Mind Your Models
Brooke Castillo created a self-coaching tool, called the Model. It’s been tested millions of times and never fails.
Five different components influence the way we experience the world. Below is a breakdown of each component.
Circumstances
These are facts. All opinions and emotions must be removed. They must be indisputable - capable of being proven in a court of law.
Examples:
Sally exited the room. (Not, she walked out in the middle of our conversation and slammed the door.)
John said “You look tired today.” (Not, he made a comment about how terrible I look.)
The temperature is 30° warmer than average today. (Not, the world is going to shit.)
Make sense? It’s easy to add our own flair to the happenings in the world, but that alone can unknowingly influence our day-to-day. So strip it down to the facts. This is a valuable skill to develop.
Thoughts
These are one-sentence statements of what’s going through your head. So in the Sally example above, your thought might be, “Sally is really mad.” Or it could be, “That was so disrespectful,” or even “I did not handle that well."
How we think about a circumstance will change everything. This is our interpretation of the world, our truth. If I walk outside and think, “It’s gorgeous here,” that does not mean it’s gorgeous here. That’s my interpretation and therefore my truth.
Writing our thoughts down is the number one most important habit a person can develop. When thoughts stay in our heads, they’re slippery and fuzzy, but also very influential. This is a dangerous combination. When we write our thoughts down, we can look them in the face. If what we see happens to be ugly or unhelpful, we can choose a different thought.
And don’t worry if you have some crazy thoughts. We all do.
Feelings
Feelings are the drivers. The engine and motivation behind everything we do. No exceptions. If we can get really good at feeling our feelings, sinking into the sensation of our emotions (energy in motion), we will reach a higher level of consciousness. We will become aware of our experience, rather than getting irritated and opening Instagram to zone out.
Why would we want to feel our feelings? They dictate our actions. In Elizabeth Gilbert’s words, “Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions,” which brings us to the next component, our actions...
Actions
Lead by our feelings, actions are how we physically show up. Whether we smile, run, build, lounge or jump. Elizabeth Gilbert’s above quote couldn’t be more accurate. If we’re feeling exhausted, we’ll stop. If we’re feeling motivated, we’ll move.
Results
Short and sweet, results are what we manifest in our world. Your health, your job, your home, your friends.
What does all of this mean?
Bottom line, if we can become aware of our thinking, we can change it. If we can change our thinking, we can change our life. This model is a step-by-step guide that feels so simple, it’s hard to believe it’s power. But Steve Jobs reminds us, “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Try using the model for 30 days, and watch your life change.
Tips:
We can enter the model at any point. If we’re feeling down, we start with the feeling, then fill in everything around it. What thoughts are making you feel down? What triggered these thoughts? How are we acting in response to feeling down, and what result is that getting us? If this model isn’t working for us, ask yourself, "Is there a different way to think about what happened?”
You must believe your thought. If you’re thinking “my boss is the worst,” you may not be able to hop straight to “I’m so lucky to have this boss.” You may want to work on an intermediate thought such as, “I know I can learn something from my boss.” So write down a few helpful thoughts and see which one feels most believable. If it’s holds more positive energy than your existing thoughts, you’ll make progress.
If you listen to Brooke’s podcast, she references the model in a linear way like you see below, rather than my “circular cycle” interpretation illustrated above. Brooke’s explanation of her model can be found HERE.
