Today we are going to be talking about The Model.
Last week, I started the first episode of a three part series all about thought work and money. I am a life coach and I work with women on how to create the extraordinary lives they want on purpose and the tools we use to create that are thought work tools.
As a coach, I work with my clients and help them see their mind, see what they are creating in their life and then assist them to deliberately create what they actually want instead of just creating stuff unintentionally on default.
This three part series is about introducing to you some concepts and tools that I use when I'm coaching my clients and they are tools that you can use as well if you practice them.
The Model is the main tool that I use in coaching and it was developed by Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School, which is the school that I am trained through.
Last week, I talked to you about thought downloads what a thought download is and how to do that.
I really hope that you had a chance to give that a go over the past week, because that will really help you with what I'm talking about today. If you haven't had a chance to listen/read last week's episode/post, I highly encourage you to pause here and go and listen to that one first and then pick up again here.
There are five factors that influence how we experience our life, and they're all put together in a tool called The Model and I want to explain what those five things are.
Circumstances
Thoughts
Feelings
Actions
Results
Circumstances
Circumstances are things that happen in life. Events that we have no control over.
For example, a circumstance might be that it's raining outside. That's very factual. everybody would agree on that. And that is something that we could prove in a court of law. It's indisputable.
However, if I said, 'the weather is terrible today.' That is not a circumstance that is not a fact. That is just a thought that I'm having in my head. Because somebody else might have a completely different thought about that same circumstance. My neighbour might be thinking ‘what an incredible day it is today’. ‘I love it when it rains’, or ‘this is so fantastic’. ‘My garden is getting a water today’, all of these sentences are just thoughts in our brain.
They're not the facts of life. Circumstances are the facts of life.
You might have a circumstance that you have X amount of dollars in the bank, whatever that amount is, that is a circumstance in the sense that we can prove it. You can print out your bank statement. Everyone would agree; you definitely have that amount of money in your bank account. That circumstance is completely neutral. It's not good. It's not bad. It just is. It's just a fact of life.
It doesn't become good or bad until we have a thought about it.
And here's why. You might have $10,000 in your bank and be absolutely stoked about it. You might have thoughts like, ‘wow, I'm so secure.’ ‘I know exactly what I'm doing with my money.’ ‘I'm so good with money.’ ‘I have all the money I need.’ And you might feel really fantastic about that.
On the other hand, same circumstance, $10,000 in the bank, somebody else might have thoughts like,
‘I just never have enough money.’ ‘I need to save more.’ ‘I feel so stressed that I've only got $10,000 in my bank’.
You can choose to think about the same circumstance in completely different ways. This is a funny thing to get your head around at first. For example, somebody dying. I know this is a bit gruesome. That is just a circumstance. It's totally neutral. It's not until you have a thought about it, that makes it a good thing or a bad thing or something that triggers you to feel pain. It is because of your thoughts about it; because people die all the time.
I don't know why I went straight to this topic, but these things just popped into my head. Sorry, but bear with me. People are dying all the time. I don't know the exact statistic but people are literally dying all the time. Now, that doesn't affect you until you have a thought about it. It's just a neutral circumstance. It's not good. It's not bad. It's only how you choose to think about it.
Now, I'm not suggesting that if somebody in your family died, that you're not going to have thoughts about it, like 'this is terrible.’ ‘I'm so upset.’ ‘I really loved that person.’ Of course, and you can choose to think those thoughts. But at the same time, you have a choice in the way that you think about circumstances in your life.
Thoughts
The next point in The Model is thoughts. I covered this a lot last week. So, a circumstance is neutral. It's something that happens in life that we can prove in a court of law, it's facts, it's a neutral thing. These circumstances can trigger us to have thoughts. We have thoughts about the circumstances in our life. For example, let’s return to the money in the bank example. $10,000 in the bank is a totally neutral circumstance, you can choose how you want to think about that. But for most of us, what we do is, because this is how our brain works, we just think on default. We think thoughts that we've been thinking for a long time in our life, our brain rehashes thoughts that have well-worn pathways in our brain.
If you've always thought that you're bad with money, you might have $10,000 in the bank, you might have $50,000 in the bank, you're still going to think that you are bad with money. It's not the amount of money that you have. It's the thought about it.
It's the same with debt, you might be $10,000 in debt and not be worried about that at all, or not have any negative thoughts about it. But at the same time, you might be $10,000 in debt and be thinking, ‘oh, my gosh, this is terrible.’ ‘I'm gonna die.’ ‘This is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to me.’ ‘I don't have enough money.’ ‘This is really serious.’ You could have all these thoughts about it.
Or you might have thoughts like, ‘I guess I better put some money aside, the next few pays to pay that debt down’ or you might not have any thoughts about it. It might not worry you at all.
Thoughts are sentences that we have in our brain.
We think a lot of thoughts unintentionally all the time. But we can also think thoughts on purpose.
Basically, circumstances are neutral, and then circumstances can trigger thoughts that we have. Those thoughts can be unintentional thoughts, or intentional thoughts that we choose to think on purpose.
Feelings
The next point is thoughts cause our feelings. Now, most of us think that our circumstances cause our feelings. Going back to the example of a loved one dying, we think we feel pain and sad because of the death. It's not actually that the person has died. It's your thoughts about it. And of course you would have thoughts that would cause you pain if somebody died. That's totally natural, right? However, it is also possible that somebody dies in your life and you don't feel pain. It's all about how you think about it.
So, getting back to our $10,000, I'm going to talk to you about some thoughts that I've had in the past.
When I thought about my bank account, the amount of money in my bank account, I used to have a thought ‘I don't have enough.’ I always had that thought. When I thought ‘I don't have enough money’ I felt insecure.
The missing piece for me was, I thought that I felt insecure because of the amount of money in the bank. But it wasn't the amount of money in the bank that caused me to feel insecure. It was my thoughts about the money that caused me to feel insecure.
Our feelings are so so powerful because we are totally motivated by our feelings, we will do things or not do things completely dependent on how we think we're going to feel. Now this might be something that you do, unconsciously, or unintentionally, but it's something that you can also do intentionally and we often don't realise what we're doing until we take the time to really examine our thoughts and what they are causing in our life. Depending on how we feel, this will influence what action we take. What we do.
Actions
This is the fourth point. When I felt insecure because of my thought that I didn’t have enough money, what I would do was (the action I took) I would spin about it in my head, I would think about it all the time, I would worry. I would completely block myself from any other opportunities because I was so focussed on the thought that I didn't have enough. I was completely consumed with that idea that I didn't have enough so all my attention and energy was going into seeing all the evidence in my life where I didn't have enough money. And the result of those actions, which is the fifth point.
Results
The result for that was I just created more insecurity for myself. And I completely shut the door on being able to feel secure or create security for myself. I believed that thought, ‘I don't have enough.’ And when I thought ‘I don't have enough’, I felt insecure. And when I felt insecure, I spent a lot of time worrying and focussed on all the things that I didn't have.
The result was that I still didn't have enough.
This is how thought work effects your ability to have money. Because if you have lots of thoughts about money, that are thoughts like ‘I don't have enough’ ‘I don't understand money’ or ‘money scares me.’ That is what you create.
For example, let's say you have a thought that money scares you. When you think about money and you think ‘money scares me’, you're probably going to feel scared or fearful. And when you feel scared about money, the actions that you're going to take, are probably things like, ignoring money, pushing money aside, because what do we normally do when we're scared of things? We hide from it, don't we?
We hide from it and then and the result of that would probably be that you don't have a lot of money.
If you have a thought that ‘money scares you’, I would suggest that you are probably rejecting money in your life because in most cases, we move away from things that we're scared by. Right? That's human nature. That's the way that our brain works.
Basically, everything that happens in our life we can put into The Model:
Circumstances
Thoughts
Feelings
Actions
Results
Let’s do an example:
Circumstance: X amount of money in the bank
Thought: I don’t have enough
Feeling: insecure
Action: think about it over and over. Focus and look for evidence of not having enough.
Result: Don’t have enough
The circumstance was money. And the thought I had about it was 'I don't have enough'. And then when I thought that thought ‘I don't have enough’ about money, I felt insecure. When I felt insecure, I spun in my head and I got really worried I operated from a very small space, right? Because I was feeling insecure. I shut down opportunities that might have come my way because I wasn’t looking for them. I was completely blocked from it. The result was that I amplified not having enough and I just keep creating that result for myself of not having enough money.
Now, here's the really interesting thing. As time passed, I did make more money. I had more money, had more investments. And you know what? I still felt insecure.
I thought it was the money that was causing me to feel insecure, but it's not the money. It was my thoughts about the money that caused me to feel that way. This was highlighted for me because I realised it didn't matter how much money I had, how many investment properties I had, how many investments I had. If I kept thinking that thought, ‘I don't have enough’. I would keep feeling insecure. It’s really mind blowing.
This is the kind of work that will change your life and this is why I'm sharing this with you because I don't walk around with that thought anymore. I don’t have that result in my life anymore.
When you become aware of what you are thinking, you have the ability to change. Next week I will share with you how you can change your beliefs and start thinking new thoughts that you actually believe.
If you would like to explore your thoughts and get more help with this, you can schedule a consultation with me. I work with you for 45 minutes to an hour. It’s your chance to go over with me everything that you want to work on, talk to me about what you want to change. I give you the opportunity to experience a little bit of coaching, and then I let you know if we're a good fit.
I would love to see you creating what you want in your life. I have been doing this work for a few years now and I have completely changed my life.
I feel like I'm living in a place of intentional abundance, creating what I really want. And I would love to work with you to be able to help you do the same.