Learning The Model: An Insanely Powerful Tool For Shifting Our Stories (And Our Parenting!)

Now that you’re an expert on story (make sure you catch up here) and you’ve practiced story-shifting a few times (learn how here), I’m going to share an even more powerful way to shift our stories… it’s called The Model. 

The Model was developed by Brooke Castillo at The Life Coach School (where I was certified), but the background and theory have been around for ages. The very general gist of it is we all Think, Feel, Do and in that order. The stories we tell ourselves and the way we think create our feelings or emotions. How we feel then fuels how we show up and affects what we do. The Model helps us more clearly see this process playing out in our lives. 

Here is The Model: 

C- Circumstance 

T- Thought 

F- Feeling 

A-Action 

R- Result 

 Let’s go through each of these a bit more throughly:

C- Circumstance. The facts of a situation or experience or what everyone would agree is true. Ie. "Its 12 degrees outside" vs. “it’s cold outside”. 

We often think that our thoughts are very true. We might have the thought  “I’m a bad mom” and consider it just as true as the thought “The grass is green" or "The sky is blue.” But did you notice the difference there? 

The way I consider circumstances is by imagining a video camera following me around all day, what would it capture? What it captures are the circumstances. 

T- Thoughts. This one is easy. Thoughts are words in our mind. Literally just words strung together to create sentences. 

When I think of thoughts, I think of them as my story. What story am I telling myself here? What did I think of that “circumstance” when my child threw a ball at my face, dropped spaghetti all over the floor or ran into their room yelling and slamming the door? Those thoughts are your stories. 

We all have stories about pretty much every circumstance/fact in our life. But we may not be aware of what those thoughts are. The Model can help us gain more awareness around what thoughts we are actually thinking and how they are creating the various stories we are telling ourselves. 

F- Feeling. An emotion or vibration in our body. Our thoughts create our feelings. Each thought it going to create a vibration in our body— the feeling. 

A-Actions. Our feelings fuel our actions. We always feel a certain way first, before we do or don’t do anything in life. When I am filling out a model, I ask myself: What am I doing because of that feeling? What did I do right after I felt that? What did I not do, that I normally would have done? Those actions and inactions will show us how our thoughts or story are affecting us. 

R- Result. Our actions in life create our results. I think of this as, “How am I showing up right now, when I am thinking this thought?” What result are you creating from that thought? This is the gold mine. Once we can get clear on our results, we can see how our story really is the root cause of everything we do in life… and then we can decide to change it, or not. 

So often we get stuck wishing we could change our circumstances or we only focus on getting different results, not understanding how our thoughts and feelings, those emotion-filled stories we created are affecting everything!

Changing our story isn’t as easy as it sounds, but it all starts with becoming aware. The Model is key to becoming more aware. 

To get a better idea of how this all works, watch me using the model here (add link), and notice how I incorporated these helpful beginner tips:

-       Make sure that what you put in the “C” line is as factual as possible.

-        Only put one short thought in the T line, not a long essay. 

-       Pick only one feeling that is directly related to how the thought makes you feel.

-       Once you can fill out a good beefy A line, the R will be obvious and clear. 

Try a few out, practice them, try them again… the more you try them, the more aware you’ll become of how your thoughts are affecting every area of your life. 

The more aware you become, the more easily you’ll be able to shift your story! 

Remember, as we work on us, it affects them… always. Start with you. <3