Let me know if you can relate to this:
You have goals you want to achieve. You also know what you’d have to do to achieve them. But still, you don’t get ahead.
You might procrastinate, put things off, and find all the reasons why it’s just not working for you. And you’re getting more and more frustrated because something is holding you back.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
If so, I totally get you. I’ve been there and I know how maddening it can be. It took me years of studying personal development to get to the core reason why this happens and, more importantly, how to fix it.
The reality is that you’ve likely never learned how transformation actually works. If you’re like most, you only look at the level of your goals and what you’d have to do to reach them. However, there are six levels that you can use to set yourself up for success! And if you only look at your behaviors, you waste a lot of potential.
In this newsletter, you will learn how to use the most powerful framework to get what you want. When you do that, achieving your goals will start to happen naturally.
Keep reading if you want to learn how!
What successful people do differently
For this, we are going to take a close look at the Neurological Levels of Robert Dilts:
Robert Dilts developed this model as a way to understand how change can occur in individuals and organizations. There are a total of six levels that can be used to create change:
1) Environment:
This level refers to the physical surroundings, people, and circumstances in which you operate.
2) Behaviors:
Your actions and reactions you engage in to respond to the environment.
3) Capabilities:
This level refers to the skills you possess that enable you to perform certain behaviors.
4) Beliefs and values:
Your attitudes, convictions, and principles about what is right or wrong, good or bad, and what is important in life.
5) Identity:
This level refers to the sense of self that you have, your self-image, and the roles you play in life.
6) Vision, mission, and purpose:
Your sense of meaning, purpose, and connection to something larger than yourself.
Let's look at a personal story to illustrate how these levels work together:
When I was starting to work out at 16 years old, I was extremely insecure, my self-esteem was non-existent. I saw people that were confident, stronger, and looked better - they inspired me, I wanted to be more like them. I received these inputs through my environment - so I signed up for the gym.
At the gym, I was instructed to start working out. I spent less time playing video games, started to eat more protein, and went to the gym regularly. My behaviors changed.
To reach my goals, I had to learn how to perform certain exercises, how to write training programs, and create nutrition plans. Over time, through years of trial and error, I became really good at this. I've learned and mastered new skills.
My training became more and more important to the point where I couldn't really think about anything else. Strength got deeply ingrained as one of my top values and I started to believe that I could really do well at competitions. I started to see myself as a powerlifter - which became my identity.
Over time, I developed a vision when I did my strength coaching education: I realized I love helping people become stronger, more confident, and healthier. It became my mission and that's when I started my business.
So what can you do with this information?
You can use all of those levels to create change. The way you do this is by aligning each individual layer with your desired outcome. Let me show you how through the example of weight-loss:
Environment:
When I started my business I moved to Vienna because I wanted to train at the best gym in the world. The change in environment was a catalyst for my growth: I grew stronger a lot faster, because I was surrounded by competitive powerlifters. You might not be in a position to do such a drastic change, but that's not necessary. There are small things that you can do:
Start shopping for healthier groceries
Remove junk food from your home
Set your bedroom up for ideal sleep
Sign up for a gym you actually feel inspired to go to
Adjusting your environment can be enough to stop doing destructive habits: If there’s no chocolate at home when you get back after a stressful day of work, you’re not going to eat any! Even if you’re depleted of willpower.
Behaviors:
To create a different life, you need new habits. To establish a new habit, make the level of difficulty as low as possible. If you try to go from eating lots of junk food straight to a keto diet, there is a high chance you will fail because it’s too hard. Start with easy changes:
Drink more water
Add vegetables to your meals
Add more protein to your meals
Those are so-called “micro habits” and you can stack them upon already existing behaviors. That way you'll be consistent and achieve the outcomes you want.
Skills:
What are the top three, high-leverage skills that would make achieving this goal easy? For example, you could learn to cook simple meals, get instructed on how to train, and manage your stress.
The last three levels are "invisible" - they determine your internal:
Not considering them is a big mistake because they govern your actions!
Let's start with values and beliefs:
One of the most destructive beliefs is that getting in shape has to be restrictive. If you want to lose weight but believe you have to sacrifice enjoyment to do so, it creates “internal friction”. That's the reason why you might struggle to take action, even though you know exactly what to do (read THIS article to learn how to deal with conflicting values), even though you know exactly what to do. Breaking limiting beliefs is a topic that goes beyond this newsletter, but I want to give you some questions to start:
What is stopping you from reaching this goal?
Is this limiting belief REALLY true (look for examples where it's not)?
What would a person who has already achieved this goal believe?
Next is identity:
Tony Robbins said that the strongest driver in the human psyche is to stay consistent with your identity - how you define yourself. What you want to do is to start perceiving yourself as a person who is fit and healthy. At the beginning, this might feel like you're lying to yourself because you might not be in the best shape. There are several ways to deal with this, one of the most powerful ones is to:
Look at what characteristics you need to reach your goals
Look at the evidence you already have in your life that you are this kind of person
Let's say you know that you need discipline: What evidence in your life exists that shows you're already a disciplined person?
Success at your job or business?
Leading a healthy marriage?
Taking care of your family?
All of those things require a lot of discipline! When you start seeing yourself as this kind of person, doing what you need to do will become natural.
Vision, mission, and purpose:
How can you turn your goal into a mission that benefits the people around you? Let's say you have a family and you want to make sure that your kids grow up healthy and strong. The best way to do this is to lead by example. Creating this supportive environment could be your mission. As an entrepreneur, you could have the mission to create a healthy work environment for your coworkers. That way, they’ll be happier, more productive, and your business will grow even more.
To recap, here are a couple of powerful questions that will help you align these levels with your goal:
1) Environment:
How can you adjust your environment to best support your goals?
2) Behaviors:
What habits will create this goal for you? How can you make the barrier of difficulty as low as possible?
3) Skills:
What are three high-leverage skills that will help you create this goal? What’s the fastest way to learn them?
4) Values and behaviors:
Why is this goal important for you? What beliefs are stopping you? What evidence do you have that these beliefs are wrong? What beliefs does a person hold that already reached this goal?
5) Identity:
Who do you need to be so that you can have what you want? What characteristics does this person have? What evidence exists in your life that you already are this person?
6) Vision, mission, and purpose:
What greater impacts will it have when you reach this goal? How will it benefit your family, your work environment, and society?
Align these levels with your goal and reaching it will start to happen naturally!
If you want help doing that, click HERE and schedule a free 30-minute strategy call with me.