It's all about the frame

It's not what happens to you that counts - it's how you interpret what happens to you. It's all about how you frame it when you think about it. It's not what's there - it's what you see, what you notice. And when you remember events, you remember the story that you wrapped around the events more than you do the particulars of the actual events themselves. Your frame drives your understanding, and your understanding drives your behavior.

Here's an illustration: a young engineer in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. made a commute each day that ranged from 60-90 minutes, depending upon traffic.?He despised the drive in the miles-long string of brake lights...until the day that he discovered audible books and podcasts. Once he had something interesting to listen to, his commute was transformed from drudgery to entertainment, education, even inspiration. It still took him an hour and a half to get home some days, but instead of arriving there tired he was energized as a result of his "moving classroom".

The owner (and resident technical expert) of a small business was perpetually frustrated by the performance of his employees. He hired experienced workers to bypass some of the trials of the learning curve, but they were sometimes the worst performers. Couldn't they see the obvious about appropriate work flow? He had been in the business so long that he had?forgotten?more about it than they?knew. Instead of focusing on the "goodness" or "badness" of an employee, he learned to reframe the work in terms of a series of process steps, and thereby became more effective in training and providing feedback. They, in turn, became better at meeting his expectations.

Your frames are more a reflection of you, your attitudes, your assumptions and expectations than they are of what's actually in front of you. What if your child IS actually trying his best, with performance appropriate to his level of development? How would it change things in your relationships if your frame was that the other person has good intentions??

Your stories about events mold your experiences and your memories. If you were to reframe, to attempt to see things through a different lens for more satisfying results, what would be your first target?