Logical Levels Can Save Your Life

Today, I want to talk to you about a model I use very often. It’s an incredibly interesting model for analyzing yourself, you might say. To get right to the heart of the matter: where exactly does your biggest challenge lie? Why do you get stuck in your relationship, your business, or your daily grind? Ready to dive in? Let’s go.

Watch the video:

The Pyramid of Change

There’s a model that has helped me tremendously and still helps me almost every day to get things straight. We’re talking about Gregory Bateson’s Logical Levels, later further developed by Robert Dilts.

If you watch the video, you’ll see them listed. Are you listening to the podcast or reading this as an article? No worries—I’ll list them for you from bottom to top:

1. Environment (Where are you, who are you with?)
2. Behavior (What do you actually do?)
3. Strategies & Skills (What can you do, and how do you go about it?)
4. Beliefs & Values (Why do you do it, and what do you believe?)
5. Identity (Who are you?)
6. Mission / Purpose (What inspires you? Who or what are you doing this for?)

The whole idea behind this model is simple yet ingenious: the higher the level you target, the more all those underlying levels automatically change as well.

Imagine you have an incredible mission. You’re doing things for something or someone that completely transcends your own little self. Once that mission is clear, you’ll suddenly start doing things in your behavior that you’d normally never in a million years do.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses Example

I always use my favorite example here: the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Imagine I’m a Jehovah’s Witness and I go door-to-door with my family on Sunday mornings for God. My mission is: I’m doing this for God because I want to save your soul. That goes beyond myself.

But imagine for a moment that I work for a construction company during the week. Would I then go door-to-door with my family on Sunday morning on behalf of that construction company to recruit a few extra customers? Well, no. Absolutely not! I’m not going to let myself get yelled at on my day off for a construction company.

Why don’t I exhibit that behavior there? Because that mission doesn’t transcend my identity . I’m just an employee there. I think it’s a completely crazy idea to go door-to-door for a boss. But for God? Hey, sure! It makes sense! Suddenly, all that extreme behavior makes perfect sense.

Take a look at someone like Elon Musk—whatever else you may think of him. That man has a mission. He wants to go to Mars. He wants planetary dominance. He wants to save the planet by polluting other planets. That’s pretty much what it boils down to in the end.

But that man is an incredibly driven individual, because his mission transcends his own person.

If he didn’t have that grandiose mission, he’d probably be doing something else. He’s a smart guy—let’s be honest. But it’s precisely because of that mission that he’s done things that have even made him the first trillionaire.

Wow. This is an extreme example, but it shows how someone who is mission-driven flawlessly adapts everything else to that mission. This has also been proven among students[1].

Who are you when the camera is off?

Below the mission level lies identity. What exactly is that? Who are you, really?

When I’m standing here in front of the camera or speaking into a microphone, I’m the inspiration. At least, that’s what I hope 😉. In my mind, that’s who I am. But believe me: that’s definitely not how I sit at the dining table at home. I have four kids and I’m married. Can you picture me sitting there?

"Okay, guys, today we’re going to talk about the logical levels. I’ve set up a flip chart over by the green beans..."

No way. Those kids look at me and think: just act normal, eat your food, and keep your mouth shut. At that table, I’m not an “inspirer.” There, I’m a father, a partner, and a husband. I play a completely different role there. My role as a trainer rarely comes into play at home.

People sometimes think I’m always like I am in my videos. Well, I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m never really like that. Only now. In front of the camera, in front of a group, or when I run into you at one of our NLP courses. That’s when I’m in my role as a trainer, my role as a coach, my role as an inspirer. But at home, I’m hardly ever like that.

Your role depends on the context[2].

You probably experience this too. When you’re visiting your in-laws, don’t you act differently than when you’re chilling on the couch in your sweatpants, watching TV with a bag of chips on your lap? Of course! You’re still the same person, but you’re showing a different side of yourself. A different role. That’s identity. Identity isn’t that easy to pin down, because you’re all those roles combined.

The belief that saved my relationship

Here’s the fascinating part: as soon as you choose an identity, certain beliefs, skills, and behaviors come with it. In my role as an inspirer and coach, I’m convinced of this: I want this to be good, I think it’s important to share this, and I want you to truly benefit from it. I’ve picked up the skills needed for this, such as presenting on camera without feeling any anxiety.

But what if you have a belief that’s getting in the way in a completely different area? I used to have one. And looking back, it was actually pretty funny, but at the time, it was incredibly annoying.

I used to believe: you don’t take your work home with you.

Sounds really healthy, right? Well, not exactly. Because what happened? Everything I learned at work—all the skills for coaching, guiding, listening, inspiring, and understanding people—I left behind at the office. So I definitely didn’t bring those skills home with me.

The result? At home, I was actually pretty blunt… well, let’s just be honest: I wasn’t very pleasant to be around at home. Meanwhile, the people at my job thought I was really fun, inspiring, and empathetic!

At one point, I thought: Wait a minute. Why can’t I just take those skills home with me? It makes much more sense to do it the other way around! I started getting incredibly annoyed with myself. You start beating yourself up in your head, which of course makes absolutely no sense. But I hated it.

And suddenly, that deeply buried belief popped up: “Yes, but Edwin, you don’t take your work home with you.” That voice came straight from my childhood, from my mother, who used to say that to my father. In their situation, that was fine at the time, but I had unconsciously programmed it into my own “software” as an absolute truth.

I set out to dismantle that belief. I changed it to: My skills are useful everywhere. And boom! All of a sudden, all those skills flowed into my roles as a father and partner as well.

And I’ll be completely honest with you: that saved my relationship.

Because, let’s face it, what woman wants to live with some half-baked workaholic, insensitive guy who’s completely out of touch with his emotions? Well, there are plenty of them out there, but if you can do better, it’s a real shame. That was exactly what was so frustrating: I could do it, I was just doing it in the wrong place.

The Incredible Manager (Who Crashed at Home)

The question I want to ask you today is: what skills do you have in one area that you could actually put to great use in another?

I once had a client in my practice, a top executive. This man managed dozens of people at work—with ease. Everyone was in his wake; the structure was clear; he was calm and composed.

But at home? At home, he had two children, and it was one big, uncontrollable mess. At home, he couldn’t manage them at all.

So he had rock-solid skills in his role as a manager, but as soon as he walked through the door at home, his confidence would plummet. I simply showed him this model and said, “Hey, why don’t you use the skills you use at work at home?”

All of a sudden, a light went on in his eyes. He didn’t even have a limiting belief like I did. He simply had never thought about using those skills at home.

He started practicing and applying it. Boom. Got it right the first time. Why? Because he already knew how! He didn’t need to take a new course; he’d had those skills down pat for years. It was just that his home environment immediately triggered his “powerless father identity” instead of his “competent leader identity.”

Become the director of your own life

The power of your environment should not be underestimated. An environment immediately triggers automatic associations and patterns in your subconscious. Believe me, when I step over the threshold at my mother’s house, patterns from my childhood are immediately triggered in me. For a moment, I’m that little boy from back then again.

But it is precisely this awareness that gives you the power to choose. The moment you walk into a room, you can consciously think: Wait a minute, I can also be the source of inspiration here. Or the calm leader. I am now consciously choosing that role.

Take a moment this week to reflect on this for yourself:

• What kind of environment am I in?
• What kind of behavior do I exhibit there?
• Who am I there (what role do I take on)?
• But is that actually useful?

Is the answer yes? Then don’t change a thing—just keep going. Is the answer no? Then ask yourself: In what other situations do I actually exhibit good behavior? Where am I truly the person I want to be? And how can I apply those skills to the situation where I’m currently stuck?

That insight alone will flip a switch in your brain. You’ll realize: “Oh wow, I can actually do this already.” Of course, you’ll need to practice a bit at first. Your subconscious, automatic programming just kicks in quickly. But as soon as you become aware of it, you have a choice.

Hypnosis for the Right Role

Is this easier said than done? Then hypnotherapy can also help you apply these skills in other contexts.

Because this model revolves around unconscious, automatic programs, this is exactly where hypnosis serves as the ultimate shortcut. Those automatic patterns and limiting beliefs (“don’t bring your work home with you”) are deeply ingrained in your subconscious.

With hypnosis, you temporarily sideline the critical, analytical mind, giving you direct access to the source code of your behavior. At that deep level, you can literally “crash” a limiting script and copy the skills of your “successful role” (such as the empathetic coach or the decisive manager) and apply them to a different context (such as your home life).

Instead of having to fight the automatic triggers in your environment through sheer willpower, you reprogram your neurological associations. As a result, switching between roles or drawing on your best skills is no longer an exhausting daily struggle, but an effortless, unconscious automatic response.

Would you like to know how you can help people with this? Come join the free masterclass on hypnosis.

Or check out our calendar for our training courses and events.

Do you have a question about our training program? Schedule a one-on-one consultation here.

Sources: