Everything begins with a thought.. Change your thought, change your result…

      Our Thoughts     
 

They say life happens to you when you are too busy planning. We come across many circumstances daily, which are not generally totally in our control. We may get a positive result and feel good about the circumstance or we may get a negative or no so good outcome and feel bad and low about them. However, it is important to know that we are day in and out, going through various sets of circumstances. Yes true, we are responsible for where we are, who we meet and how we behave at most times. But there are still many things which are beyond our immediate control and that also we would never be able to change it. 

Let me throw some examples here. A rushed morning, you get stuck in traffic, you have a meeting scheduled at work, you have no choice of changing your route, you are already late by a few minutes. Another example, you have always been a high performer at work and recently a new software was introduced to your team. Your colleagues get the hang of it quickly during the training, but you seem to struggle a bit. You then realise your colleagues are teasing you on not being able to grasp the new learning. Let’s take another example, you are a trainer and get a training ask from your business head. You approach the trainees and their managers to get people released for training, and you are told that you may have to take your training in bits and parts and the overall length would have to be reduced, as the business cannot release people for long. You take the training, but you are not having the effectiveness you would have got if you had done it your way. These and many such circumstances in our personal life too hit us hard every day. Especially when the circumstances are difficult and do not lead to positive outcomes, we feel and wish that we could take control. But in reality, are we able to control the scenarios which we saw above? The answer is mostly a ‘No’. We may be able to get up early the next day and take care of the traffic, we may probably go through another training and understand the software better and in the third situation, we may also negotiate our training with our trainees time to a certain extent. But, can we control or take a complete charge of any of this at that very moment? The answer again would be ‘No’. We cannot control what others do, feel, think, how they behave, what circumstances we fall into. Could we control how Covid 19 affected our lives? Oh yes, maybe to a certain extent. But job losses, economic downturn, pay cuts, mental insecurities, physical restrictions; could we control these? The answer is again a ‘No’.  

Now you may be wondering why have I penned down so many uncontrollable factors and what is my agenda. I have read, heard from many that you can change your life and the way you feel by the way you think. Your thoughts are so powerful that they can change the way the outcome is going to turn out to be for you. So I recently came across a model known as Thought Model and read quite a bit on its application to various aspects of our life. I felt that it can help many people if it is practised, hence this can be used as a tool.

How We Think Matters

Human mind triggers about 60,000to 80,000 thoughts in a day. (National Science Foundation, 2005) So we are flooded with them and we must choose which to focus on. But at so most times we focus on the negative thoughts. According to another study (Leahy, 2005, Study of Cornell University), scientist found that about 85% of what we worry about never happens. The worry is because of our unfounded pessimistic perception.

The thought model has 5 elements. They are Circumstances, Thoughts, Feelings, Actions, Results. These are interlinked. Now we already spoke about circumstances and how many aspects are out of our control. Circumstances are provable facts. They are things which are for real, which exists. They trigger our thoughts. We are conditioned to think that circumstances influence the way we think and feel. So first let’s look at ‘thought’. So if I am not able to deliver the training program as per the schedule I prepared and that leads to poor efficacy, I think that I am irritated at the situation, think they (the trainees) do not want to cooperate with me. This leads to a feeling, that could be frustration, anger or feeling depressed. We all, however, would not have the same feeling for the same circumstance. It depends on how we think. And we all think differently. Let’s take the example of morning traffic. ‘I am in traffic and getting late’ is a circumstance, I think that I will start the day on a bad note is my thought, and I feel nervous and anxious, that is my feeling because of my thought. On the other hand, the person in the car next to me, who is in the same circumstance (early morning traffic, late to work) may think ‘should I listen to some good music, it’s such lovely weather’ and may feel relaxed and take it easy. So thought is a sentence we make in the mind and that determines how we feel.

Quote Roosevelt

So choosing what thoughts we should pay our attention to is in our hands and that is under control. We can recognise what our mind is thinking. We can also consciously bring in useful thoughts and that can trigger positive feelings. And we could remove some unproductive thoughts consciously. So these thoughts are what lead us to feelings and not circumstances directly. ‘

Our feelings in turn drive how we act. Rarely we can mask our feelings. We usually land up actioning, behaving a particular way due to the way we feel. Like in the circumstance of traffic, if I am irritated I would roll my eyes, I would honk, I would panic and call people at the office. On the other hand, if I felt relaxed, I would sit back, listen to music and enjoy the weather. The actions would differ, but it would definitely depend on the feelings. This eventually leads to results. In this case, the results would be I get into an irritated mood and get into the office panicked or I reach office apologise for being late, focus on my work and have a great day ahead. So our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are our personal accountability.

Now when we get poor or negative results, they, in turn, become evidence for the original thought. We land up supporting our thought with the result we have obtained and validate it. ‘See, I knew it would happen’ is what we land up saying.

It’s not always easy for us to control our thoughts and get the desired results. In this case, what we could apply the though model backwards. Envision the result you want, what action will you need to take to get this result, what feeling you must have to take that action and what thought should trigger that feeling. This can be a plan you can consciously practise.

Choices Matter

The thought model I feel is just a way of putting things in a specific manner, it doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist, it always did. However, it didn’t exist in this way it is arranged now. This arrangement and the manner of applying this model will help you. A lot of people would feel that they already know this or can relate to it. That is because it is such a simplistic model which feels familiar. Following these steps repeatedly and consciously can bring mastery.

Remember, there is a difference between facts and stories, facts are circumstances, stories are the thoughts and feelings we attribute. These stories create the drama they do in our lives.