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Why are so many of us “driven” compulsively to seek or do things that frequently aren’t in our own best self-interest?
You probably aren’t surprised that my answer is: beliefs. But there is a specific type of belief that results in “driven” behavior. And it is formed in a very specific way. Let me explain.
Imagine you are a young child who has created a host of negative beliefs about yourself or about life. (Very few of us escape childhood without forming a bunch of negative self-esteem beliefs. I’ve explained why in earlier blogs. https://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/; https://www.mortylefkoe.com/wonderful-parents/#) At this point you are in school, interacting with lots of other kids and adults. It dawns on you that you are going to grow up and will have to make your own way in life. You are confronted with a real dilemma, albeit an unconscious one: “How will I make it in life if there’s something fundamentally wrong with me or the world?”
Imagine the fear and anxiety you must feel when you experience these two conflicting “facts”: On one hand, you sense that you must make it on your own in life. On the other hand, you have concluded that “There’s something fundamentally wrong with me or life that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to make it on my own.”
Why we need survival strategies
Fear and anxiety are unpleasant and painful feelings, so children who have them try to find ways of not feeling them. In tens of thousands of sessions with clients, I and other Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitators have discovered that people have two basic ways of dealing with the unpleasant feelings that are caused by negative self-esteem beliefs:
First, they use alcohol, drugs, sex, food, or other substances to cover up the feelings and numb themselves or to make themselves feel good.
Second, they develop strategies that help them deal with the anxiety that stems from their negative beliefs. I call them “survival strategies” because the fear one experiences when one has negative self-esteem beliefs often makes one feel as if his survival is being threatened.
When a survival strategy is formed, the child also forms a belief about that strategy:
“What makes me good enough (or important, or worthwhile, etc.) is ….” A variation of that is: “The way to survive is ….”
Survival strategies are based on a child’s observation of what it takes to feel good about herself, to be important, to be worthwhile, or to be able to deal with life in spite of negative self-esteem beliefs.
How specific survival strategies are formed
Susan’s parents placed a heavy emphasis on friendships, on what others thought of them, and on impressing people, so Susan concluded that the way to survive was to get everyone to like and approve of her.
Fred formed a similar belief in a different way: When he got praise and acknowledgement from his parents he really felt good about himself, in a way he normally didn’t. So he concluded what made him good enough and important was having people think well of him.
Here’s Lauren’s story: She noticed that people treated her dad with respect and admiration because he had been so successful in business and had so much money, so Lauren concluded that what made her important and good enough was being financially successful.
Art lived in a community where the people who were considered important and given respect were in gangs and carried guns, so he chose that as his survival strategy.
(By the way, one way to know if you have negative self-esteem beliefs is to ask yourself: What makes you good enough Once you decide that a positive sense of yourself is “because of” anything, you’ve created a lifelong problem. For example, if you believe the only way to be good enough is to be wealthy and have a big house, your sense of worth is linked to those conditions. If you aren’t wealthy and don’t have a big house, you are forced to face your belief that you’re not good enough, which produces anxiety. Moreover, even if your survival strategy is achieved, there’s the danger of losing it. Total disaster is always just around the corner for you. Life becomes a sea of anxiety, in which you are constantly struggling to meet the conditions you have made for being good enough. Your self-esteem is always in question. A few case histories Tom, an executive in a Wall Street firm, earns over $200,000 a year. His core belief is I don’t matter, and his survival strategy belief is: What makes me worthwhile is being seen as important by others. As a result, Tom becomes anxious whenever a new person gets hired, a colleague wins praise, he isn’t included in a meeting, or his boss doesn’t acknowledge him after he’s completed a project. Miriam has the survival strategy belief: What makes me acceptable is being beautiful. For most of her life, she has lived comfortably with that belief. Her beauty earned her quite a bit of attention, admiration, and even love. But now Miriam is approaching fifty, and she’s frightened. The march of time is threatening to rob her of the one thing that she believes makes her acceptable. She has become increasingly depressed; every time a man fails to look at her admiringly, she has a deep feeling of not being okay. One consequence of being run by survival strategy beliefs is that instead of living out of choices and pleasure—doing things because you want to do them—you do them primarily to survive (to feel okay about yourself). You experience your survival as dependent on the success of your survival strategy. The need to fulfill the terms of your survival strategy dominates your life. Survival strategies don’t really work Someone once said, “You can never get enough of what you never really wanted in the first place.” That’s an excellent description of trying to live using survival strategies to compensate for negative self-esteem beliefs. Once you say you’re not worthwhile just the way you are, no amount of accomplishment or praise will provide the unconditional sense of self-esteem you want and need People who have beliefs that are indicative of low self-esteem are not just criminals, drug addicts, unsuccessful people, or those who suffer from deep depression. Many people with low self-esteem are visibly successful, living in nice homes with stable families. What distinguishes people is not their self-esteem beliefs, but their survival strategies—the ways they cope with a negative sense of themselves. Although the dysfunctional behavior that people exhibit is usually a direct result of their survival strategy beliefs, the energy that drives the survival strategies is the underlying negative self-esteem. We don’t want to have to acknowledge the negative self-esteem belief (it’s too scary), so we do whatever it takes to manifest the survival strategy belief. That’s why the underlying self-esteem belief should be eliminated before the survival strategy belief. The role of survival strategy beliefs explains why therapies designed only to improve self-esteem rarely produce fundamental and lasting changes in people’s behavior and feelings. Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to htp://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one negative belief free. For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings—which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives including a lack of confidence—and get a separate video of the WAIR? Process, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence. To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly. copyright ©2012 Morty Lefkoe
Hi Morty,
My survival strategy belief is: “What makes me good enough or important is my complete surrender and obedience to other people.” How do I eliminate this belief? Do I replace it with something else? If so, what would that be? I see obedience as the only reason I’m still alive today.
Thank you,
Bela
Hi Bela,
You can try to eliminate the belief on your own by reading my earlier blog posts that contain the steps of the Lefkoe Belief Process or you can schedule a session with one of our Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitators, who will help you identify all the beliefs responsible for the problem in your life and then help you eliminate all of them.
For more information or to schedule a session, please call us at (415) 506-4472.
By the way, you can’t eliminate a survival strategy belief until you eliminate the underlying self-esteem beliefs: I’m not good enough and I’m not important.
Love, Morty
Hey Morty
I once mentioned a survival strategy belief: “What makes me powerful is having everything exactly how I want it to be”.
What do you exactly mean by ‘Having things how I want them to be’?
I don’t understand how a child forms this belief, because how I want things to be now was different as a child.
He feels powerless, and then what exactly happens that makes him feel powerful?
Could you please explain the source of the belief?
Thanks : )
As I read this post, I kept trying to see what my main survival strategy is. I can see that I tried a few things growing up, like doing well at school, then, when that failed to fill the hole I felt, I gained approval by being outrageous and rebellious, but that also had a limited lifespan for me. It just came to me that my greatest survival strategy is to just keep people at a distance – don’t let them get close enough to really hurt me or see that I’m not good enough. My childhood life seemed full of uncertainty, pain and punishment, so the solution was to keep people away, so I can’t be hurt.
Hi Lon,
First get rid of the beleifs that people can’t be trusted and that relationships are painful. Then you can get rid of the survival strategy belief, the way to keep from getting hurt is to keep people at a distance.
It will change your life if you do.
Love, Morty
Thank you once again for your work! I can see that I had two strategies that were in opposition to each other. Exhausting. No wonder my life was stuck!
Hi Morty,
What really hit me in this post was your comment about “What makes you good enough…?” and that the answer is “Nothing”.
I think that is awesomely profound and a mark I have missed all of my life!!
I tried to answer what makes me good enough and I drew a blank because all of my life I was told that I could never, ever be good enough and I have believed this all of my life.
Yet, today is a new day and with this amazing info from you I have something I can chew on and work at grasping, so I can grow into the healthy person I deserve to be.
U R Awesome Morty!!
Rebecca
Hi Morty
I have been working my way through your natural confidence course and really enjoying it and I have already noticed that my levels of procrastination at work are dropping. It has also not been something I have had to struggle with, it just isn’t coming up as a feeling of something that I want to do. That is a big change for me because procrastination was a way of life, all my life. I would not go so far as to say that it is completely gone yet because it is early days so we shall see. I am interested to know more about your occurring course and is this something that you can only do in a live workshop?
Also do you do any training courses for people to learn how to teach your methods?
Thanks for the great material, at belief 10 now and looking forward to moving through the rest!
Nola
Hi Nola,
Glad to hear that you are seeing positive results from the NC course.
The occurring course is starting April 10. There are weekly webinars from 5-6:45 p.m. Pacific every week for 10 weeks. The webinar is recorded so you can watch or listen to a recording the next day. If you’ve been watching the videos I’ve been sending out, you can see it is the most powerful and effective course I’ve ever offered.
For information about the course go to http://occurringcourse.com/discover.
And yes, we do have a course where you can learn how to use the Lefkoe Belief Process on yourself and others. We are in the middle of one now. The next one will be in May. That is a digital course that you do on your own time. For details go to http://lefkoeuniversity.com.
Call us if you have any specific questions after checking out these web sites.
Love, Morty
Owen,
Being on the verge of suicide at 22(1977) and losing my three year old daughter are also two experiences I wouldn’t want anyone to go through either. Saying that, it put me on the path to finding out why I felt bad so much of the time and feeling as if my interests didn’t count for anything. Like Morty says, we have the tendency to to act compulsively when we operate from survival strategies(limiting beliefs) instead of joy and genuine interest. What separates those who use the upheavals to improve their lives and those who use it for an excuse to stay in a rut? That’s what intrigues me…
I suspect from my experience and the comments here that it often takes a major upheaval in our lives to get us to really look at ourselves and work toward changes. Until something happens to us to force self-examination, we just keep on keeping on.
I’ve gone through at least two of what I would consider upheavals in my life and come out the other side much stronger and better adjusted to reality. AND having a better understanding of who and what I am and want to be. I don’t recommend having a near death experience to force you to bring about changes but I’ll tell you, it works if you want it to. :-)
Owen
I can go strong then fall into an anxiety state of feeling I am not getting anywhere. I am trying to get out of a bad marriage of 30 years and need to understand what causes me to hit a wall. False beliefs I know I had pulled myself out of and need to see what brings me down that road again. I know I will find my solution life is improving for me,just slow going and frustrating at times. Good article,will read this again and other articles mentioned.
Morty,
Insighful as usual. @John, the “this being better than that” has been a huge influence on my life. In mine it was, “Doing something physical is more important than doing something mental”. My father was an intelligent man whom I still admire for his incisive commentary on world events. He also believed that he was only important for what he could get up and do physically. This schism between physical and mental activities caused him frustration both with his own life as well as in raising his family. I absorbed this belief and though I’ve eliminated the beliefs and conditionings on the DVD and participated in the Occurring Course, it has continued to plague me. I used the LOP instantly to dissolve it; and today my own frustration has decreased. Of course, I would like to eliminate the belief…naming it helps me tremendously.
Hi Lauren,
Call me so we can discuss this.
Love,Morty
I have lived this! – Of course, I suspect we all do.
My survival tactic, though I had never thought of it in those terms until today, was to be smarter than anyone else. I was the “nerd” in school. I never fit in anywhere in the social or athletic tree at the time, so I decided to prove my self worth to myself by studying hard. Plus, I just enjoyed learning how the world and things in it works anyway and still do.
As the years past, I got a reputation for being a “genius” at all sorts of technical work and was paid well for it in various jobs. As time passed, the advance of technology out ran my ability to keep up with it. I was faced with the reality it was impossible for me to continue to “know it all” and hold my place among those that were miles down the road in various technical specialties and disciplines. I realized I was becoming a relic in my field. I was loosing my identity.
Actually, that was not true, it was simply my perspective at the time. I realized years later, that I have specialized knowledge that still has market value and I still get paid very well for it. My mistake was assuming I had to keep up with everyone else on the planet and stay ahead of the pack with a broad knowledge of everything technical. That of course, is impossible. The more I thought about how “far behind I was”, the worse my struggle of “who am I?” became. I felt my life had very little value because I was basing my self worth on my technical abilities that were rapidly dwindling within the broader market scope. My big mistake was assuming what I did for a living is who I am. I am not “my job” or my talents. I’m more than that.
There were other challenging things going on in my life at the same time I could write a book about, but all of this combined caused my world to come crashing down. I spent three days in bed depressed, financially and spiritually broken. Again, parts I am leaving out to keep this short. I was completely lost. I had no clue who I was, what I was about, what life was all about – what the point of life is.
As I had been studying success, prosperity, etc for many years, somehow I began to realize just how serious the importance of beliefs is. It dawned on me my situation was nothing more than my beliefs not matching reality. It was a very painful reality check.
What I believed “should be” is not what I am experiencing in the real world. It occurred to me, I am living in a world of “is” , not a world of “should be”. I had to change my thinking if I wanted to experience a different world.
What I wondered was, is how I came to think the way I do? Where did I get my beliefs from in the first place? That’s were I started to completely rebuild my life. I tore down every belief I could think of to see if I could find out where it came from, especially religious beliefs. Did you know all of those beliefs came from everyone else?! I had been told what to think! I now think for myself. I’ll decide if that “belief” is true or not and if its useful to me. Someone said “Its not what we don’t know, it’s what we know that aint so, that’s the problem”.
Another epiphany along the way was if I relied upon anything outside of myself for my self worth, I will never be secure within my “self”. If I “need” the perfect wife / girl friend, the expensive house/car, the approval of others, etc., when that stimulus goes away or I get bored with it, so does my self worth. That’s crazy. I had to learn to love and accept myself. I had to become whole first. I cannot give away what I don’t have. If I “need” love, how can I possibly give it?
I don’t know how many of you have noticed or not, but what you “need” you can never seem to get. Its only when you don’t need it, that it chases you down and knocks you over.
I intend to become wealthy. Theres nothing wrong with having nice things, but “needing” those things, acceptance of others, the trophy wife, to make me feel important, better than someone else, to make me “whole”, is where the trap is.
I think the economic depression was caused by the masses not being able to love themselves and medicate that by buying houses, cars, and other do dads they cant afford to make themselves feel better – to give them a feeling of self worth. People blame the bankers, Wall St., but they are simply businessmen recognizing a market. No one forced those people to buy those things. The house of cards was built around self worth issues.
I came into this world dead perfect as all babies do. It was the “big people” that screwed it up by filling me with beliefs that would wreck havoc on my life until I woke up and took responsibility for thinking for myself. I misinterpreted things I saw in life too. But now, life is good and getting better every day.
The post today is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I’ve ever read. I never thought of creating a survival tactic as a child that would carry into the rest of my life. It really struck me when I saw it in the context of gangs. Makes perfect sense.
Thanks again Morty for an outstanding insight. If folks could really “get it”, it is life changing.
Ellis,
What a powerful testimony to the effect survival beliefs can have on one’s life! Wouldn’t it be great if people became aware of this as you have, challenging the beliefs that have driven them unawares? Thanks for sharing your own journey into consciousness!
Love and Light,
Lauren
Morty this was a really great blogpost. To me one thing that seems important is to be a member of an elite. Being in the Army is better than being a civilian. Being a officer is more esteemed than being a private. Being a Green Beret is better than regular Army. You went to Cal State Fullerton? I went to Yale! I am Chinese we are better than the Thais. It seems important, people are willing to kill each over stuff like this or at least feel miserable that they don’t belong. For my dad being the member of an exclusive golf club was like heaven to him but I can’t say that I could be happy not being a member of an esteemed group.
The story about Miriam warmed my heart – it is a great pleasure to know that all those beautiful women that had the power when they were younger to pick and choose and destroy men’s love for them end up totally depressed and ugly – God is a man after all! Hip-hip, hooray!
Really?
Because Miriam didn’t do anything– not in the story, anyhow– to deserve your ire. It’s an occurring, man. Eliminate the belief and you won’t need revenge on these phantoms.
“Revenge on these phatoms” – nice way of putting it… Indeed, they are phantoms…
For me, they are so deeply ingrained and I am so far down the line that I honestly don’t believe the beliefs could be eliminated! I want them to be of course on one hand but on the other, I hold onto them dearly…
Dis is an eye opening for me personally.I thought that I am this high self esteemed lady,but this shows that I stil have a lot of work to do.I really want to feel gud abt myself no matter wat any body says or does to me.thanks morty, u r doing a gud job.welldone
Growing up there was no sense of safety or love at all. Mom’s parenting skills sucked, I was either being yelled at or beat with a belt which left me feeling very fearful and confused about life itself. Dad left before I could even remember, who would blame him and yet I always wanted him to rescue me from mom’s insanity.
That grew into a resentment towards authority figures. So its as if I’ve been on this endless loop of self help and now I just don’t seem to care anymore. We moved around so much I grew to hate one aspect of it, the losses involved with moving. Mom remarried 3 more times, and none of those relationships worked. Its as if she somehow blamed me for her ability to keep a man.
I’m guessing that my survival strategy is life is painful and hard.
Hi Thomas,
Life is painful and hard is the basic belief. How did you survive given that belief?
Love, Morty
Dear Thomas, no child should have to grow up the way you describe and my heart hurts for you. I feel humbled; Knowing how many of us become insecure over tiny, insignificant things we experience, I have respect for the fact that you have managed to survive at all, and it is understandable if you should have stumbled along the way. I hope that Morty’s work will help you to get rid of your belief that life is hard. It is as it is, sometimes hard, sometimes sweet, but you have just been given a very raw deal at many times. These events are horrible, but do not mean anything, like that you deserve them, or that it was somehow your fault, or that you are no good, or will always be unlucky or no one in the world can be trusted. They just happened, for reasons way out of your control and knowledge. I pray that you will find the strength to love yourself and others unconditionally. Don’t give up. Love and blessings.
haha, so recognizable the story about always having been kinda pretty and now approaching fifty and starting to wrinkle in lots of unexpected places. :) it is not such a big deal to me, but I do notice myself trying to compensate, trying to find other ways of “acquiring worth”, like becoming a wise old woman and doing good works. At least it is positive, but at the same time it may be just another one of your survival strategies, don’t you think?
Bianca,
It’s unfortunate, the burden ages-old instincts place on women to be attractive to men. Even after raising a family. And then cultural things have put an impossible standard on it, starting with Barbi dolls. I believe that burden is increased by all the marketing of cosmetic products claiming to keep women younger looking. Last I heard, cosmetics was one of the top two industries in the US moneywise. If I remember right, it beat out cars!
Another thing that raised – and played on – the fear of not being good enough for women was the laundry detergent commercials. When I was a kid, there were the ads about “wring around the collar” if you remember those. Utter fear in the eyes of the woman who saw it on her husband’s shirt.
Owen
Hi Bianca,
Yes, that would just be another survival strategy. The point is to eliminate the negative self-esteem beliefs so you don’t need survival strategies.
Love,Morty
Ok ,I agree with you, this can be truth, but how do this how can I be from my “survival strategies??
I love your post. What would be your understanding of sociopathic behavior and the role it would play if this was your family support team growing up?
Hi LJ,
All of our beliefs are formed by giving meaning to events throughout our lives.
If confronted by sociopathic behavior, we would give it a meaning depending on our age at the time. If we were children, we probably would blame ourselves for much of what happens.
Love,Morty
Morty,
Another great and though-provoking post. I think my self-esteem is okay and I don’t need special survival strategies, but now you’ve got me examining myself. Do I use any of the strategies you mentioned? It’s likely to take me a day or two to figure it out but I’ll reflect on that. On a conscious level I’ve always felt good enough for others, as long as I feel good enough for me. But who knows?
Owen
I have a belief that having a husband in life is mandatory for my self -esteem. How can this be resolved?
Hi Poonam,
You can use the Lefkoe Belief Process to eliminate any belief.
Either call us ((415) 506-4472) and one of our Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitators can help you identify and eliminate any beliefs, or you can learn how to eliminate beliefs yourself, http://lefkoeuniversity.com
Love,Morty
So negative self esteem beliefs are formed in the first 5 to 6 years of age. Is this the same for survival strategy beliefs. Or can they be formed at any age. I would like to start working on eliminating them on my own and need to know where I might find the earliest sources. And is there a list of common survival strategy belief?s?
HiJen,
We have a course where we teach people how to use the Lefkoe Belief Process to eliminate beliefs and how to find the source. I’m sorry but I can’t answer those questions in a short email. http://lefkoeuniversity.com
Also, you don’t merely want to eliminate miscellaneous beliefs; you want to eliminate the specific beleifs that cause specific problems.
Survival strategy beliefs can be formed at any age and are usually formed later than self-esteem beliefs.
Love,Morty
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