Life is a game of constant reframing and entrepreneurship is the same. Progression and happiness come from being able to find the good in a bad situation. Being able to move forward when you feel paralysed with fear or indecision.

So how do you get good at reframing? You learn how to do it. Then you practice.

Once you train yourself to become expert at reframing, it becomes a habit. You can’t not do it. You become versed in seeing the good. You thrive in any crisis. You become superhuman.

Reframing is a three-step process. 

  1. Identify the trigger: where you state the adverse situation as it is, without opinion or emotion, just facts.
  2. Be open to the reframe: where you accept the potential for a flipside, even if you don’t see it just yet.
  3. Believe the reframe: where you feel grateful it happened all together, because of what the adversity created.

Here’s an example.

  1. I lost my job. My manager said the company was cutting costs and my role had to go. After this month’s wages the company won’t pay me. My expenses are now higher than my income. 
  2. Even though this sucks, and I feel terrible, I’m open to the idea that this could be a really good thing. I don’t yet see the silver lining, but I believe there might be one there.
  3. I’m grateful I lost my job because I wasn’t enjoying it anyway. Losing my job gave me the shock that I needed to start my own business and now I have done that I’m genuinely pleased it happened.

When it’s laid out in a three-step process it looks easy. I appreciate that it’s not. But getting good at moving from (1) to (2) will mean (3) starts to happen of its own accord. 

Once you’re open to the potential of a flipside or silver lining, they start to appear. Your brain is wired to look for them. You find opportunities you may otherwise have missed. You’re looking for reasons you might be right instead of reasons you are probably wrong.

Try this out and see how your reframing skills fare right now:

  • For any news you hear this week, practice (1), where you state the situation without subjectivity or emotion. Separate what happened from your interpretation of what happened.
  • Look back at the most disruptive event in your life so far. Explain objectively why it represented adversity and jump to (3) where you state why you’re grateful it happened.
  • Think of something you’re struggling with right now, and use (2) to state that you’re open to the possibility that it could turn out to be a really good thing.

Get good at reframing by training yourself to do it. When this comes naturally, nothing can touch you. You’ll be free of fear because you’ll believe that there’s always a way through. You’ll be invincible.