Five Life-Changing Personal Development Tools

These are the most simple, straight-forward thought work tools to change your perspective and your life.

1) The Model

The model is a way of understanding and processing why you act the way you do, and why you have certain results in your life.  The Model was invented by the genius life coach, Brooke Castillo, owner of The Life Coach School.  Here is a link to Brooke herself explaining The Model.

In essence, the model works based on pure logic - something lawyers love!  It starts with the concept that your thoughts create your feelings. Yes, let that really sink in; your feelings – happy, sad, grateful, discouraged, inspired, etc. – are all directly caused by your thoughts.  When you know this, you understand that logically, if you change your thoughts, you can change your feelings.  The logic flows further when you see that your feelings cause your actions. Your feelings cause you to either take action or fail to take action.  And finally, your actions cause the results you have in your life.  In all of this, your circumstances are neutral, factual, and do not actually cause your feelings. Your circumstances don’t cause your feelings – your thoughts do. 

The model is based on lines, which spell out the acronym, CTFAR.  The Model works best if you write it out. That way, you can truly understand how your thoughts are causing the results you have in your life.

Here’s an example of the model in practice:

[C]ircumstance:         My boss made revisions to a brief I drafted.

[T]hought:                   I’m not a good writer.

[F]eeling:                    Shame.

[A]ctions:                    Failure to volunteer for future writing assignments. Take longer to write future briefs. Tell people I’m not a good writer.  

[R]esults:                     Career does not advance. My brain looks for and probably finds more proof of the thought that I’m not a good writer.  I become a less skilled writer because I stop writing as much.

There is much more to learn about how to work The Model but the basic gist of it is: your thoughts cause your feelings, your feelings cause your actions, your actions cause your results, and circumstances are neutral. 

Once you get good at the model, you can play around with it in many ways that will allow you to become more aware of how changing your thoughts will change your ultimate results.  You can start with the model you’re actually experiencing to see how your negative thoughts are effecting your results. Then you can make a deliberate model with a thought you want to have - one that will support you. For instance, if you play around with the above model, you could change the thought line from “I’m not a good writer,” to “I’m a great writer” (or, if you can’t quite believe that, you could change it to something more neutral like, “I have written some good motions in the past.” Then see how this new thought charges your actions and results. Note that the new thought has to be something you actually believe in order for your model (and your results) to change.

Once you change my thought to something either neutral or positive, you’re going to feel more positive (the F line), keep volunteering for new projects (the A line), and advance your career (the R line).  When you understand the power of your thoughts, you see that it really is this simple. 

One thing to remember when you’re making a deliberate Model (for example, to create a different result in your life) is that your circumstance should always remain the same as in your original Model. 

Additionally, it’s key to remember that your brain will find evidence of anything that’s in your “T” line – whether it’s positive or negative. So, your “T” line will always be tied directly to your results.  Why? Not only because our thoughts are powerful, but also because whatever we think and believe, our brains scan for evidence of.  If we think our writing sucks, then our brain will find many reasons why this is true.  If we think we’re a good writer, our brain with find evidence for this belief. 

I suggest starting out with your actual Model - even if and especially if your thoughts are negative. Write out the model, see how your negative thoughts are effecting your results, and let those results sink in. Don’t immediately try to move to a more positive Model. Creating new thoughts takes time, but understanding your thoughts and what they’re creating in your life is the first step to change.

2) Be Aware of Negativity Bias.

Negativity bias is the tendency of our brains to register, remember, and dwell on negative thoughts to a much greater extent than positive ones.  For instance, do you ever find yourself thinking about a bad grade you got in high school? But you can’t recall for the life of you any of the positive things your law school professors said to you?  Our brains are literally wired to function like this.  

Studies have shown that the brain actually has greater activity when it sees negative stimuli than positive stimuli.  So naturally, we remember and react in a bigger way to negative things than positive things that occur in our lives.  Our brains have been wired like this from the beginning. And with good reason! We needed this back in the day to know to run from bears and not to eat the poisonous berries. 

But we don’t really need this today, at least not to the extent we did. Unfortunately, evolution has not caught up to our current state state of affairs. Our brains still see and remember that one negative thing our boss said to us rather than focusing on all of our past professional victories.  If you’re a boss you likely see and remember all the things your employees have done wrong to a greater extent that what they’ve done right. 

What’s more, lawyers are trained in law school and throughout their careers to look for and anticipate potential problems, and to focus on worst case scenarios.  For instance, if you’re negotiating a contract for a client, your job is literally to imagine the worst possible outcome and protect against it. While this negative, predictive quality is great if you’re reviewing a contract, it’s terrible for your general outlook on life.  

This tendency of our brains is not helpful anymore. 

Why is being aware of negativity bias important? Awareness gives us a reason not to believe all the negative, self-defeating stories our brain tells us and to try to consciously steer our thoughts to more positive territory.  They are, after all, just thoughts, and thoughts often do a bad job of reflecting truth and reality. 

I’m not suggesting toxic positivity or never reflecting on how we could have done better. I am suggesting that you be aware of your brain’s bias towards the negative. Start to challenge your perception that certain negative things are entirely true. Could there be other possibilities? Other things that might be just a true?

Being aware of our brain’s negativity bias also allows us to have compassion for ourselves when we observe our brains focusing on the negative. When you realize this is happening, realize that it’s actually a sign that your cavewoman brain is well-functioning.  It is protecting you as it should be, just not in a way that’s helpful in most modern-day life scenarios.

The key is to be aware of your brain’s tendency to focus on the negative, and train it to consciously see and concentrate on positive things.

Trust me when I say that your life will improve if you make a conscious effort to focus your brain on positive things you or others have done.      

3) Make the Choice to Show Up Positively No Matter What.

If you make the conscious choice to show up as your best self in every situation you’re confronted with - even the tough ones - your life will change in more ways than one.

Of course, this is not an easy feat. Emotions are strong and sometimes we become reactive. Sometimes we’re tired. Sometimes we’re sad. But, I swear the benefits of making this a conscious practice in your life are plentiful.

First, showing up positively will massively effect those around you. Whether they realize it or not, positivity is contagious. If you show up in the right state of mind, chances are that those around you will reciprocate.

Second, although you might get more positive results from those around you, focusing on your own behavior (not theirs) drives home the point that you cannot control other people’s behavior no matter what. You can only control your own behavior. This realization is frustrating but it’s also liberating. It allows you to let go of trying to shape a situation that you have no control over.

Finally, this practice allows you to be able to be proud of yourself and your own actions at the end of the day. If you can truly say that you did your best, there is massive peace of mind in that.  

4) Producing “B” Work Will Move You Forward More Than Perfection.

This relates to a tendency that afflicts many female attorneys - the tendency towards perfectionism.  Perfectionism is somewhat glamorized in our work-all-the-time culture, but its true effects are very insidious.  Perfectionism is rooted in fear, a deep-seated fear that you’re not worthy. 

But I have some news – perfect does not exist. 

I’ve seen perfectionism rear its ugly head in my career and others’ as avoiding or just flat out failing to volunteer to write that difficult motion, to take on that challenging case, to try that new legal argument, or to volunteer for that new assignment. 

Putting forth work that might not be the best of the best will allow you to take action at a much more rapid pace, and consequently move your career forward.  You might fail – in fact you probably will fail – but you will learn and grow and fail forward, and that’s worth everything.

5) Create Self-Imposed Consequences to Help You Stay on Track With Your Goals.

Self-imposed consequences are something I learned from the Handel Method, a corporate consulting and life coaching company whose website can be found here.  

In essence, you write down mini goals each week, and if you fail to take action on that mini goal, you have to pay the price in the form of a self-imposed restriction or sacrifice.

For instance, if your larger goal is to find a new job, your mini goal for the week might be to send out three resumes. You would set a consequence for failure to send out those three resumes ahead of time, such as no cream in your coffee for a week, or paying $50 towards your student loans.

This tactic of chunking larger goals into smaller actions is not unusual and is something many coaches use.  What’s different about Handel’s method, and what I found extremely motivating, are consequences. If you fail to complete a weekly goal, there is a literal consequence to that decision.

After a week of black coffee, you better believe this got me motivated to come through for myself the following week. 

Although I believe the most effective coaching is thought-based not action based (because it’s much easier to take action if your thoughts are clean), action can help build confidence, and trust in yourself.

Starting with a little self-imposed punishment for not meeting a goal isn’t masochistic; it’s a way of honoring yourself and building your relationship with yourself.

These consequences may sound trivial and even a little grade school-like, but they WORK.  And once you start to see the results of your actions, and feel the feelings you get from showing up for yourself, your world will change.