The Frame: See – Feel – Do – Get

All people have things in their life that are important. What’s important varies from person to person but for most high school students the following are usually pretty important:

• Having a good relationship with family members and friends,
• Having good health,
• Doing well in school: academics and extracurricular activities.

Top 20s and Bottom 80s both want to get what’s important to them. What is different, however, is that Top 20s know what to do when they are not getting what’s important to them. They understand and use The Frame.

See ~The Frame~ Feel What this Frame suggests is that:     The way we see things (our beliefs about situations, other people or ourselves) affects how we feel How we feel (our emotions) affects what we do (our behavior or actions) What we do affects what we get (the results) Guess what!! What we get tends to reinforce how we see or our beliefs. Get Do

So if you are getting what you want to be getting, if you are getting what is important to you, then you should keep doing what you are doing, feeling what you are feeling, and seeing it the way you are seeing it.

Three Options
But sometimes you are not getting what you want to be getting. You may not be getting the grade you want in your Spanish class, you may not be the starting point guard on the basketball team, or you may not have the relationship with your parents that you desire. If that’s the case, what should you do that would make the biggest difference in increasing your chances of getting what is important?

You have three choices.

First, you could choose to change nothing. You would continue to see it the way you have been seeing it. You would continue to do what you have been doing. And you would continue to get the same results you have been getting. This pattern results in insanity. Isn’t it insane to expect different results if you continue to see it the same way and do the same thing?

Second, you could try to change what you feel or do. This might make a little difference in the results you’re getting but it wouldn’t bring about the big change you’re hoping for. Furthermore, the new actions would continue to present a challenge for you. It would always seem like hard work.

Third, you could change how you see the situation and everyone involved. Change in seeing gives you the possibility for the big change in results you’re hoping for. Furthermore, you will quickly change what you are doing. The new action will seem more natural because it will flow out of the new seeing.

“After school every day I do work-study and I would always see it as such a horrible thing and how I don’t want to do it. So by the end of the day I’d feel lazy and not do the work as well as I should. Then my supervisor would tell me that teachers complained. So the day we learned See-Feel–Do-Get I decided to look forward to work-study and when I did that I did my work better and got compliments instead of complaints.”
                                                                                             -Sara, student

Let’s use an example to see how this works. Imagine that your English teacher has assigned you to read a play by Shakespeare. The way you see this assignment will likely make a difference in the results you get.

See Difficult, waste of time ~The Frame~ Feel Stupid, bored Get Poor grade, bad experience Do Don’t pay attention or do homework

But what if you saw the assignment differently?

See Challenge, new experience ~The Frame~ Feel Motivation, anticipation Get Learn something, develop Star Qualities Do Pay attention, ask questions, get help

Throughout this book we will refer to this Change Model as the Frame or See–Feel–Do–Get. It’s a powerful tool through which you can look at situations and relationships in order to create a better ride for yourself.