I’ve been working with a life coach for many years now, and one of the most impactful things I have learned in my coaching journey is something called the “thought model”. This is a series of events, and the order by which we process them. In studying our thought patterns, we can find small tweaks that lead to massive breakthroughs. There is an acronym for the pattern, which makes it easy to understand and act upon. C-T-F-A-R – these stand for Circumstances > Thoughts > Feelings > Actions > Results. Things always progress in that order, from left to right.

Circumstances - are a “truth”. They are an actual event or situation of which we have NO control over. Kind of an “it is what it is”, if you will. If its 10 degrees outside, that is a Circumstance. Mortgage rates are a Circumstance. Housing prices are a Circumstance. We must accept Circumstances for what they are – FACTS - but we also must understand that all Circumstances are NEUTRAL in nature – that is, until we have a thought about it.

Thoughts – we have THOUSANDS of these every day. You have conscious thoughts, sub-conscious thoughts, and un-conscious thoughts. Believe it or not, you DO get to choose the thoughts you have. Its not easy, and you may disagree – but the reality is most of the thoughts we have are rooted in previous “programming” from experiences earlier in our lives, and those thoughts tend to stick with us and become our own reality. Things like negative self-talk, your inner monologue, and fear are all programmed into us. The human brain is not pre-wired for happiness – it is pre wired for safety and risk avoidance to preserve our lives. This has evolved over thousands of years, as a response (think Fight or Flight) to perceived danger. Thankfully, we no longer have any saber-toothed tigers hunting us as food. We still have to deal with our minds trying to “protect” us, even though the opposite is often the result.

Feelings – these are 100% of the time your body & mind’s reaction to a thought. Ill agree that its very difficult to control our feelings, because they bubble up from the subconscious and unconscious mind. What we CAN control is out thoughts, and that’s the “seed” where feelings come from.

Actions – in most cases – we take action (or don’t take action) based on how we feel. Don’t feel like going to the gym? You probably wont then. Don’t feel like making another call? You probably won’t then. Do you feel like getting an $8 coffee from Starbucks? You probably will. Do you feel like staying in bed another 10 minutes? You probably will then.

Results – simply put, these come from our actions (or inaction).

A manager or business owner may not be happy with the results, so they blame the Circumstances. Of maybe they point to the (lack of) actions and encourage (or demand) more actions. The truth is, since we only take action based on how we feel, and we have feelings based on how we think, I can only deduce that if you don’t like your results – you first need to change your thoughts. We can’t change circumstances (those are FACTS) – but we CAN change how we think about them. This is easier said than done – but it starts with simply recognizing the thoughts you are having. Many of them sneak up from deep inside and are easy to miss, or to just take as “normal”. The truth is you can have a thought – pause to consider it, and ask yourself these 3 questions:

Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it helpful?

If your thought cannot pass these 3 questions with a yes, I challenge you to reconsider your thought, and choose a different thought to have about the circumstance, whatever it may be.

Changing our thoughts changes how we feel, which changes the actions we are willing to take, which changes the results we get. It’s really that simple.