Day 15: Circumstances
For the next 5 days, I’m going to go in depth about the different portions of the tool that I use that’s called The Model.
Today I want to focus on Circumstances.
Circumstances are what’s happening to us today.
They are factual.
Everyone in the world would agree on them.
The do not contain opinion, or our thoughts about something. Pure facts. That’s it.
It’s seems straightforward, but can be tricky.
Some of the “circumstances” that I’ve heard before are:
My husband is hard to get along with.
I am way underpaid.
My boss is a narcissist.
People just don’t get me.
I was raised this way and it’s just the way it is.
There’s no way I can earn more, I’m a teacher.
My husband is just so mean.
I’m just frugal.
Having money makes you sleep better at night.
My sister was the smart one.
I can’t afford that.
I can try, but I always fail.
I don’t have time for this.
I’m unorganaized.
The one thing that all of these things have in common are that they ARE NOT Circumstances.
We believe they are. We believe they are truth. In fact everything that was stated above is a thought.
The thing about thoughts is that we don’t have to believe them. In fact, why choose something that does not serve us?
Here are some possible circumstances offered for consideration that may replace the thoughts above.
My hope is that you really see the differences.
Husband said “You never let me have my own opinion.” Things that people actually say are always circumstances. They were said, so everyone in the world can agree that the words were said.
I make $18 an hour. The actual dollar amount made is factual. Whether or not it is underpaid or overpaid is a matter of opinion and will differ depending on who you’re talking to.
My boss asked me to do one thing and then later asked me to do the opposite.
I told my friend I was changing jobs for the 5th time in 2 years. She asked if that was a smart decision.
My grandma taught me I should always get as much as I can for the least amount of money.
I get paid $____ per hour. I haven’t explored any other ways to get paid more.
My husband said “Can you ever help out around the house?”
I don’t buy something unless it’s at least 50% off.
I have money in savings and I slept 8 hours last night.
My sister graduated from UCLA.
I didn’t buy a $2000 purse.
I had a business for 3 years.
I have 10 things on my calendar for the week
I couldn’t find my car keys.
If you look at each of the items that I just listed. They are true circumstances. They were measureable, didn’t include opinions, everyone in the world could agree on them.
As opposed to the list above that. I listed them in order so that you could reallly see the differents.
The top list - all thoughts. Thoughts are optional and often don’t serve us. (More on this tomorrow)
The bottom list - all circumstances. Factual. We get to then decide what we want to thing about them.
So so helpful.
It makes all the difference.
If you don’t see how it does, book a consult call with me today. Let’s talk. Seeing something as a circumstance makes it out of your control. Seeing it as a thought brings all the control back to you. So good. It can be hard to tell the difference. I was on a call this morning with a coach and was shocked at all that I believed where circumstances out of my control. So not true. ~Shaun
