Framing Change

Is there an area of your life where you are not getting what you think you should get? Are you honestly trying to make changes, but ending up in the same spot? Do you wonder why the same challenges and patterns keep showing up in your life, even when you keep trying to change them?

The change strategies I hear most frequently focus on modifying behavior. If you want to lose weight, for example, you have to eat less and exercise more, right? While this may be true, it’s not complete. Without even being aware of it, we have thoughts, beliefs and opinions that may be directly impacting the results we get in our lives. Changing only behaviors will bring some change, but it will almost always be small or short-lived.

Check your frame

If you are really interested in change, one of the best things you can do is "check your frame".

The Frame is a technique that helps you understand the connections between how you see, feel and act in a situation, and the results you get. Imagine a picture frame, and in each of the outside corners of the frame, starting in the upper left corner and moving around in a clockwise direction, are the words "See", "Feel", "Do" and "Get". "See" is how you view a situation; it includes your thoughts, beliefs, opinions, interpretations, and values. What you "see" usually evokes a feeling response. Feelings happen quickly, and are generally connected to our historical memories and associations. Feelings often generate an “action” response. How I feel influences what choices I make, or what I "do". And what I do most often determines the results I "get". Finally, what I get influences how I continue to see this or other situations in the future.

Let's take a look at how this works in real life: Sometimes my desk gets a little cluttered with papers. (OK, let's be honest. It gets cluttered a lot.) When I see my desk, I often think, "I have a lot to do. I’ll never get it all done."

If I think I have a lot to do, I begin to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. When I feel overwhelmed, what do I do? That's right: Nothing. Because if I'm overwhelmed, I can't see a good starting place, and I don't know what the end could look like. And so, in my frustration, I do nothing.

And if I do nothing, what will the result be? You've got it: The same cluttered desk. And this result--what I "get"--reinforces my belief that I have a lot to do, and I can't ever get organized, and I may never be successful, and around and around we go.

Change the frame

If I really want to change the mess on my desk, I need to change the way I see it. It's really just a mess on the desk. It doesn't mean anything, except for the meaning that I’ve given it (that I have a lot to do).

What if I looked at my desk, and viewed my papers as indicators that I have many interesting and diverse activities going on in my life? (OK, that’s a stretch. Let’s not get carried away with a sappy glass-half-full example.) What if I just saw the papers for what they are—papers—looking for homes in the file cabinet or the recycle basket? I’ve then reduced my feeling response of being overwhelmed to that of being neutral, or even a bit amused. (Poor little homeless papers.) With this feeling, I have more available energy to do something about the papers (like clean them up). And the result I get? A clean desk, of course.

As simple as this all seems, having a clean desk enables me to see future messes differently, and not lose so much energy feeling overwhelmed or dreadful. The emotional energy we spend in anxiety, worry, dread, fear and frustration takes away from our ability to be present in each moment, and to be aware of our seeing-feeling-doing-getting connections in everyday life.

Check your frame in just one area of your life, and follow the connections to your results. The Frame can be a simple way to increase your awareness and lead to change that sticks. And if you want to see a powerful example of The Frame in real life, check out the story of our friend, Drew Wuestman, in Still Flying, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjBpzJUz0g4.