(re)Framing Your Life: Make Your Life Events Your Ultimate Fuel
The events of our lives shape us, our beliefs, our actions, and ultimately our life.
They are the seeds of what makes us who we are.
It is universal for there to be a mix of positive and negative life events during our life.
The positive events are fun to look back upon but the negative ones might be leaving a wound deep within us. These events are of course of different magnitudes of good and bad.
The past is indeed the past. But, what if we can utilize these past life events to craft the best reality possible in the future?
The Influential Idea of the Framing Effect
There is a psychological bias in humans called the framing effect.
The gist of this bias is that as humans, the decisions we take are influenced based on the way that the information is presented to us rather than the information itself.
For instance, say you are going to buy gold and there are two shops. One claims to have 97% purity in their gold products while the other claims to only have 3% impurity in their gold products.
As per this bias, people are more likely to buy from the shop claiming to have 97% purity.
In actuality, both of them are the same thing.
However, humans are wired in a way where our choices are influenced by the words, context, & reference points used. This is our brains way of processing information faster.
Furthermore, humans tend to avoid loss as a priority before seeking gain.
This is validated by the work done by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in their ‘prospect theory’ where they came to the conclusion that humans want to avoid sure losses and thus seek options that have certain gain.
Psychological (re)Framing
Thus, this concept note provides the opportunity that when positive features are highlighted over negative ones, people will shape their decisions favorably for the one with the positive features.
This is where reframing becomes powerful.
If we look at art, there are frames to present them.
The purpose of this frame to enhance the best features of a piece of art to the audience.
If the artist has created an art where red is central to the essence of the art, they may seek a frame with red in order to enhance this color to the audience.
Similarly, we can apply the same idea towards our own beliefs & actions based on our life events.
Human consciousness enables us to choose on how we respond to life’s events. Two people might interpret the exact experience they had differently.
The Key Question : How do we frame our life events that pushes us forward?
It is thus clear & validated that we can choose the lenses we choose for our past events.
We can do a simple exercise with a pen & paper to enable this.
The steps of the exercise is as follows:
- Get a paper(at least A4 in size) & draw everything as below except the dots.
2. Now, go into reflection mode. Write down all the major life events as good & bad.
3. If you want to make this exercise even more effective, place the life events based on their magnitude of good or bad. For instance, a very bad life event would be placed farther from the mid point.
4. Take your time with this exercise. Do it in an environment with solitude.
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Now, after you have done this exercise, one thing you can realize is that placing these life events as good or bad is your current ‘frame’ of how you view these events.
5. re(Frame) the events that are causing you pain
There would surely be some life events that are giving you emotions of anger, hurt, regret, frustration, guilt, fear, doubt, or even denial.
But, do these emotions really have to continue with you forever for these life events?
This is by far the most important step of the process.
As mentioned in the example above, look back on how you are viewing that negative event?
You may be currently seeing the 3% impurity of gold rather than the 97% purity.
What if you could reframe the life event to see 97% purity?
An example of my life would be the 2015 earthquake that shook Nepal. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake was probably the day I’ll never forget in my life.
What I especially recall is the night of that event. We had to sleep in a small space around our homes as it was too dangerous to be at our homes.
It was packed with all the people of the area but we needed to manage anyhow.
Since it was so packed, my family’s area was near a wall with some spikes to it that was constantly moving with aftershocks which didn’t seem to end.
I spent the entire night just looking at that wall that night in a state of fear.
After a couple of days, me and my father went around the city hearing stories of people and witnessing the damage.
I especially recall a grandmother who lost her son, daughter in law, and their two children being the lone survivor. I’ll never forget the way she broke out in tears telling her story.
I also recall visiting a place where the area was stinking because of dead bodies.
But, over the years, I have framed this event to always remind me to be grateful for my life.
Whenever I feel bad or am having a really hard time in life or at least feel like that, I recall that wall, that grandmother’s story, or the smell of those dead bodies in 2015.
They are enough to straighten up my thinking on how grateful I am for the life I have and put the problems I currently face in a better perspective.
Similarly, we all have events in our lives both positive and negative spanning a variety of events maybe personal, professional, financial, medical, etc.
Now, unlike an actual frame in an art, the frames we choose to put in life can change because our thoughts are constantly fluctuating.
However, if we can make the framing meaningful moving forward as the dominant frame even though the negative emotions associated with that life event still lie, that can make our lives better & make living in this sometimes chaotic world easier!
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For a macro view of key life events & identifying them as a fuel, you should do this exercise of your entire life till now.
But, the same idea can be used in a micro context as well such as a monthly overview of key events.
There are even small things maybe in your personal life or at work which is affecting you. Even these can be framed with the same ideas mentioned above.
I hope you all the best for you to frame your life events in a way that provides you fuel to move forward!
Many thanks to Mrs. Clara Karki who introduced me to the idea of Framing Your Life in the final semester of my college.
