Thinking about my thoughts

Everything comes down to your thoughts. The good news is that you can think whatever you want. So the the ability to change anything or get control of anything rests on you. Its a lot of power that people give up and I'm just starting now to take some of that power back. I have mentioned modeling before but I thought it would be good to break it down so anyone reading this who is not familiar with life coaching and thought work can become familiar.

The model

Everything starts with a circumstance. Circumstances are boring, they are neither good or bad. They are neutral and they can be proven. For Example a circumstance for me is: I am sitting at a computer typing a blog post. That is neutral, there is nothing good or bad about that, its pretty boring. But the important part is that I could prove it to another person.

Next comes thoughts, a thought comes from a circumstance and it is here that lies all the power. If my circumstance is that I am writing a blog post a thought that comes it mind is: Hey this is cool, look at me doing stuff. Or another thought could be: Does anyone care or will anyone actually read this? Those are two different paths I choose to go down. Which will it be? That's my choice.
Thoughts are important because they create feelings. Also being able to tell the difference between a circumstance and a thought is usually half the battle. That's one reason why its good to have a life coach to talk too and look into what is really causing that thought and feeling.

Feelings are next. Life is not all sunshine and rainbows and here is a fact about life: Half of the time everything is going to be feeling negative feelings. And that's OK! Its OK to be scared when you hear a car horn while you are crossing the street because that fear causes your body to react and look the direction of the on coming car. You the act and move out of the way. Feelings are not always that useful. One example would be: worrying I'm not being a good enough mother. That seems like it could be useful because it should make me try harder. But the action based on that feeling is not something I want. I either try too hard and stress everyone out or I don't try at all and I sink into self loathing. Its important not to judge feelings because then you are just adding on shame and guilt. But rather just ask yourself, is the feeling serving me? Is it creating an action and result I want? If not, then I can change that thought. I can't change my feeling without first changing my thought. That's why everything comes back to our thoughts.

Next Up is Action: Action is usually the least important part of the model. Which sounds strange but honestly if you can differentiate between what is a circumstance and a thought. If you can choose a thought that will bring you the feeling you want then the action just slides into place nice and easy. If I decide to think that my blog posting is good for me and I am awesome for doing it then I feel confident and that confidence leads me the action of blogging more. I have that desire already from my thought so my action just slides into place like a puzzle piece.

The last part of the model is the result. A result always circles back to our thoughts. Its crazy but its true. If I think I can lose weight, and I am feeling confident, and I work to lose weight then my result is I lose weight. Its a nice little circle.

That is the model. Now the question is Why do a model? Inside this neat little model sits all the solutions to any problem. And you can play around in the model as much as you want. If I want to set a goal of losing weight. Then I start with the result I want, then I move to the feeling I want. Then I move to the thought I could have that would create that feeling. If I am having a hard time coming up with that thought I just go to the result and copy it in thought line. The action then slides into place  nice and easy. And I can fill out the circumstance based on everything else.

Sometimes I feel stressed and I don't know why. So I go to my model and I put stressed into my feelings line then I move onto my action line and then to my result line. Once I have a handle on the result I can see what my thought was. This all can be very hard to do. That's why I have an awesome life coach: Becky smith. And this is why I study all I can, because I know I can't always do it alone and I want to hopefully get to a place where I can help others and be a life coach as well.

Its also important to note. This modeling and thought work is a skill. I can't sit down at a piano for the first time and expect myself to play a symphony. I have to start with Mary had a little lamb. Its the same with thought work. I can't sit down and write out a model for a thought that was bugging me for years and expect everything to be resolved. I have to practice and practice and practice and you guessed it practice again. That's another reason to have a life coach. Its someone to be accountable too. Often times I feel myself sinking back into bad habits but then I get a message from Becky and I am jolted back into what is important. If I was doing this alone I would have given up by now. But I'm not, so I don't.

My next blog post will be about how to change a thought. I just don't want to give all my secrets away all at once. And I love cliffhangers!