The Thought Model

Welcome, fellow BadAss!

Want to learn how to manage your mind, instead of your mind managing you?

Back in the dark days, my mind was running the show. It was making questionable decisions about how to think about almost everything. The truly insidious part of my mind running the show is that I didn’t know my mind was running the show. I didn’t know there was any other way to be. Tricky, very tricky.

Then, a series of fortunate events happened that exposed me to what was going on and gave me some tools for loosening the grip of my out-of-control mind.

I read a book called Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson. Then I read a book called The Mind Made Prison by Mateo Tabatabai and then I read a book called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. Sure it was a lot of reading but I think the progression from one to the other in rapid succession helped to drive home the idea that I didn’t have to be a prisoner of my own mind. That, my friends, was a revolutionary thought for me.

I didn’t have to be a prisoner of my own mind!

I was on a roll because then I found a podcast by Brooke Castillo called The Life Coach School Podcast. Brooke created a Thought Model that made complete sense to me. With this model I had found the most effective tool, for me, for starting the process of managing the shit out of my mind. I love it so much I want everyone to know about it!

It is elegant in it’s simplicity. 
It is beautiful in it’s logic.


It looks like this:

And it goes like this:

Circumstances are the events that you experience everyday of your life.
Circumstances are ALWAYS neutral. ALWAYS. A circumstance is neutral, it is neither good nor bad until you have a THOUGHT about it.
That THOUGHT creates a FEELING in your body. (i.e. anger, sadness, hopefulness)
That FEELING creates an ACTION, you do something based on the feeling. (i.e. start a fight, cry, buy a lottery ticket.)
That ACTION creates a RESULT.

Here is where the beautiful logic comes in. Since circumstances are always neutral, neither good nor bad, until you have a thought about them it is your thought that creates the results you experience. The thought, not the circumstance, creates the result. Circumstances happen, you don’t have much choice in that but you do get to choose the thought you have about them. 

YOU GET TO CHOOSE YOUR THOUGHTS…ALWAYS AND FOREVER!

If you are like most of the rest of us you have forgotten this part. The part where you get to choose your thoughts. Your mind is in control and chooses them for you without your conscious awareness. Chances are the results aren’t great.

Let me give you an example:

Unmanaged Mind

CIRCUMSTANCE: You are walking down the street and you stub your toe on a piece of broken sidewalk. 
UNCONSCIOUS THOUGHT: “What idiot just leaves broken sidewalk lying around.”
FEELING: Anger
ACTION: You go home and start a fight with the first person who crosses your path.
RESULT: You have added unnecessary stress to your day.

In this example the thought was probably unconscious. It is a thought that lays the blame for what happened on some nameless person. The anger this unconscious thought causes has no target because you don’t know who you are mad at. Since you need to vent this anger you start a fight with the first person unlucky enough to cross your path. The result being you have stirred things up that didn’t need stirring.

Managed Mind

CIRCUMSTANCE: You are walking down the street and you stub your toe on a piece of broken sidewalk. 
THOUGHT: ”I should pay a little more attention to where I’m walking, that could have been bad.”
FEELING: Relief that your lapse in attention only led to a stubbed toe. 
ACTION: You pay more attention to where you’re walking.
RESULT: You get where you are going with no further incident or stress.

In this example you are aware that it is your own fault for tripping because you weren’t paying attention. This thought acknowledges this and you move on with your day more gracefully and without having started a fight with anyone. 
I try to use this model on a daily basis. Sometimes I fail completely and sometimes I manage my mind like a BadAss. There is a learning curve to this, the more I try the better I get.

Managing my mind has been the first step on the road to living a life of Radical Self-Responsibility. A life where I am the only one responsible for the way things go for me… good or bad. 

Are you ready to learn more about the Thought Model and how it applies to your life? Are you ready to break old patterns and cycles? Take a moment to take my quiz and see where you fit on the self-responsibility scale/download my free audio and worksheet that will walk you through ______ so you can start living your life with a managed mind. 
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