The Model
I have written about how our thoughts generate our feelings, but what comes after that? Besides the fact that we want to feel good (and not feel bad), how do we want to show up in the world? How do our beliefs and emotions affect the outcomes of our lives?
These are questions Brooke Castillo contemplated as she tried to improve her life. She had a hunch that these things were connected but wasn’t sure how. She explored her own thoughts, feelings, and actions and eventually came up with The Model, a self-discovery tool that helped her recognize the role her thoughts had in creating the life she desired.
The Model
C = Circumstance
T = Thought
F = Feeling
A = Action
R = Result
CTFAR. That’s it. Its simplicity is part of its potency. Anyone can understand it and fill it out, but the mental dynamics it illuminates are endless. Let’s explore each line in more detail and then look at some examples.
Its simplicity is part of its potency.
CIRCUMSTANCE
Circumstances are the things that happen outside of us and our outside of our control. To fill in the circumstance line, write what happened in a distressing situation. But here’s the catch–what you list has to be an absolute fact, something that could be proven in a court of law and that everyone would agree upon. You can’t state “She’s so rude” or “I procrastinate too often” or “He always lies.” These are thoughts. As you will see, thoughts are the story we create around the circumstance. The thoughts are the interesting part, and they contain lots of adjectives. However, descriptive words should never be in the circumstance line because each person has a different idea of what they describe. Avoid adjectives and be very factual.
For example, instead of “She’s so rude,” write her exact words: “She said, ‘Don’t you think he’s too old for a bottle?’” Only facts in the C line, no interpretation. Don’t put “she yelled” or “she grumbled” or any other descriptive way of talking. These are similar to adjectives.
Instead of “I procrastinate too often,” say, “The assignment was due on Monday at 8 am, and I began to work on it Sunday at 10 pm.” Very boring, very neutral.
Replace “He always lies,” with “The teacher told me my son hit Bobby, and my son said, ‘I did not hit anyone.’”
This might seem nit-picky, but it’s the most vital part of The Model. Separating the circumstance from the thought is crucial to gaining full awareness of the situation. But writing facts in the C line is harder than it sounds and takes practice. I will post another article specifically about this skill because it is deceptively difficult. But for now, I will say, stick to the facts. Peel away your interpretation (the interesting and juicy parts of the story) and write the most boring description of what happened. Generalizations are always thoughts, so get specific.
Once you isolate an unmistakable fact in the circumstance line, it’s important to know that the circumstance is always neutral. This is unsettling to people because we’re used to thinking that situations are good or bad, right or wrong, and not neutral. We reinforce this belief with the idea that bad things cause unpleasant feelings and good things cause positive feelings. Because we are more aware of things outside of us than we are of our thoughts, it seems like something happens and then we feel an emotion, with nothing in between. And so we surmise that some events are inherently bad and some good.
A crucial tenet of mind management however is that feelings are created by thoughts, not by outside events. Anything that happens externally is just a thing in the world. It does not cause any feeling inside of us until we think a thought about it. This is true of the most horrible occurrence in the world. When that thing transpires, it doesn’t jump into our bodies and make us feel something. If we didn’t know it happened, we wouldn’t feel anything. It is only our thoughts about the situation that produce emotions.
Events are neutral, but this is not to say we should feel neutral about everything. Of course not! These mind management tools are not intended to make us into robots. There are many things in the world we want to feel distressed about. Often those negative emotions serve us, or at least don’t cause problems for us. But sometimes we get stuck in thoughts that we believe are true but that create difficulties for us. When we want to get unstuck, we can gain awareness of how our thoughts are affecting us by using The Model.
THOUGHTS
In the next line of The Model, T for thoughts, is the place for any judgment, explanation, or opinion you want. You no doubt have many ideas about any given predicament, and this is the place to let them out. For optimal effectiveness, however, write only one thought in your Model. Run as many Models as you want, but for each one list one thought. This will help you recognize the effect of each individual belief. It is not necessary to analyze every thought, however. Once you’ve taken a look at one or two, your brain sees how your thoughts affect the situation, and its attachments to other problematic ideas loosen.
As I mentioned, most people have more attentiveness to things happening outside of them than they do of their internal thoughts. You might think you didn’t even have any thoughts in certain situations. This is because they are so practiced and they happen so quickly. Take a moment to slow it all down. Put yourself back in that circumstance and inquire, What was I thinking? The thoughts are always there, even if we don’t know they are. Continue to ponder and take guesses if you need to. As you are coached or listen to coaching, you will get better at identifying your thoughts.
Take a moment to slow it all down.
FEELINGS
On the feelings line, choose one emotion that comes up in this situation. Again, there may be many reactions, but stick to one. Search up a list of emotions if you need to; most of us only know about four or five. Be as specific as possible. Get into your body and ask, When I think this (the thought you wrote in the Model), what do I feel? Amused? Hopeless? Panicked, bitter, offended?
ACTION
Move on to the actions line by examining, What do I do when I experience that emotion? Each feeling generates certain behaviors. Do you lash out and yell? Do you stew about it in your mind? Do you call a friend and tell them how terrible the situation is? On this line, state all the actions, not just one. Any action that is fueled by that feeling, write it down.
RESULT
The last line is for your result. This one can be tricky to fill in without the help of a coach. Your result always relates back to your thought, many times making that idea true in your life, but sometimes that’s hard to identify unless someone points it out. When you do see it, though, it is fascinating. Let’s fill out Models for the examples I used above to put it all together and observe how the result comes from the thought.
Circumstance: “She said, ‘Don’t you think he’s too old for a bottle?’”
Thought: She’s so rude.
Feeling: Angry
Action: Say snarky comments, ruminate about how rude she is, tell husband all about it
Result: I’m rude.
***
Circumstance: The assignment was due on Monday at 8 am, and I began to work on it Sunday at 10 pm.
Thought: I procrastinate too often.
Feeling: Discouraged
Action: Have a hard time getting started, look at my phone to buffer my negative emotion, call or text a friend to complain about the situation
Result: I procrastinate more.
***
Circumstance: The teacher told me my son hit Bobby, and my son said, ‘I did not hit anyone.’
Thought: He always lies.
Feeling: Frustrated
Action: Yell at my son to “stop lying!”, stomp around, send him to his room or ground him for a few days
Result: My son is motivated to lie to avoid future yelling and punishment.
Hopefully you’re beginning to understand how it works. But you’re probably also thinking, So I’m supposed to not think or feel any of those things? Let me be clear: This is not the purpose of The Model. There is nothing wrong with any of these thoughts, feelings, or actions. There is nothing wrong with the results you create, either. It is enormously important to not label any of it good or bad. This isn’t about morality. It’s about awareness. When you judge your thoughts or emotions, your brain pushes them away, sends them into hiding, cloaks them from your perception. You’re a human; we’re all human. This is what humans do. There is nothing wrong with any of it.
But you can ask yourself, Do I want to continue doing this? If you don’t like the way you’re showing up or the result you’re getting in your life, you can change your thoughts and feelings. Don’t do it because they are wrong or bad, though. The idea is to take a light approach in this work. Just try something different to see what would happen or to see what you’re capable of. Accept 100% of your humanness and allow every thought and emotion. You have good reasons for thinking and feeling those things! However, they may not serve you in the end.
If you don’t like the way you’re showing up or the result you’re getting in your life, you can change your thoughts and feelings.
Notice that 80% of The Model explores what goes on inside yourself. The circumstance is external, but the thought, feeling, actions and result are internal. People generally believe that that outside events cause our emotions. Our child disobeys, and bam! we feel angry. We see an Instagram post and suddenly we feel jealous. We are not as aware of the thoughts quickly passing through our brain that create the emotion. This is why The Model is so potent. It asks us to slow it down, relive the situation and contemplate what ideas came up. This takes work in the beginning. You will want to say, There were no thoughts! But be patient and continue to examine the experience.
It’s okay to make guesses, such as, I was probably thinking “My child should not disobey,” or “She gets to go on vacation, and I don’t!” The more you run Models, the better you will get at it, and the more you will recognize that it truly was your thought creating your feeling. It’s fascinating to discover what beliefs your mind suggests to you when it’s running on default. Some of its offerings are easy to swipe away once you become cognizant of them. But many of them are so ingrained that it takes time and patience to show your brain a new way of thinking.
As you envision what thoughts came up in a certain circumstance, remind yourself repeatedly that it’s not the situation the caused your feelings. Identify the beliefs and how they motivated your emotions. And be sure to allow the feelings; don’t resist them. Spend time observing your actions and writing them out. Don’t shy away from them or be ashamed. Again, you’re not wrong for any of your upsetting thoughts, difficult emotions, or unwanted behaviors; this is what it’s like to be human. Unfortunately, our standard is 90% observation of outside things, 10% observation of inside things (our thoughts, feelings, and actions). Let’s switch that around! You will gain tremendous power over your life as you use The Model to discern your internal workings.
Try this on: “This is what it’s like to be human.”
Want more about Mind Management? Clap and Follow!
Read the next article: How Do Thoughts Create Feelings?
Find an LCS-trained coach here.
“Disappointment comes in the gap between expectation and reality.”
