00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale, and this is episode number 205, "Greatest Hits: How to Coach Yourself." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living 

00:19 

Alright, hello there, my friends, so glad to have you here today. Hey, I've decided to do something a little bit different for the next few weeks. I'm going to be doing a "Greatest Hits" series where I'm gonna go back and I'm going to play you some of the podcasts that are the most fundamental concepts to what I teach for living in middle-age. A lot of these were concepts that I taught earlier on in the podcast, but as I continue to go on, I know that a lot of you, when you start listening, you just pick up where where I am at the time and you start listening and so a lot of these basic concepts have been left by the wayside. And you haven't heard them and I may refer to them or talk about them, but you haven't really listened to the podcast, so I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to take a couple weeks and have you listened to some of the podcasts from the past that are really significant to the work that I'm doing with my clients now. And I think especially the farther along I've gotten into this work, the more I really understand some of the basic concepts that really we struggle with as we move into middle-age. And as we go through this phase that I sometimes like to call "middle-aged puberty," right, because everything is changing and It's just like puberty. Our lives change, our people change, our relationships change, our ideas about who we are and how we want to be changed, our hormones are changing...it's just a space of change for us and it's an amazing incredible place. 

01:54 

This is why I love middle-aged. I think it's just such a great great time to take a look at ourselves and read really see what we're creating and what we're doing and whether we want to keep doing it or not. And so anyway, so I'm going to go for the next few weeks. I will be doing some replays of previous podcasts that you may have missed. And if you didn't miss them, it's always good to go back and re-listen. I know as I've gone back and listened to many and decided which ones I want to share, I've loved the content and it's kind of reconnected today by talking about how to coach yourself. And I talk a lot about the thought model in the work that I do and in the podcast, I talk a lot about the circumstance, the thoughts, the feelings, the actions, the results. And this is the podcast where I lay it all out there for you. So here we go. Hope you enjoy. 

02:46 

I've got some good stuff for you today. So I know I talk a lot about the model and I talk about the thought model and the things that we go through today. I'm going to work you walk you through all of this, how it works. And we're going to talk about how to coach yourself. A lot of what I do is helping people to bring awareness to how their thoughts are creating what's going on and what's happening. And a lot of this we need to start learning how to do ourselves. We need to start learning how to be more aware for ourselves. And so I'm going to walk you through the process today of how to do that. We're going to help you figure out how you can coach yourself to more clearly identify the thoughts that are creating your life. 

03:28 

So in the notes, I'm going to put a worksheet for you to use to help you work through this process so you can download it, print it off, and use it to work through this coaching session with yourself, so you'll find it really helpful. So I would suggest you do that. You may want...however works for you, if you want to listen to this first and get an idea of how this works and then walk through it, or if you want to be able to follow along, just kind of in the notes to see what I'm talking about and then do it either way, whatever works. But hopefully the notes will really, really help you clarify this and walk through this a little bit more. 

04:01 

So first of all, this process can be a little bit tricky at first because most of us are so used to believing that our circumstances create our feelings. We've grown up believing that other people have control of our feelings and that they make us engage in certain behavior. We grew up hearing and using phrases such as," did he hurt your feelings" or "you hurt my feelings." We also heard things like "he just makes me so mad" or "you make me so happy." Our mothers or maybe we might have said "it  makes mommy so happy when you share with your brother." Okay, so now I really believe that the intention behind most of these phrases was really good-hearted. We or our parents were trying to reinforce good behavior. We're trying to help our children understand the importance of being kind and choosing to treat other people well. Or maybe we're trying to validate and empathize with them that you know with these people the fact that something had happened to us and we were confused or frustrated, but the wording often used started to teach us that other people had control over whether or not our feelings got hurt and it taught us that we have control over whether or not other people are happy or sad. But the truth is none of that is true. Only I have control over what I am feeling and only you have control over what you are feeling. 

05:28 

This truth allows us to start taking responsibility for what we are experiencing and create what we want to create in our lives. So this is where we're going to start diving in. So let's say you've had a recent experience that's causing you a lot of turmoil in your life, you've been having some difficult feelings and maybe you've engaged in some behaviors you're not really happy with and that don't reflect the sort of person you really are or really want to be. This is something that happens to all of us at some time. Personally, I'm generally a pretty darn nice person and I really try to treat other people with kindness, but there are definitely times in my life that I let my thoughts spiral out of control and I do or say things that I'm not really proud of and that are not really indicative of the kind of person I really am inside or the kind of person I really want to be. The toughest time of this for me was in those really rough years of my marriage before my divorce. I look back now and I'm amazed at some of the thoughts and feelings and the actions that I engaged in because they were not really me. They weren't the real me. It was the me that was trying desperately to figure out my situation. It was a very hurt and a very broken me and I switched into coping mode, into survival mode, and I became something I really don't think that I am or that I want to be. 

06:47 

So one of my favorite things about coaching myself through the thought model is that I feel it gives me more awareness and understanding and control over what I'm feeling and how I'm acting. The thought model helps me to create awareness around my thoughts and it helps me to tap into the person I really feel like I am inside and the person I really want to be. I think all of us have a really good sense of who we really are inside and our actions don't always reflect that and it's because of this process, right? So give this a shot. It's going to take some practice and it's going to take some discipline and it's going to take some work, but it is a process that is essential in creating the "you" on the outside that you really feel like you are on the inside. So here we go. So if you've got your paper, here we go. 

07:39 

Step one, when you're going through a situation that is causing some unsettling feelings or actions, we start by doing a thought download. Now, a thought download is where you sit down with a piece of paper and you just start writing everything you can think of about the situation. When I do this with my clients, they're just talking out their thoughts and I'm taking notes. But if you're going to be coaching yourself, you need a piece of paper and a pen. So this could take as few as, I don't know, three or four minutes or it could take as long as 15 or 20. Some more complicated situations that I've coached myself on I've written for 15 or 20 minutes right because I just have so many thoughts I need to get out, but it's all going to depend on you and how complicated the situation is for you. So it doesn't matter if it's paragraph or it's bullet point, whatever is easier for you. Personally I like to bullet point my ideas because it makes it easier for me to analyze and identify the individual parts later on. 

08:37 

So step two. Now that you've finished the thought download, now you're going to go back through what you've written and you're going to start identifying all of the facts. So if you listen to podcast number 19, which is about storytelling (it wasn't about telling stories like Goldilocks, it was about the stories that we tell ourselves about the situations we're in). So some of what we tell ourselves about a situation are facts and some of what we tell ourselves are our own thoughts. So here we are looking just for the facts. What could be proven in a court of law? What would everyone in the whole world agree on? So let's take the idea that my daughter-in-law is really difficult. Would that be a thought or a fact? It would be a thought because not everyone in the world would think she's difficult. I'm sure that she doesn't think she's difficult. Separating out the thought would be "I have a daughter-in-law" or maybe she said something, in which case the fact could be "my daughter-in-law said 'please don't feed my son fruit snacks.'" If you could have recorded it and that's exactly what she said, then that becomes a fact. So "my daughter-in-law said 'please don't feed my son fruit snacks'". So if you're using something that somebody said, make sure it's exactly what they said and not your interpretation of what they've said, which we tend to do when we tell stories. 

10:06 

So if she really said, "please don't feed my son fruit snacks," don't interpret it and say she told me that I'm hurting her child or she thinks I'm a horrible grandma because those are thoughts. Okay, so some of the things you wrote down will be thoughts mingled with facts like that example of my daughter-in-law is really difficult. Sorry I had to kind of think about exactly what I said. So some of them are going to be thoughts mingled with facts but I want you to take this time to separate out the facts. I usually find that in a page of notes, I will identify three to four actual facts. The rest of them are thoughts. So really go through and ask yourself everything that you pull out that you think is a fact. You need to say, "okay, could this be proven in a court of law? Would everyone in the world agree with this?" 

11:01 

Okay, so step number three. Now we want to identify the main circumstance. So you're going to want this to be as specific as you can get. So in the above example, though "I have a daughter-in-law" is a fact, the idea that she said, "please don't feed my son fruit snacks, will be easier to work with because you'll be able to identify your thoughts easier and that's because it's a more specific circumstance. It's a more specific situation. So on the worksheet that you downloaded, on the circumstance line, you're going to write the fact that you just identified. So on this one, we would write, "my daughter-in-law said, 'please don't feed my son fruit snacks.'" Okay, and just like that, we are three steps down. See, it's not so hard, right? It's pretty awesome, although it is gonna be taking some thinking and some processing for sure. 

11:52 

Step number four, so now that you've identified the circumstance, now we want to start working on filling out the rest of the model. So to do this, look back through your notes and find a thought, a feeling, an action, or a result that comes from that circumstance, and it doesn't really matter which one you choose. One thing that I find helpful is to go through my notes and start writing a "T" for thought, an "F" for feeling, an "A" for action, or an "R for result by the different bullet points that I've created, and that helps me to identify more. So it doesn't really matter which one you choose. Some you may find that it's easier for you to work with than others as you do this more, and some may be easier for you to identify than others. But for the sake of this example, we're gonna choose a thought. So let's say that your daughter-in-law said, "please don't feed my son fruit snacks," and you thought, "she doesn't trust me." Alright, then you're going to want to put that thought in the "thought" line on the worksheet. So you can see that it goes "circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result." Okay, so on the "thought" line, you're going to want to write, "she doesn't trust me." So doing the thought first has us just working straight down the model, but sometimes it can be easier to do one of the other lines first, the feeling, the action, or the result, and then we can work up and down to fill out the rest of the model. But in this model, we're just gonna go with the thought and we're gonna work our way down. So now you write your thought on the "thought" line. So if you chose a feeling, you'll write the feeling on the feeling line. 

13:25 

It's important here to just identify one thought or one feeling if that's where you're choosing to begin with. And again, it doesn't really matter whether it's a thought or a feeling, but just choose one. You may be tempted to write more than one thought or one feeling on that line, but just choose one. It's gonna make it simple, and it's going to help you really identify what's going on. All right? So as a thought, side note, Again, if you're struggling with this, it's okay. It can be really tough the first few times and this requires a lot of thinking and a lot of awareness that sometimes takes some work to get to. So please remember that I do offer a free coaching session if you need help working through this the first time. You can sign up for that at tanyahale.com and I would love to work through this with you because I think this is amazing, exciting work. This awareness is the first step to getting our lives where we need to get it. So if you're struggling with this, go on my website, go under the coaching tab and sign up for a free coaching session and I'll walk through this with you. 

14:28 

Okay, so now we're at step number five. So now we're going to start filling out the rest of the models. So in our example, we started with the thought she doesn't trust me. So the next line in our model that we need to fill out is the "feeling" line. So when I think the thought "she doesn't trust me," what feeling does that create in me? So at this point, you may find that that thought was identified in your thought download, but it may not have been. And that's totally fine. The thought download just helped you really kind of get stuff out there so that you can do this. But if it's not in your thought download, that's fine. But at this point, we're just trying to figure out that when we think this certain thought, what feeling does it create? Sometimes it's easier for me to just at this point set my thought download aside and figure it out for myself. Okay. So in our model, let's say that the feeling created by your thought "she doesn't trust me" is that "I feel hurt." Again, for the thinking  line and the feeling line just identify one. Okay. So in this case, "I feel hurt." So I'm going to put "hurt" on the feeling line. 

15:36 

So next, I want to identify the action. So when I feel hurt, what actions do I engage in? And so for this line, the action line, you can definitely put more than one thing, because that thought that "she doesn't trust me," and then the feeling that "I feel hurt" can cause us to react in a lot of different ways. Alright. So for example, when you feel hurt, you may stop speaking to your daughter-in-law or maybe you start talking to your other children or her husband about her in negative ways. Maybe you refuse to go to their house for dinner or you start making passive aggressive comments or maybe you start sneaking your grandson fruit snacks just to spite her and prove that it won't hurt him. Okay. Try not to hold back here. Your first instinct is not going to want to see all the naughty things that you're doing. Okay? And I've been there, done that, right? I understand that. We don't always want to acknowledge what we're really doing, but please really be honest with yourself about what behaviors you're engaging in as a result of how you are feeling. 

16:39 

Okay. So once you've identified your actions, then we're going to look at the results of what we've created. So for our example, if I were to engage in those actions that I just identified, what I have created is a situation now where my daughter-in-law doesn't trust me. This is the result. And what always amazes me is that most of the time our result is going to circle right back to our thought. Our thought has created the result. So in our example, the thought, "my daughter-in-law" doesn't trust me has created a result then where my daughter-in-law doesn't trust me because I've acted in ways that have broken down trust. I am creating exactly what I thought about because my thoughts create my feelings, my feelings create my actions, my actions create my results. This is a simple, yet brilliant thought model, how it works. And I think a lot of us can really connect with this idea and I know for me, the first time that I saw it written down like this, I was like, "yes, I totally know this," but having it put down in a model like this and being able to see it was huge for me. 

17:48 

So here we go. Step six. So step six, just sit back for a minute and realize what you've created. Let the awareness start to sink in of how much control you really have over what's going on in your life. The only piece of this model that you cannot control is the circumstance line. I can't control that she said, "please don't feed my son fruit snacks," but I can control every other line, and we control it by choosing to be more intentional about our thoughts by thinking on purpose. What we just created there is called an "unintentional model" and it's called "unintentional" because it's a model that we didn't intentionally choose to create, but we've taken time to discover how our thinking has created everything else in the model. 

18:41 

So what is really enlightening is how we can then start creating an intentional model if we choose to. We can go back and we can choose a different thought, another thought that we really believe as well, and we can see how it would play out. So the unintentional model is when we're going back and figuring out "what did I think, what happened as a result?" and we're trying to figure out what happened in the past. An intentional model is saying what will happen in the future if I change this thought. So again, let's go back to the same idea. So my daughter-in-law says, "please don't feed my son fruit snacks." So what if this time we choose to think she's so conscientious about his health, I'm going to trust her intuition as a mother. So what feeling then, if that's my thought and that goes in the thought line, what feeling then is that thought going to invoke? I'm going to say that that would invoke feelings of gratitude. I'm just so grateful that she really wants my grandson to be healthy, that she's so aware. So once I have that feeling of gratitude for her, what actions then are come as a result of feeling grateful? So some could be that possibly I start respecting her wishes and I don't feed him fruit snacks. I recognize more ways that she's a great mother to my grandson. I start speaking kindly about her to my other children and her husband. I intentionally start choosing to spend more time with her because I respect her more. So if these then become my actions, what is the end result? The end result is I create trust because I've recognized and respected her greatness as a mom, her loving acts of kindness as a mother. 

20:35 

And so this is something that we can look into the future and go, "huh, if I change that thought, I can create something totally different." Now, sometimes we're ready to explore creating an intentional model. So looking into the future and saying, "what if I change this thought?" And sometimes, you know what? Sometimes we're just not. I was working with a client the other day and we worked through her unintentional model. So we figured out what happened in the past. And she was just like, "I don't want to look at anything else here."Right now, I just need to sit in this thought and I need to recognize it." And sometimes we do. Sometimes we just need to sit with the uncomfortable feelings of recognizing that we've created  something that we're not proud of. Sometimes we just need to let the awareness sink in of how everything here, with the exception of the circumstance, is a product of my thoughts. And once we really start to become aware of how powerful our thoughts are, we will start to slow down a bit and begin to think with more intention. 

21:39 

But again, I want you to remember that this is a process. This is not a tool to beat yourself up with. It's a tool to help you be more aware of what you can choose to be responsible for. This is a tool to help us see that we are creators of our lives and that we can choose positive thoughts or negative thoughts and that those thoughts will create the life that we're living. So please, again, don't beat yourself up. Don't harp on yourself about how horrible you are because you think these thoughts. No, right now, awareness is the first step. Just being aware is going to start making a huge difference in your life. Alright, so be kind to yourself. Have some self-compassion and just become aware at this first stage. 

22:35 

Okay, so there we are. Hope that was enjoyable. I hope that helped to answer some questions for those of you who are newer and who may have missed that first time around. That's gonna do it for me this week. I hope you have a great week. If you have any questions, you can contact me. You can go to tanyahale.com and you can set up a free consult. We can talk about coaching and talk about how it might help you be able to step into your next best self and help you start really treating the people in your life the way that you would want to treat them. And where I know sometimes we just feel like I don't even know who this person is who's acting this way and who's doing this and it's us and we're just like "I don't know," so if you find yourself in that space, I've got you, my friend. I can help you figure that out. This is what I do I'm great at it and I love to help you. So go ahead and contact me there or continue to keep listening. And share this with a friend, because the more people that find this information, the happier our relationships are gonna be, okay? I'll talk to you next week. Bye. 

23:39 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!