Eat your own dog food.
A tasty Re/Frame treat.
PSSST. There’s some info in here on how you can reframe your beliefs using this super cool Re/Frame tool, along with a breakdown of how it works. But first, Imma share a bit of context. If you hate reading you can skip right to the tool at reframe.thnk.org and type in the belief you wanna reframe as “I hate reading Jocelyn’s posts.” 🐣
Early on in the pandemic I had a workshop idea I pitched to one of my heroes, Mark Pollard.
(If you’re on my email list, you know what I’m talking about.)
(And if you’re not on my email list, you can join at the bottom of this page. Email is where I share all my juiciest stories and tips.)
Mark said yes.
I freaked out a bit.
Because this time, I was going to try something new.
Most of my work has been for my clients.
Clients who know me pretty well and know what I’m really good at: Training teams on how to define their brand voice, create personality in their copy, and all around learn to tell better stories.
I’d never run a workshop for someone else’s audience.
Let alone for Mark Pollard.
With potential exposure to his group of 13,000 global strategists.
I had all these thoughts running in my head.
“What if I fuck up.”
“What if I look like an idiot.”
“What if the internet breaks?”
Etc. Etc.
The irony, of course, was this workshop idea I had was all around perspective shifts.
How to reframe stuff you’re thinking that’s driving you nuts and holding you back from doing more awesome shit.
I wanted to help us all reframe our experience of these crazy ass times.
To see what’s possible when we can see the good in an otherwise (ahem) Covid situation.
To go from feeling sick over or stuck on something. Afraid. Uncertain.
To feeling like … FUCK YES, this is awesome.
So, you know that saying, eat your own dog food?
Consume the thing you make.
Do what you tell others to do.
That sorta thing.
Yeah. That’s what I decided to do.
Eat my own dog food.
“Trying new things is scary”
That’s the belief or thought I wanted to reframe using this handy dandy tool at reframe.thnk.org.
Because I was scared of this upcoming workshop with people I didn’t know.
Scared of trying new things.
Scared of fucking up.
I figured I should reframe my own belief and try a new one on for size.
Here’s how that Re/Frame process broke down for me—in 10 steps.
When you get to Re/Frame, you’re prompted to type in a thought or belief that’s bothering you or that you’d like to change.
Ahem. Yup:
2. Then you create all the supporting beliefs that make you think that thing is true. You type in at least 4 things:
That becomes your frame of thinking and your core supporting beliefs for that frame.
3. Next, you start to pick apart those supporting beliefs in your frame, and literally write their opposites.
You start with a basic grammatical opposite, and start to build from there.
(P.S. I love the little prompts on Re/Frame that remind you: you might think these opposite things are impossible. And that’s OK! Just TRY IT)
4. Eventually, you create a lovely little collection of opposite beliefs.
5. And you do these for each one of those core supporting beliefs.
(And yes, I frequently obsess over cats OKAY.)
5. Once you’ve played this opposite party on all four of your original supporting beliefs, you go through each supporting belief again.
And you pick the most dramatic or remarkable NEW statement you see.
(Again, you’re not worrying whether these things are possible yet. You’re just playing with “remarkable” statements.)
Obviously, I chose making my cat jealous.
6. After you’ve picked your most remarkable opposite beliefs, you take a look at this new set of beliefs sitting together.
And you’re prompted to consider:
If these four things are true, what else might be true?
If these four things underly a frame of thinking, what might that frame be?
7. OK, I thought. If these four things are true, then that might mean …
8. The Re/Frame tool asks you some cool questions about that new frame you’ve laddered up to, like this one:
9. I decided that yup, a frame of thinking like “I’ll feel more alive than ever” felt pretty damn inspiring.
And then you get to see your original frame of thinking side-by-side with this new frame.
10. If you decide to share your email, the Re/Frame tool breaks things down into a couple paragraphs.
Which shows you how a belief can be formed.
i.e. You think a thing and your brain creates reasons it’s true.
But you can CHANGE that.
By breaking it down…
Seeing it differently…
And considering what you USED to think was true …
Versus a new, re/framed (and more helpful) point of view:
Is there a belief that’s bothering you? That you wanna change? That’s keeping you stuck?
Try out Re/Frame.
(And we can always dig deeper with more workshops or coaching, obvs.)
Need a perspective shift?
Try this.