Why I Love To Think in Terms of Frames

This week a couple of people asked me about frames and reframing and how I got into using this particular approach to personal development, so I thought I’d share a quick piece about this. Our courses in particular includes lots and lots of different frames for solving practical problems in many areas of life. What Is a Frame? A frame is a way of representing a problem or situation. With respect to self-development, a frame typically assigns meaning to events. I think you’ll ready understand this with a simple example. Suppose someone says: My wife cheated on me. The word “cheated” is a way of representing events. Cheating implies that the wife broke a rule or did something inherently wrong. This framing casts her actions as problematic. Apparently she did something she wasn’t supposed to do. She crossed a line. If you use that frame, it’s surely going to influence how you approach the situation and the people involved. But is that the only frame that could be used for the same events? No, of course not. What was the apparent event? The wife supposedly had sex with someone else. By itself that event doesn’t mean anything. But of course humans love to assign meaning, partly because the assignment of meaning motivates us to make decisions, take actions, and make sense of the world. So what other frames could we use here? Here are some other possible frames for the same events: My wife enjoyed herself wit...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Abundance Productivity Source Type: blogs