Positive Cycle
Outer Circle
Just like the Negative Cycle, The Outer Circle deals directly with how you deal with life on a day-to day basis. It is the short-term focus that is built on the work you do on the Inner Circle.
Perceive Stress Effectively
Developing healthy ways of looking at things is critical to our health. It is one of the major keys in changing to a healthy lifestyle. Start by learning to grade situations in comparison to others. Having a flat tire is not the same as losing a loved one. Having a disagreement with your spouse is not the same thing as your spouse is leaving. Some people learn to react and in some cases overreact to everything. Everything is "horrible" when it is not. Everything is a "catastrophe" when it is not. The opposite can be true as well. It is not healthy to not take anything seriously either.
Coping Effectively & Positively
When looking at "Effective" coping strategies, we need to define the concept of "effective". What does that mean when it comes to coping skills. Let's look at it this way. You need to consider the following criteria:
​
1) Does this solve the problem in the short and long-term? Making a problem go away for a little while is not solving it in an effective way.
​
2) Does this cause me or someone else harm in anyway? If so, then I am doing something wrong. If you hurt others just so you can feel better, you are not dealing with the problem the best way you can. Most people will inevitably feel guilty for hurting someone else. Thus, you defeat the purpose by increasing your stress level and wounding your self-esteem.
Manage & Evaluate Feelings
"Emotional Regulation" is the catchphrase I've heard in presentations from other therapists at conventions I attend. Making changes in our lives requires "Management". There is no quick fix. Part of this Management concept it learning to manage your feelings. Do you get made over the smallest things? When you do get frustrated do you blow up and scream and yell. Maybe you are the kind of person that worries about everything going wrong even though things seem to be going well. It is not the end of the world if something goes wrong. But, some people seem to think it is and react accordingly. You have to develop skills to identify what's going on around you, what your self-talk is and how to manage your feelings accordingly.
Manage & Evaluate Thinking Errors
This is some of the work you will do on Deeper Level Motivation. Ask yourself, what are my thinking errors and where do they come from? Who else n your family thinks like you? Are you like your parents or grandparents? Maybe there was a horrible set of circumstances that deeply influenced how you see life. For instance, your father dies when you are young. Your mother cannot deal with the loss and, unknowingly, withdraws from you and your siblings. You may develop a sense that loving people is too painful or that there is too much risk, so since then you have had issues with thinking that if you love someone they will only leave. So, it is better to avoid that pain by not getting attached. Then you wonder why you have been in a strong of relationships that fall apart.
Manage & Evaluate Triggers
Triggers, triggers everywhere and plenty to spare! What are my Triggers and where do they come from. Like the Thinking Errors section, your Triggers did not come from nowhere. Something does not come from nothing. Who taught you that slow drivers should be thinking more about you then their own lives? Who taught you that other people's opinions about your value are more important than your own? Where did those ideas come from? Why are you such a stickler for being on time where other people are more laid back about it? Why do you think your marriage is in trouble if your spouse does not have the same sex drive that they used to?
Positive Behaviors
If you learn, learn, learn and practice as much as you learn, then you will see a transformation in your life to a much more positive mindset and with it your behaviors will follow! This part is pretty easy to see! Positive is as positive does!
Evaluate Outcome
So, how is life looking now?! You have learned to do a better job of identifying stress. You are coping more effectively with the stress that you do have. You do a better job of dealing with my emotions and confronting your faulty thinking patterns. Triggers? What Triggers? No seriously, since this Management, you are doing better at challenging your Triggers when they raise their little ugly heads. The result is giving up old destructive living for healthier positive ways of going about life. It is important to see the success! Before, you were always good at seeing where you were failing! Now, you have to accept and relish the success!
Learn
Bad Management equals Negative Behavior. Good Management equals Positive Behavior. Look at any successful company out there. Managers look at what works well and produces positive outcomes for their company. If you were a manager interested in keeping your job, you would not intentionally make decisions that cost the company money. You have now learned that the same principles and determination apply to you!
Time Goes By
Diligence is key. You can't afford to get lazy here. But, as I noted on the Negative Cycle page, complacency is the enemy. Once you start seeing the fruits of your labor turn to success, you have to show equal focus in making sure the old ways don't come back. So, you are monitoring your moods and thoughts and making micro-adjustments as you go. It is much easier to remain on the road to success when you do it a step at a time.
Watch for Return of
Old Thoughts & Behaviors
Just like the stage just before, Time Goes By, you have to know that you WILL try to return to old thought patterns and old behavior. It is NOT a sign of failure. Rather, it is a challenge to your ability to stay focused. You can do this! Even if you slip and renew some old thoughts or behavior. give your self some credit for the amount of time you have been doing something different! And then, get back on track!
Inner Circle
Breaking The Power of Stress
There are three areas at work here that you have to manage in order to break the power of stress. First, learn to see stressful events for what they are and assign the appropriate amount of emotional energy to them. Second, you have to give up the unhealthy or inefficient coping skills that do not work in the short and long-term and develop coping skills that will work. Finally, you have to manage the old thought patterns when they come back because they will. Just because you change and are doing well doesn't mean you are cured. Too many people fail because they think they are fixed. When they lose focus on making changes daily, they slide back toward old patterns of thought and behavior.
Changing Deeper Level Motivation
Finding peace in our junk drawers. I wonder if you have a junk drawer at home. I think pretty much everybody does. Its the drawer that has everything in there. It is usually a mess. It is chaos in drawer form! Every now and then you go in there and organize it to make it look right. Sometimes you throw stuff out. Other times not so much. Changing Deeper Level Motivation is really the hard work in all of this. But, once you have done this work, there is no better feeling. Knowing why you are so angry and how that anger plays a role in your life. Knowing why you sabotage your life gives you the freedom to actually do something about it. Now you actively address them rather than let them rule your life.
Choosing the Positives
Making sense of our junk, our chaos, let's us see better ways to live. We can now choose the healthy pattern. We choose not to go down the old familiar, miserable road and instead try something better. No longer acting like you are helpless to change lets you be proactive rather than reactive.
Learning Takes Place
Usually when you make healthier choices you have healthier outcomes. This experience teaches you the basics of learning and motivation. But, sometimes things do not work out even though you made a better choice or acted in a more healthy way. That is ok. It is not the end of the world. What is equally important here is that you did not go back to unhealthy coping skills to try to avoid stress. You did succeed even though you thought everything should go exactly like you planned.
Nothing Changes If I Don't Learn
I Can't Learn If I Don't Understand the Past
Understanding and finding peace with the past is the key to learning.