Often in our lives, we tend to make assumptions, jump to conclusions and create associations that not entirely accurate. The bad news is that everyone does this. As the late, great Jim Rohn would say, it’s simply known as “stinkin’ thinkin’”.

The good news is that with a little bit of change we can dramatically alter our how our thoughts affect our experiences! Things are going to happen to us, it’s a fact of life and sometimes we tend to dwell on what happened and what we think that means and then that spirals off into an emotion that may or may not have anything to do with the actual experience. This video goes over a quick and easy-to-use tool from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) called “Reframing”. More specifically, “Content Reframing”.

In the wide world of NLP, there are two basic kinds of reframing – content and context. One of them, content, is focused on changing the meaning of what happened. For example, Dave doesn’t want to join the company’s softball team, which means that Dave is not a team player. This may or may not be true but an example of reframing the content might be something like, “Dave doesn’t want to join the company softball team, which means that he wants us to win, but knows he is not as skilled as some of the others.” Content re-framing is all about the changing what comes after the phrase, “which means that”.

Using the same example, content reframing is simply asking the question, “under what conditions would that experience, emotion, action… be considered useful?” Dave doesn’t want to join the team because he wants to finish writing his novel before he loses momentum. Content reframing is simply about changing up the possible environments. In some instances, our “fight or flight” instincts can be quite useful, such as getting out a dangerous situation. In other instances that same action, running away, might not be the best idea, such as when you are about to give a presentation in front of your boss.

Reframing is an INCREDIBLY powerful tool for our everyday lives and professional settings. It allows you to always see the silver lining. Check out the video for a 1 minute overview!