Shawn Ellis teaches the SWITCH method: notice an automatic thought, question if it's true, check how it makes you feel, then choose to believe it or let it go. The four-step process helps you swap negative stories for ones that actually serve you.
And I don't know about you, but I think if they can find a way in those conditions to shift their attitude, to shift their thoughts, then certainly I can do it. What about you? I think we can find a way in the midst of all this to shift our thoughts, to shift our story. And let me just share a really simple method. I call it the SWITCH method because one day I was with Brody at a gymnastics class when he was much younger, and I noticed there were these different stations around, and the kids would line up at the stations and do whatever the exercise or movement was, and then they would just say the the teacher would say, "Switch!" And the kids would just hurry off to another station. And I thought, what if we could do the same with our thoughts? What if we could do that? What if we could just switch and shift our thoughts? Because if you can change your thoughts, then you totally change your experience. And here's how we do it. First of all, just, you've got to notice the thought you're having. Notice this is a thought. Question is, is it true? Like, is this just a story that I'm making up, or is that really the truth? And then to consider, how does that thought make you feel? When we showed the quadrant Where do you want to live on that quadrant? Does this thought line up with that or not? And then you get to choose whether you want to believe that thought or let it go. You get to choose. You have the power to choose, to switch your thoughts. So can you think of a situation where you can use this in your own life, in your own work? Can you think of a difficult situation that where, you know, you've been focused on one thing, you've been focused on what's wrong or what's missing? But you could shift your focus to something else. And then you've been thinking like, man, everything is horrible. This is terrible. This is never going to work. Like, I can't do this. I can't live like this. Is that true? How does that thought make you feel? Can you think of a place where you can use that? So that's just a little process you can use to shift your thoughts.
Shawn Ellis | Choose Your Ending™ — Radical Adaptability Keynote Speaker Highlights
