Thought Model: how our thoughts trigger feelings and results

 I am responsible for my feelings! ✨

Today I want to talk about “bad thoughts” and how they ruin our lives. Each day something happens with us, and we, as human beings, process the information and produce thoughts and conclusions. Sometimes our conclusions have nothing to do with the reality itself.

Imagine you meet your old friend on the street, but he just said “hi” and walked further. Any thoughts? Ignoring you or getting late for work? Or maybe he forgot to put his lenses on and even forgot where did he meet you in the first place, so he didn’t want to embarrass himself even more while talking to you.

Considering that each person can have up to 80 000 thoughts daily and a bigger half of them are only our interpretation of reality, do we know what’s truly happening around us? And especially, I want to talk today about those events, which make us sad and frustrated. What if we interpret the reality wrong? What if the truth is more “bright” than we see it.

The Thought Model is a perfect tool to see that’s happening with us.

1. Circumstances are facts of life. Life happens, and we can’t control it. Either it’s the weather, pandemic viruses, or other people’s behavior. But we do think “thoughts” about circumstances as we process the life around us. Example: Let’s say we had a quarterly performance meeting with the boss but didn’t get a salary raise. Just a fact – meeting done, an event happened. Performance has been discussed, feedback received. Salary conversation didn’t happen.
2. Thoughts are our reactions to life events. And what we think about those circumstances trigger our feelings and make us feel something about those events. Example: Let’s get back to the performance meeting. If we were waiting for the salary raise and the discussion didn’t happen, we might think: “My boss doesn’t appreciate me enough. I am doing so much, and he doesn’t see this.”
3. Feelings are a vital part of being human, so we have a lot of them from positive to depressive and can have a different mixture during the day. Example: What do we feel when we think we are not appreciated enough? Sad, frustrated, even depressed.
4. Our Actions are led by the feelings and emotions we have. Example: If we feel frustrated at our work, we are less likely to do it with enthusiasm and passion. That’s why the next project we won’t be working on with the same dedication, as we know – the boss won’t praise it anyway.
5. This cal lead to poor Results of what we do. Example: we don’t care about our performance as much as we did before, the performance gots worse, we don’t get the salary raise again, which will again prove our point, that the “boss doesn’t appreciate us”.

This is a scary, vicious circle. And did you notice where did the “drama” begin? Not with the event happening itself, but with the thought we have after it! Because in this example, which is real, the salary raise discussion is planned for the next quarter in this team. The salary benchmark is being processed, and Comp & Ben team is to prepare a report in a month from now. And if our “example person” would ask a question about the salary raise during the meeting, she would hear the answer just like that.

Here are some other examples: 

• 👎🏻 My boyfriend didn’t reply to my message = he ignores me
• 👎🏻 My boss asked for a detailed report on what I did last month = he is not satisfied with my work
• 👎🏻 One of my team members does a lot of mistakes and never asks me for advise = she doesn’t appreciate my experience. I am her manager and mentor, I can help. But she doesn’t feel my authority enough.

When the thoughts also could be: 

• 👍🏻 My boyfriend didn’t reply to my message = damn, he must be so busy today. I will call him in the evening and ask how was his day. He must need a support today
• 👍🏻 My boss asked for a detailed report on what I did last month = great, finally I can show in detail what I did last month. I am confident in my results and now my boss will see them too. 
• 👍🏻 One of my team members does a lot of mistakes and never asks me for advise = maybe she is scared of me? Or feel intimidated to ask for my help and thinks she only has to do it on her own. I might talk to her and offer her help. By the end of the day – that’s all the result of our team.

🌿 As you see, the reality is that we are responsible for our own feelings! Not those other people, who didn’t call, said something we didn’t like, or asked us something we didn’t want to talk about. 

🌿 Of course sometimes life happens in its worse circumstances. And then feeling sad is the only normal reaction if you are not a psychopath 🤡 But let’s just not create a drama, where there is none 😌

🌿 Have a great week ahead! And have lots of good thoughts 💭