Whether you realize it or not, your thoughts are in control of your life.
Every thought you have, conscious or subconscious, creates a feeling. Those feelings push you to take action, and those actions drive your results. Those results are your life.
Here is the 1 and only mental model you need to transform your life.
The model: C-T-F-A-R
I first heard about the model from my mom (love you ma!) who learned it from Brooke Castillo, owner and founder of The (wildly successful) Life Coach School.
Brooke’s model is a simple framework you can use to transform your life. CTFAR stands for circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. Imagine it as a top-down model, with the circumstance up top and the results at the bottom.
C — Circumstances
T — Thoughts
F — Feelings
A — Actions
R — Results
Here’s how it works:
Circumstances
The circumstance is simply the thing or situation you are experiencing.
The hardest part about the circumstance is stripping out your own “story” or emotion you’ve attached to it before placing it in the model. When defining your circumstance, you want it to be a completely neutral, non-judgemental, unequivocally true statement. Often, it helps to make the circumstance one word. An important piece of the circumstance line is that it’s outside of your control.
For example, if you are having an issue with your spouse (it doesn’t matter the issue), then the circumstance would be: “spouse.”
Easy enough, right?
Thoughts
Thoughts are what you are currently thinking about the circumstance.
Sometimes it can be tough to pinpoint your thoughts, as a lot is happening behind the scenes. But do your best to identify what it is you’re thinking. By looking inward and identifying the thoughts you’re having, you can set yourself up to change or “re-write” those thoughts to get a better outcome.
But more on that to come.
Feelings
You have to feel your feelings.
The feeling line is where you identify how you feel because of the thoughts you are having. Similar to the circumstance line, it can be helpful to pinpoint a single word to express how you are feeling.
Back to the example with your spouse, if you’re upset with them, write upset on the feeling line.
Actions
Your feelings determine your actions.
Actions are the things you are doing because of the way you feel. For example, if you are upset with your spouse, the action you may be taking is to argue with your spouse. Or, you may be avoiding them because you’re upset.
Whatever the case, write down what you are doing as a result of your feelings.
Results
Lastly, the results are what you are getting.
Your actions produce your results — if you are constantly arguing with or avoiding your spouse because you’re upset, your result could be a failing marriage. Or, it could be that the result is an unhappy or stressful relationship.
Write down the results that you are getting in life because of the actions you’re taking.
Putting it all together.
Now that you understand the model let’s run through it together.
Using the example with your spouse, you may write out the following:
C — spouse
T — my spouse isn’t doing as many household chores as I am.
F — upset
A — avoid my spouse
R — unhealthy relationship
Once you understand that your entire world is shaped by your thoughts, which produce your feelings, drive your actions, and create your results, you now have complete control over your life.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say you want to change your results. Your current result is an unhealthy relationship, but you want a healthy relationship. Start from the bottom, and write “healthy relationship.”
R — healthy relationship
Now, go up to the action line. Ask yourself, what action could I take to create a healthy relationship? The simplest option could be the opposite of what you’re doing now:
A — embrace my spouse
Alright, now up to the feeling line. It will be really difficult to embrace your spouse if you’re feeling upset with them, so consider what feeling you could replace that with.
F — Caring
On the thought line, ask yourself, what would my thought need to be for me to feel “caring” towards my spouse? Feel free to play around with some different thoughts, and keep in mind that sometimes when you’re really charged up about a situation, the only thing you’ll be able to muster is just adding “and that’s okay” to the end of the thought. Here are a few examples that run the whole spectrum:
T — my spouse isn’t doing as many household chores as I am, and that’s okay.
T — my spouse is doing the best they can.
T — my spouse is a great household contributor.
T — my spouse adds value to our household in so many ways.
The fundamental key to the entire model is that you pick your thoughts.
Once you realize that you are in charge of your thoughts, and those thoughts have a trickle-down effect that shapes your entire life, it’s game on. But, taking the time to identify your thoughts is half the battle, and the other half is taking the time to run them through a model. Also, remember that you can start at any line and re-write your model. For example, if you just want to create a different feeling in your life, work backward to determine what thoughts you need to create that feeling, and then work forwards to understand what actions and results you’ll get.
In the end, remember that you become your thoughts, so choose them wisely.
And if you want to see a quick 5-minute video of Brooke Castillo explaining the model for more context, you can find that here: The Self Coaching Model by Brooke Castillo Explained | The Life Coach School