model help – work and career

A few years ago, an incident at work occurred that wasn’t my fault but which I found very upsetting and had knock-on consequences for me and my work, and every once in a while this thought “you should have known how to deal with it better” keeps cropping up, which gets me into a rather stuck and frozen state.

I have identified the unintentional model for this (posted below) and what I have done so far is respond to it with the thoughts “you dealt with it as best as you could” or “you’re not responsible for other people’s actions”. The thing that baffles me is that I do actually believe these thoughts – I genuinely think I did what I could at the time, in fact I even feel pride for how I stood up for myself in the aftermath, and I obviously can’t control someone else’s actions, yet I never seem to manage to stay in the resulting intentional models for very long.

I think maybe the fact that I ended up losing that job may have something to do with why the “you should’ve dealt with it better” thought keeps cropping up. I think there’s a part of me that goes “well you lost that job, you must have done something wrong”, which is fighting with the part of me that doesn’t want to take any blame cause it feels too unfair. So maybe the way I’ve approached these models so far isn’t right. Help?

Unintentional
C: incident at work
T: you should have known how to deal with it
F: shame, guilt
A: don’t move on, don’t provide myself with compassion, procrastinate in new job
R: feel stuck and in frozen state, insecure

Intentional (but unsuccessful?)
C: incident at work
T: you dealt with it as best as you could
F: compassion, pride
A: move on, continue with work
R: feel confident

C: incident at work
T: you’re not responsible for other people’s actions
F: calm, indifferent
A: move on, continue with work
R: feel confident and proactive

Answer:

This is a great insight to bring to AAC because I think that so many people share your experience of being in the place you’re in with your models right now…why is it so hard to stay in the IM if it feels so much better? The answer is that you have a human brain. A beautiful human brain. Now let’s take a look at the R line of your models.

In your UM, I think you’ve just about nailed it…you’re stuck trying to reconfigure the past, hoping that you’ll find where you or someone else went wrong.

In your IMs, your written result is to feel confident (and proactive) but those aren’t connected to your T line…I’d guess that your Rs are actually these:

You continue to deal with it as best you can (“it” being the residual difficult Ts and Fs)
You focus on what you are responsible for.

Do you see how these are more connected to your Ts? They have a very fluid nature. What’s interesting is that the thoughts you identified as being in the way of you staying in these models, “You lost your job, you must have done something wrong,” and, “I don’t want to take any blame cause it feels too unfair,” lead to either/or results: you’re either taking all the responsibility for losing your job, or none of the responsibility. I would guess that these thoughts work for you because they help you make sense of why you feel shame. You either did something wrong or someone else did – but that’s not what creates your feelings. What creates your feelings are your thoughts about what you or someone else did.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to stay in our intentional models because the reason we’re trying to be there in the first place is to avoid processing what’s in our unintentional ones. I would guess that’s going on here. I know it feels uncomfortable, but before you try to jump out of your UMs (both the one you presented here, and the ones that come from “You lost your job, you must have done something wrong,” and “I don’t want to take any blame cause it feels too unfair,”), answer these questions:

What do these unintentional models have to teach you?
What do you find interesting about them and/or getting to know how your brain works?
What do you have to process in order to step into some new models? On a scale of 1-10, how willing are you to do that? What would get you closer to a 10?

Come back for more coaching when you’re ready.