How to Change your Life with One Simple Model
Discover How To Find your Purpose, Increase Your Motivation, Improve Your Habits & Lower Anxiety
Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to change things about ourselves?
Whether it is a lack of Motivation, procrastination, or having negative habits like smoking, addressing these issues is very difficult, and even when we make progress, often, it is temporary. Before you know it, we are back to our old ways of doing things.
Suppose you struggle in any of these areas (Motivation, bad habits, aimlessness, etc.) in any way or want to have a more precise understanding of human psychology.
If you are curious, why we do the things we do and how we impact change in ourselves and others, then the Model I am about to share with you will be revolutionary.
This Model can be used to better understand yourself and others, what levels you need to apply effort to effect change in your life, and how to make the changes stick.
Lastly, this Model goes very deep; it addresses and affects change at a core level.
Let's jump into Dilts's Logical Levels of Change and how you can apply them.
The Model: Dilts Levels of Change
The Logical Levels of Change is a powerful model that describes how we operate in the world and how to effect change.
The Model focuses on the following Levels:
Purpose: This relates to your Why and your reason for being. It's the bigger picture of your life.
Identity: This refers to the roles you play, your story, and your concept.
Values & Beliefs: This answers the question of what is important to you and 'Why' you behave the way you do.
Capability: This includes your talents, abilities, skills, knowledge, and education. This speaks to your potential for action.
Behavior: This relates to your actions in the world. What you do and everything you do happens in an environment.
Environment: The time, place, and overall context. This can include where you live, your relationships, your career, your financial well-being, your health, etc.
Each of these levels can be highly empowering or limiting.
Why do we Fail?
When we fail to get the results or the life situation we desire, failure is the feedback we need to realize that change is necessary.
When change is hard, often it's because we are working on the wrong level. The most common temptation is to try to fix a problem at the level that it exists.
For example, if we don't like a behavior, like smoking, we try to effect change on the behavioral level. We try to change the behavior via force or suppression, only for all our efforts to fail.
So, how do we work on the right level of change?
We first must discover what levels the problem exists on.
With the Smoker, we need to listen to their language and see what level(s) changes are required.
For example, consider the differences between saying, "I can't quit" (skill), versus "Smoking won't hurt me" (belief), versus "It's a part of who I am" (Identity).
How to use the Model for Change
The Model of Change is a top-down hierarchical model that describes what areas you must work on to effect change.
Next, let's look at how each level can be used for change and how to effect change at that level.
Environment
Consider how modifying your environment can lead to change.
Environmental design can have a big impact, as it offers us the opportunity to make good or bad choices.
To effect change on the Level of 'Environment', you must take action. Just do it!
Behavior
At this level, consider what actions must be taken to effect change. You can start by defining your goals and plans and what you want to do. If all of the levels above are aligned, then carrying out the behavior would be effortless.
If you are trying to achieve a goal and failing, in other words, you are taking ineffective actions, then consider if you are doing what needs to be done and assess your Capability.
On the other hand, if taking action is complex or there is resistance to carrying out the behavior, consider why.
What is holding you back? You will need to examine this on the level of Values, Beliefs, and Identity.
To be able to Behave, one needs to have Capability first.
Capability
To change behavior, first and foremost, we need Capability.
Capability is the level at which most personal development occurs. It involves acquiring new skills, knowledge, and abilities and developing one's talents.
If you don't know what to do or how to do it, you must address your level of Capability.
To address your level of Capability and learn any new skill, you first must be Motivated and Believe that it is Valuable.
Beliefs & Values
Our beliefs act as our foundation, which fundamentally defines what the world is about, what the chief problem of life is, and how we ought to be in the world.
Our beliefs informs us of what is important in life, in other words, our beliefs inform our values.
When we believe something is valuable and can attain it, we begin to organize our lives subconsciously around it.
To uncover your beliefs in regards to any situation you can ask:
What do you believe might happen if 'x' occurs?
What happens if you do or don't do 'x'?
How easy or difficult is doing 'x'?
What happens if you do 'x' and fail?
In the example of the Smoker, the smoker believed that 'smoking won't hurt them' so quitting smoking isn't valuable and worth pursuing.
Trying to change beliefs on the level of beliefs won't work. We must go up a level to Identity.
Identity
Identity is the collection of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and concepts you believe are true about who you are, your self-esteem, self-image, and roles in life.
Identify refers to one's sense of Self; it's about who a person believes they are at the core.
Unlike external beliefs about the Nature of Reality, Identity deals with your internal beliefs about yourself.
Your Identity is a story you tell yourself about who you are.
This story includes your trials, triumphs, challenges, friends, enemies, and the arc of your life.
Your Identity informs your beliefs and assumptions.
According to your presumptions, you create a model of the world, what you believe the nature of the world is, and what it means for you.
Your beliefs about the world determine what you think is possible for you.
Then, according to your beliefs, you move towards things you value using your skills and capabilities. Your actions lead to your overall life situation.
So, in total, our Identity informs our values and beliefs, which motivate us to use our capabilities and act in the world that produces our life situation.
In this way, our Identity is our Destiny.
To work on the level of Identity, we have to go beyond ourselves. We have to go to the level of our Ideals, our Grand Vision, and our Higher Purpose.
This Higher Purpose then becomes our north star.
Your WHY: Vision, Purpose & Your Ideals
What is your reason for being?
What is your purpose? Your WHY?
Here, you must reflect on your ideals and find your reason for being that extends beyond yourself.
This becomes your higher purpose.
Then, your Identity, the roles you play, and the characteristics you embody serve your higher purpose.
Once you uncover your WHY, everything below can click into place.
Putting it All Together
Once you uncover your WHY, everything below can click into place.
Vision & Purpose: You 'WHY,' your reason for being, and your highest purpose.
Expression of your Ideals
Identity: Align your Identity with your Purpose.
Who do you need to be to actualize your purpose?
What roles, stories, and characteristics must you embody?
Who in the world would easily be able to actualize your purpose? What can you learn from their Identity?
Beliefs: What external beliefs can help?
Empowering Beliefs: Beliefs that you can achieve
Limiting Beliefs: Identity and address beliefs that claim you can't achieve it.
Fear Setting: Address your fears via fear setting exercise.
Values: What are the associated Values with your purpose? What Values are you giving others?
Perception: We subconsciously filter our environment for what we value, so trust your hunches and follow your curiosity.
Capabilities: How can you use your capabilities to achieve your purpose?
Is there anything you need to learn or develop to realize your purpose?
Behavior: What is the minimum effective dose?
Goals & Plans: We create goals and plans to help us get what we want.
Actions: What is the smallest, most impactful action you can take to get the ball rolling?
Environment: Find, create, and foster the ideal environment to actualize your purpose.
Now let’s apply it to our smoking example:
To address such a complex behavior like smoking, you must address it on all levels, starting at the top of the hierarchy and working your way down.
Here is the process in order:
Ideals: The person needs to consider their Ideal Healthy Self. How would the Healthy you be? What are its characteristics?
Identity: “It’s a part of who I am”
Before: Smoking was seen as a cool, rebellious, fun part of who I am.
After: Smoking isn’t part of a healthy self-identity; smoking is now seen as low-status, undesirable, and not something a Healthy Self does.
Beliefs: “Smoking won't hurt me”
Before: The person must become aware of their beliefs and assumptions about smoking. Why do they believe that it won’t hurt them? They can reflect on all the ways that it has impacted their life negatively.
After: Smoking has already had a negative impact my life, quitting is worth the effort, etc.
Values:
Before: Why quit? I like it, and it does not hurt anyone.
After: It’s not a part of who I am. Smoking does not make me healthier.
Capability: “I can’t quit”
Before: lack of skills
After: learning techniques on how to cope with triggers, addiction, etc.
Action: The person needs to decide to quit.
Environment: Consider an environment that makes it easy to stay on track.
Once all these levels are addressed, then the behavior will stop.
Try it for Yourself.
If you want to go through the process, I created the Hero’s Guidebook, which goes deeply into each step and the entire process.
This includes your personality traits and how they relate to your capabilities, values, beliefs, and Identity. You can see a free Preview here.
This PDF is typically $20
Paid Members can download it for Free below 👇
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Stefan Speaks to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.