The Self Coaching Model

Five lines that help you understand what is happening in your mind—and what you are creating from it.

By Brooke Hicks · The Life Coach School

A problem can feel like one enormous, tangled thing.

Something happened. You feel awful. You reacted. Now you have a result you do not want, and you are not sure where to begin.

The Self Coaching Model gives you a way to separate those pieces. I created it as a tool for looking at your mind on paper. Its five lines are circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results.

The central teaching is simple: thoughts create feelings, which drive actions and results. Learning to see that process in your own life takes practice.

C: Circumstances are the facts

Start with what happened, without adding your opinion about it.

Other people’s words and behavior, events in your past, and specific facts about your situation can go here. Use details that could be verified.

“My manager said these words” is a circumstance. “My manager is impossible” is your interpretation. That distinction is one of the most useful parts of the Model.

You are not required to like a circumstance. You are separating it from your thinking so you can see each clearly.

T: Thoughts are sentences in your mind

Write one thought you have about the circumstance.

Thoughts can feel completely true. They can also be so familiar that you mistake them for facts. Look for judgments, opinions, and predictions.

“I will never figure this out” is a thought. Notice what happens when you believe it. The purpose is to understand its effect before rushing to replace it.

F: Feelings are emotions

Use one word to name the feeling that comes from the thought: anxious, discouraged, excited, calm, or committed, for example.

“I feel like nobody listens” is another thought. What emotion do you experience when you believe nobody listens?

Keeping the feeling to one word helps you identify the emotion driving the next part of the Model.

A: Actions include what you do and avoid

Ask what you do when you feel that particular emotion.

Include actions, reactions, and inaction. Do you speak up, withdraw, postpone, criticize, practice, or make a plan?

Stay with the feeling in this Model. If you switch to what you wish you did, or describe what happens from a different emotion, you lose the connection you are trying to understand.

R: Results show what your actions create

Look at the outcome of those actions. Focus on your own result, rather than predicting how someone else must respond.

Notice how the result may reinforce the original thought. A thought that stops you from trying can leave you with little progress, which then seems to confirm that you cannot succeed.

A practical example

Imagine your employer eliminates your position. That event belongs in the circumstance line.

Your thought might be, “There are no options for me.” The feeling is discouraged. Your actions include avoiding applications, not contacting anyone, and repeatedly reviewing why nothing will work. Your result is that you have not explored the available options.

Now you can see the pattern. You do not have to pretend the job loss is welcome. You can examine whether this particular thought is helping you respond.

Understand before you change

Begin with a thought download: write what is on your mind. Choose one sentence and complete a Model around it. Observe with curiosity and compassion.

When you understand the current pattern, try a believable new thought in a separate Model. “I can investigate one option today” may be more useful than an affirmation you do not believe.

Notice the feeling it creates, the action it supports, and the result that action can produce. Practice the new thinking instead of demanding instant change.

The Model is a tool for awareness. Use it to understand yourself, then choose your next step more deliberately.