Battle Tactics: Self Coaching 101

This week we’re looking at another model for thought work. If Katie’s “the work” didn’t resonate with you, you might like this one instead – Self Coaching by Brooke Castillo. I love Brooke, though I’ve never gotten to work with her personally, only through various coaching products. She’s straightforward, honest, and has a gift for breaking things down to their essence very quickly.

She’s developed this model called Self Coaching that explains the relationship between our thoughts and our whole lives in this beautiful, simple diagram:

(Reprinted from Self Coaching 101: Use Your Mind – Don’t Let It Use You with Permission from the Author Brooke Castillo – www.brookecastillo.com)

Brooke defines circumstances as “the things we can’t control” – other people’s behavior, facts, situations, etc. Thoughts are beliefs about circumstances, our as Brooke says, “a sentence formed in our mind.” I don’t know about you, but often I believe the circumstances of my life are causing me to feel ____. I still often believe this, even after a year of coach training and daily thought work! However, as Brooke’s model so beautifully illustrates, it’s really not true.

As an example I’m going to use a circumstance that most would probably agree is “horrible”: I don’t currently have enough money to pay a bill that is due next week.  You can see in the example below how the self coaching model might work in this scenario.

Circumstance: I don’t currently have enough money to pay a bill that is due next week.
Thought: “I am such a loser.”
Feelings: dejected, shamed, defeated
Actions: go into addictive behaviors to avoid feeling, do nothing with bill
Results: Unable to pay bill

Let’s try replacing the thought with a less painful one…

Circumstance: I don’t currently have enough money to pay a bill that is due next week.
Thought: “This is an opportunity for me to plan my financial life more deliberately.”
Feelings: empowered, capable
Actions: start looking for creative ways to cover the bill, plan in advance for future bills
Results: Possibly able to pay bill, or not, but knowing what’s coming and planning for future bills

What I love the most about Brooke’s model is that you can “plug in” whatever you happen to have at the moment – for example, if you are simply feeling sad, you can plug that into the model and then work from there. I find this an incredibly liberating model, because it gives me more hope of finding the painful thought if I’m feeling terrible, and clearly illustrates the consequences of believing my negative thoughts.

I would love to hear how this works for you. If you find yourself feeling terrible or blaming circumstances this week, please try out Brooke’s model and let me know how it goes. If you are feeling just overwhelmed by thought work, try the lazy way of thought sorting using this downloadable guided imagery instead.