them in motion. In those days survival was the major issue, and a quick decision based on a previous experience of danger was better than a carefully weighed, more accurate assessment of choices.

But why does this "skill" persist now that we're in an age where that tiger isn't lurking behind the bush? Physiological needs and safety needs are still present, but increasingly our decisions are based on our need for belonging, esteem and self-actualization – needs like those in the opening 3 examples. And yet we keep making decisions based on inadequate information and the old habitual patterns of limiting beliefs.

And yet it's not just our needs that have changed. Life today is more complex, the pace is fast, and we are bombarded with unprecedented amounts of information during almost every waking moment. Saying (consciously or unconsciously) "This looks/feels enough like that past event that I'm going to file it in the same mental compartment because I don't have time to think about it" is a natural response. We simply don't have time to ask, "Are my assumptions still valid?"

These time constraints are reinforced by an aspect of humanity that is as old as the species itself – we feel safer and more centered if we can create meaning from the events around us by generating an explanation for them, however inaccurate. It's challenging to say, "I simply don't know enough at this point to make a decision or have an opinion about that." And so we make hasty unconscious decisions even when they limit us.

What are some other choices?

Luckily, not every choice requires deep deliberation – or we'd find ourselves drowning in a sea of unmade decisions. But each of us has areas where quick, unexamined decisions (usually based on things that happened when we were younger and less skilled) keep us from enjoying new people, new situations and new aspects of ourselves.

Byron Katie has developed a powerful body of work based on turning assumptions upside down. "Can you absolutely KNOW it's true? Who would you be without the thought that it's true?" are among the questions she asks in The Work. This is only one of a myriad of other techniques that can be used to shift from unconscious choice to conscious choice, expanding our perception of what's possible.

An approach that I find especially effective with clients is to work with the voice and energy of the limiting belief as a "triggered self." This is a process that clients can learn to use on their own: imagining the qualities of the client part that holds the limiting belief, moving the part out to a separate place (generally a seat nearby), dialoguing with it to better understand it's needs, and agreeing on more constructive ways to meet them. This process allows the client to explore the limiting belief with greater skill and objectivity, while honoring the fact that the part of them that has held the belief has good intentions, but is younger and less skillful.

It's has enormous transformative power.

What this and other approaches to limiting beliefs have in common What they all have in common as a first step, whether stated or not, is becoming aware that we're making a choice AND recognizing that there are other possible choices. Sounds simple, but it's powerful.

If the person whose acquaintance didn't wave back were to examine her belief and choice in this way, perhaps she would consider that the woman might simply be focused on something else and her response had nothing to do with whether they might become friends. If the employee who believes he isn't good at team sports stopped to ask if that mattered to every team, he might find that THIS team was created just to relax after work and wasn't focused on winning – or that he can enjoy supporting the team in a different way. And if the work team member with the new idea considered the possibility that the group's reaction didn't necessarily mean that the idea wasn't valuable, perhaps she might ask for feedback on how to encourage the group to consider it.

What would you discover if you spent just a couple of hours one day listening to your mind as it makes meanings out of the things that happen to and around you? Before you pick a compartment in your mind to file them in, just ask yourself the questions: "Do I absolutely know that the assumption underlying that decision or conclusion is true for me? What other assumptions could be true?" If you accept this invitation, you'll be taking a first, big step toward shifting from being constrained by limiting beliefs to exploring what's possible.

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