You are What You Think: How Mindset Changes Everything – March 5, 2024

I’m not someone who goes through the world with much fear on a daily basis, but lately, it’s been coming up for me in different areas of my life, primarily skiing.

I’ve been a lifelong skier. At the age of seven, my dad took me to Little Switzerland, a tiny hill (actually, a former landfill) in Wisconsin. Even though I fell off my first chairlift and got hit in the head by the lift (long before helmets were a thing), I loved it! I loved the snow, the cold, the feeling of whooshing down the hill, the challenge, and the friends I made along the way. Nearly five decades later, I’m still at it… though I love après ski more on most days now.

Skiing has been a huge part of my life, and I’ve loved it the whole time. But last year, I began the ski season feeling uneasy for the first time ever. My first day out was an icy one, and I found myself almost crippled by fear. For the first time, the thought of quitting for good circled in my mind.

A patient friend and my (unusually) patient teenage son talked me through it, and by the end of the season, I felt strong and was sad when the season ended.

This year, with the season more than halfway over, I’ve found myself once again crippled by fear. Instead of getting stronger and building my confidence (as I had hoped and expected), I caught myself recently thinking, “This is awful. I hate this.”

I was skiing down a black diamond run (i.e., advanced, for any non-skiers). It was my third run of the day, and all I could hear in my head was: “You’re old. You’re weak. You’re going to get hurt. What happened to you!? What’s wrong with you? Pathetic! This isn’t fun anymore, I’m done!”

And by the way, what you just read is a sampling of some of the nicest things I was saying to myself that day. I was being awful. If I hadn’t been so motivated to get off the mountain and take my ski boots off, I would have sat down in the snow and sobbed from anger and frustration.

In the meantime, it was a beautiful day. The temperature was in the upper 30s, the sun was out, and blue skies shimmered overhead. My son (who was having a great time) texted me and asked to meet mid-mountain for lunch (because I’m buying, of course!)

My new mission was a welcome distraction. To get to the dining area, I had to ski two more runs and ride another chairlift back up, and I couldn’t dawdle because my son was hungry! I felt a renewed sense of energy.

In that moment, I suddenly remembered that my thoughts matter. I realized that I have control over the things I choose to focus on. I get to decide what I think, how I feel, the action I’m going to take, and largely determine the results that I will get. I coach people all the time to remember that they have agency and can change things in their lives, and this was a moment where I needed to coach myself.

Use the CTFAR Model to Shift Your Thoughts

In that moment, I did on the mountain what I do with my clients regularly: I stopped to regroup and change my mindset using the CTFAR Model (circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result).

I can’t take credit for this model, which has existed in the coaching realm forever, but it’s a powerful and extremely useful tool for adjusting your mindset. The five steps help create awareness of the thoughts that may be coming up subconsciously and help us to construct a different outcome by working backward.

Let’s see what the first run-through of CTFAR looked like in my situation:

Circumstance (the neutral subject): Skiing

Thought: I can’t do this anymore. My time has passed.

Feeling (the emotion that inevitably follows the thought): Misery

Action (the action you are taking as a result of the feeling): My jaw is clenched; my whole body is tense. I’m not going to meet my son for lunch. I’m just going to quit.

Result: I skip lunch with my son and quit after only three runs.

I love this model because it clearly illuminates how our outcomes are a direct result of our thoughts. Each section leads to the next, and you can see the ripple effect of your mindset in real-time.

On the mountain, when I ran through CTFAR, I did not like the result. I didn’t like how I was feeling. I wanted a different experience, one that resulted in me going to lunch with my son and skiing all day — and having fun!

So, I decided to work this neat little model in my mind from the bottom up to get the result I wanted (C…RAFT):

Circumstance (the same neutral subject): Skiing

Result: Skiing is fun again!

Action: I’m going to slow down and breathe to let go of the physical tension I’m holding on to.

Feeling: Gratitude. I finally notice the fresh air, amazing views, and feel grateful to be able to participate in a sport with my son (though he laps me all day long).

Thought: I can start and stop anytime I want. I’m not competing with anyone; this is just for me!

Working the model backward put me in a completely different space. I was able to remember why I love skiing so much. Maybe I don’t ski like I used to, but I’m still here — a lot of people give up long before they reach their mid-50s.

Thanks to the work I did, I was able to create a completely different outcome and experience for myself. The only thing that changed was my mindset, everything else was exactly the same. In the end, the lunch was great, and I enjoyed skiing the rest of the day. What a difference.

Apply This Model to Leadership and Career

You are the only person who can change your thoughts. Someone else can remind you, but really, it’s up to each of us to take responsibility for our thoughts and make adjustments where needed. Mastering these mindset shifts is our work to do, and like everything, it’s a choice.

Sometimes I work with clients who are considering making a career change, or maybe they’re staying in a work situation because they feel like they should, or they have to rather than truly want to. They express thoughts like, “I’m so tired of all this change. My boss is ineffective. I don’t feel appreciated. I don’t know how to do this.”

In these situations, I remind them that, guess what? You get to think another thought! Sometimes we don’t even recognize that we’re having a thought that gets us worked up, makes us feel like we’re trapped, or otherwise impacts us in a negative way.

When you identify a thought, I encourage you to go through the CTFAR model and see where you end up. Sometimes people have four, five, six, — or more — really challenging thoughts. Take a sticky note and run each thought through the CTFAR model from top down to get a clear sense of how the thought is affecting you.

Do it until you get tired of yourself. At that point, you’ll feel a shift, and it’s time to work the model backward. Start by deciding on the result you want and work your way back to the thought you need in order to get there. You’ll wind up with more helpful thoughts, like, “I could be a part of the solution. My boss is going through a lot right now. I own my career. Learning something new will help me grow.”

That’s very different from, “I’m just going to quit.” You have tremendous power to change your situation, no matter what is going on.

Change Your Mindset, Change Your Experience

Whether you’re standing on a mountain scared to go down another run or sitting on your eighth Zoom call of the day, you can learn how to master your thoughts and change your results and your experience along the way. You will also change the energy that you give to others, and how they respond to you.

Like most things in life, this concept is relatively simple. Mastering it takes awareness, intention, motivation, reflection… and sometimes a coach.

If you would like support, connect with me here.

P.S. I’m happy to report that the next time I went skiing, I had a FABULOUS DAY!  I’m feeling strong and confident again.  I intentionally managed my thoughts from the minute I awoke that morning through my last run of the day.  The confidence I regained is positively impacting other areas of my life. I can’t wait to get out there again!