Learnt Behaviour

by Di Browne

When I first heard of learnt behaviour during my coaching studies, I immediately thought of it as behaviours we adapt to comply with society’s rules.  Things like sleeping during the night, obeying the law and fidelity.  Well it is about that and so much more! 

Put simply behaviours are strategies and everything we do is a strategy.  A very basic example of a strategy is how we dry ourselves after a shower.  You do it in a particular way!  First you might dry your face, then your hair, then your back or chest.  It doesn’t matter how you do it, what matters is the end result.  The important question in relation to strategies is ‘do the infinite amount of strategies we run in our lives give us the results we want?’ In other words ‘are your strategies getting you the outcomes you want?’

Every single behaviour we have has been learnt because we either saw someone else do it, as a survival mechanism or if we consciously chose it.  Considering there are infinite learnings, besides the behaviours we chose, how many have we learnt that we unconsciously act out in our everyday lives?

Let’s have a look at a strategy/learnt behaviour that has greater consequence than not being dry.  Imagine you grew up in a household where you gained respect from voicing your opinion no matter how much you had to raise your voice to get your point of view across!  So your belief in this example would be, to get respect you need to make sure you get your opinion across no matter what.  You would think this is how to gain respect.  After all this is how it was in your family and it worked then.

The thing is we adapted and learnt behaviours in the past that no longer work for us now.
Some of our strategies are no longer serving us, there are actually working against us.  Using the example above, some people do not react very well to people raising their voices.  If they grew up in a household where it was disrespectful to raise their voice at someone, their belief may be that it is a bad thing to raise your voice.  They would not respect anyone who uses this strategy/learnt behaviour!  So in trying to gain respect, the person trying to get their point across only managed to be disrespected.  This strategy worked against him in this example and more than likely he wouldn’t know why!

So how do you know what strategies you are unconsciously running that are not serving you now?  In other words, how do you know what you don’t know?

Start by looking at anything in your life where you are not getting the results or outcomes you want.  Maybe you have the same or similar results in your finances, health, career and relationships as those people you originally learnt the behaviours from.  If you want different results, start modelling people who have what you want in that area.  Do what they do, think what they think and be who they are in the area where you want the same outcome.

By changing your strategy you will get a different outcome.  Einstein said ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.’  To get a different result all you need to do is to change something in your strategy!  To get an even better result, model excellence!

Di Browne
Coach to Empower

Qualities of friends

F.R.I.E.N.D.S- (F)ight for you (R)espect you (I)nclude you

(E)ncourage you (N)eed you (D)eserve you (S)tand by you!!

To receive these qualities from someone else, they must start with us.  We need to give these things to ourselves before anyone else can give them to us.

For example do you: -

fight for yourself?  Imagine if someone put shit on one of your friends, how that would make you feel.  Would it be OK with you?  Do you feel the same way and want to fight for yourself when it happens to you, or do you somehow justify it!

respect yourself?  Would you hang out with someone that had no respect?  How much honor, esteem and worth do you have for yourself?  Do you have great respect for your personal qualities and abilities?

If you have a friend like this chances are you have all these qualities.

Empower Newsletter – September 2012

The September Newsletter has arrived just in time for the first day of Spring.  Spring signifies the emergence of new life and brings meaningful growth and rejuvenation in its wake. Spring enriches natural beauty and it seems as if nature is dressed in a beautiful green gown.  What better time to focus on the natural beauty that is within each and every one of us.

Do you know?

‘You are perfect!’

Most of us are fortunate enough to be born whole and able.  It is through our childhood experiences that we take on beliefs that are in direct conflict with this.  All of our beliefs about ourselves are formed between the ages of 0 and 6.  They are formed by us adding a meaning to a childhood emotional event.  Whilst some of these beliefs serve us, others do not.

For example if other children didn’t want to play with us at school, we may have made it mean that they didn’t like us or that there must be something wrong with us, which translates to believing we are not good enough.

As a child if we had trouble learning mathematics, we may have believed we were not very good at Maths which would have no doubt translated to being stupid and not being good enough.

What about if your mother accidently left you somewhere, oops!!!!  Would a child make that mean that she didn’t care about them?  Maybe if we were better behaved Mum would care!

As you can imagine there are infinite emotional events during childhood.  I wonder how many of these events we added a meaning to which translated to not being good enough.

Although we don’t consciously remember a lot of these definitions our unconscious remembers everything and we act out our child beliefs in our everyday life.

The thing is as children we didn’t have the intellect, knowledge or worldly experience that we now have as adults.  If we look back on these events as adults the meaning we gave the event as children will almost seem laughable.  With this realisation we are then able to acknowledge that is not what the event meant at all which enables us to add a new belief that will serve and empower us.

We are all perfect just the way we are!  You just need to believe it!
Events Schedule

Chicks in the City
Wed 19/09/2012 at 6.30pm

Chicks in the City meet the third Wednesday of every month from 6.30pm to 8.00pm at Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, 117 Ryedale Road, West Ryde in the lounge area next to the Bristo.

Chicks in the City is a group for women to connect.  Basically it’s all about hanging out with women, meeting new friends, socialising, finding like-minded women to chat to or even making long lasting friendships.

All women are welcome and it’s free.

Something to Ponder

I cannot tell you how many sighs of relief I have heard from clients when after they have told me their issues, I’ve responded by assuring them they are perfectly normal and nothing I haven’t heard dozens, maybe hundreds, of times before.

Quote of the Month

“Yours is the energy that makes your world. There are no limitations to the self except those you believe in.”
Jane Robertsare

Affirmation Corner

‘I seek and find what I need within me.’

If you act as if everyone likes you, it will change your reality!

Do you act differently around different people?  Are you more relaxed and give more of yourself to some people?  Does the way you interact depend on who you are with?  Does it make a difference if you think they like you or not?

I remember a time not so long ago when I first met a business colleague who was quite aloof and non-engaging.  I remember making this mean that maybe she did not like me.  Normally I would not make an effort with this person, I would just accept my initial thought and keep my distance.

Not this time though, I decided that I would act as if she did like me.  I treated her the way I treat other people I do like, and wouldn’t you know it, she responded the way my friends do.  Funny thing is I would never have formed a friendship with this girl if I hadn’t changed my belief and the way I responded to her.

I wonder how this way of thinking will change the quality of your life and maybe even increase the number of friends you have.  My challenge to you is to act as is everyone likes you and see how it changes your reality.

Let me elaborate firstly on the previous feedback that it doesn’t work.  This strategy is of more benefit for new people you meet.  This is where you will see instant results.  My understanding is that this was in relation to a strained relationship which already existed.  For many of us it took a long time to form the relationships we have with people, good and not so good.  Therefore it would possibly take more than just a couple of times of acting differently before your actions are reciprocated.  Put yourself in their shoes, just because someone you don’t have a good relationship with suddenly acts as if you are friends, doesn’t mean you will respond in the same way.  Although if you continued, they may eventually feel comfortable enough to trust that it is okay.

For those people who tried it and found it did work, congratulations on your instant results!  You actually changed the outcome you would have normally experienced simply by changing what you believed a certain behaviour meant.  For example when someone hasn’t returned your phone call, you may have normally jumped straight to the conclusion that you must have done something wrong or the person doesn’t want to speak to you.  When in reality, it is probably that they just forgot or they are busy.  There could be a thousand different reasons why they have not returned your call.

So why would we choose to think it is something about us personally, when we can gain the benefits that come along with choosing to think otherwise!