It’s Like a Swiss Army Knife For Your Brain

The main tool that I use in my coaching practice is called the self coaching model.

For a functioning person, there is NO problem that it can not solve.

So, what is the model?

This framework helps organize any problem you may be having into one of five categories. But do not be fooled by its simplicity because it takes some genius to synthesize the complex into the straightforward.

• Circumstances are facts. Person, place, thing, quote, event, or basically anything that everyone in the world agrees upon.

• Thoughts are sentences in our minds. This is how we interpret the circumstance.

• Feelings are vibrations in our bodies. They are created by thoughts and determine the quality of our life.

• Actions are what we do as a result of how we are feeling. Actions, inactions or reactions.

• Results are created from the Actions.

I like real life examples, so let's use one to help illustrate the power of this work.

Sally's mother just died and she has taken over caring for her father. She is also going through a divorce and thinks that the rumor mill is impacting her sales deals at work. She is very discouraged because she feels like she can't catch a break and is getting hammered from every side. As a result, she is hesitant to make offers because she thinks that people are talking about her. She is thinking about it - A LOT. She complains that no one else helps out, wonders why this is happening to her, and is short with her kids and her peers at work. She is also drinking more than normal in order to deal with all of this chaos.

Let's get her some help.

First, take the facts of the situation and put them in the C line.

C: Sally's mother died and she is spending 2 hours per week caring for her father. She has filed for divorce. She works in sales.

Then pick one thought that she is having about these facts. There are four in here "the rumor mill is impacting her deals", "can't catch a break", "getting hammered from everyone", and "all of this chaos."

Sally thinks that these are facts, but we know that they aren’t because they are subjective and not everyone would agree.

It is important to choose only thought per model because different thoughts will generate different emotions.

T: I am getting hammered from every side

F: discouraged

What action is she taking, or not taking, from the feeling of discouraged? (Spoiler alert - most people do not take positive actions from discouraged.)

A: not making offers the way that she normally would, ruminating, complaining, feeling sorry for herself, being short tempered with her kids and peers, buffering with over drinking.

The result that Sally is creating is:

She is hammering herself and making the situation worse.

Sally thought that she was just stating the facts when she said that she was getting hammered from every side. She has plenty of evidence to support it, so it must be "true", but it is a thought. Differentiating between facts and thoughts is the most common obstacle when building models. If this happens to you as well, know that everyone does it, even master coaches!

Once she can see that "I am getting hammered from every side" is a thought, she has her power back. It is not just an intellectual exercise, but she can see specifically the results that this thought is creating in her life and can choose to think something else.

Try this for yourself. What happens to the rest of the model when you substitute "who better than me?" in the thought line? This creates a completely different result!

Learning how to manage your mind with your mind is a super power. It will change how quickly you get results because you have the awareness and tools to act with intention.

If you want to change the results in your life, I encourage you to integrate this into your life.

Try this and see for yourself. Take a problem that you are currently working on and put it into a model.

• Where are you stuck?

• Has someone hurt your feelings or treated you unjustly?

• What is not the way that it should be?

Can you see why you are getting the results that you are getting?

Email it to me and I will be happy to provide you with some pointers on it.

The awareness that you can create will be a gamechanger.

You are just one model away from achieving your goal.