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Monday, December 06, 2004

How To Reframe For Success

by  Dr.  Kevin  Polk 

The only thing that stands between you and success is a little reframing. That does not mean reframing your house or a picture. It means reframing your thoughts about the problems that you face. You take off the old mental frame and put on a new one. You've heard the phrase, "The power of positive thinking." Well positive thoughts are a lot more powerful if you use them to remove the old frame. Let's take a look at how to do that.

First, you need to find the old frame you have been using. That simply means finding the thoughts you have been using to frame the problem. Finding them won't be as hard as you might think. The following exercise should root out most of them.

Get out a piece of paper and write down your problem. Money, relationships, something at work -- anything that's a problem. Try to be as specific as you can. For example, what do you need money for? Who are you having a problem with and what is the person doing? Which part of work bothers you? The more specific the better. Now set the sheet of paper aside and do something else for a few minutes or hours.

After you have cleared your mind, go back and read the problem again. As soon as you have read it, take note of how the problem makes you feel. Does it make you sad, mad or afraid? Write down how it makes you feel.

The feeling you wrote down comes from the thoughts you have about the problem. So next, write down the thoughts you are having about the problem. Are you thinking, "I will NEVER make more money!" or "That person is mean to me ALL the time"? "ALL" or "NOTHING" thoughts like these almost always lead to negative emotions. Write down every negative thought you can think of about the problem.

These negative thoughts form the emotional frame you are using to solve the problem. It's okay to feel a bit sad, mad or afraid about a problem, but eventually you need to get motivated to solve the problem. That's where the positive frame comes into play.

Now, go back and change every one of those negative thoughts into a positive thought. So, "I NEVER can" becomes "Yes, I can." "That person is always mean to me" becomes, "That person is nice to be sometimes, and sometimes not. I can learn how to deal with it." Literally change each negative thought you came up with into a positive one. Don't overanalyze this, just do it. When you are done fold up the paper and stick it in your pocket.

As you go through your day and you start to feel lousy about your problem, take out the paper and read the positive thoughts. The trick is to do this until the positive thoughts replace the negative ones. If you do this several times a day, it will only be a short time and you will start having much more positive feelings about the problem. In other words, you will have a positive frame on your problem. Now solving it will be mush easier.

Here's a checklist to follow in putting a positive frame on your problems:

1. Identify and define your problem. Be specific. Write it down.
2. Identify the negative feelings you have about the problem (e.g., mad, sad or afraid). Write them down.
3. What negative thoughts are leading to those feelings? Write them down.
4. Change those thoughts into positive thoughts about the problem. Write them down.
5. Put the sheet of paper in your pocket.
6. When you think about the problem, read the positive thoughts. Repeat until you have a positive frame of mind.

This is a simple but very powerful technique. Do it and you will be conquering problems you thought were unsolvable.