Why it feels like nothing’s working

And how to use the State → Story → Strategy framework to shed new light on your most painful problems.

Hey friend,

Welcome back to the Primal Question Newsletter.

If this is your first time reading, subscribe here to get future posts in your inbox. If this edition is helpful, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

You’re going to finish this newsletter with a problem solved.

Or (at the very least) a fresh set of solutions you never thought of before.

I want you to think about the most pressing problem in your life right now.

What’s the thing your mind keeps coming back to? The one keeping you up at night? If you’re familiar with the Primal Question framework, think about what’s triggering your Scramble right now.

Don’t think too hard. You know what it is.

• Maybe it’s a marriage that feels like you’re roommates instead of partners.

• Maybe it’s a kid who’s pulling away, and you don’t know how to reach them.

• Maybe it feels like money is going out faster than it comes in.

• Maybe you’re stuck in a job that pays the bills but drains your soul.

• Or there’s a business decision you keep going back and forth on.

Close your eyes for a moment and bring the problem to mind.

Let it sit there. Let it bring up all the emotions it normally does. How does it feel to still be dealing with that same old thing? If you’re anything like the people who hire me for coaching, you probably feel exhausted.

Clients often tell me…

“I feel like I’ve tried everything, and nothing changes.”

If that’s you, I want you to think about what “everything” includes.

If you’ve tried everything to lose the weight, fix the relationship, grow the business, but nothing is working, what exactly have you tried? What have you done to solve the problem?

And not just that.

What have you done to cope with the problem?

When the solutions ran out. When the plan didn’t work. When the idea fell flat. What did you turn to for relief from the pain?

Write it all down.

Every single thing on that list is a strategy.

A strategy is anything you do to try to solve the problem or cope with the pain of not having solved it yet.

It’s an attempt to force the answer to your Primal Question back to a “yes” or deal with “no” answer.

By the way, I want you to practice radical empathy for yourself as you look at that list. There might be some messy stuff on there. There may even be some things you didn’t write down because you don’t want anyone else to ever read them.

Here’s what I want you to know…

When I sit with someone in my practice who’s stuck in an unhealthy, unwanted behavior, I don’t see a broken person. I see a brilliant, creative strategist.

Someone who has spent their whole life finding resourceful, inventive ways to get their needs met. Sure, our strategies fall on a wide spectrum from helpful to harmful. But if we want new solutions, we have to get curious about the old ones.

We have to see them for what they are.

They’re not indictments. They’re creative strategies to meet needs.

Here’s what I’ve learned after years of sitting with people in their hardest, most stuck seasons of life.

Strategy is the wrong starting point.

Our default instinct whenever we have a problem is to come up with a better strategy.

A better plan. Work harder. Work smarter. Try something new.

But this is a mistake.

The truth is, when you “start with strategy”, you’re not starting with strategy at all.

You may think it’s your first step, but your brain has subconsciously taken two steps without you knowing it. And those two steps that your brain took? They predetermine the strategies you come up with.

That’s why you keep coming up with strategies that don’t work.

So what do you do instead?

I’ve been using a simple framework in my own life and with my coaching clients that has changed the way I approach almost everything.

It’s called:

Let’s define the terms.

1. Your state is your inhabited sense of identity.

I know that sounds heady. Let me make it simple.

It’s whatever comes after “I am…”

It’s your current “status” of who you are and HOW you are. For example, your Primal Question is an example of a state. My Primal Question is “Am I safe?”

At any given point, I could be living out of 1 of 2 states:

Grounded State: “I am safe.”

Scramble State: “Am I safe?” or worse, “I am not safe.”

Here are some more examples: I’m good. I’m bad. I’m unworthy. I’m unlovable. I’m successful. I’m broke.

2. Your Story is the narrative that flows from your current state.

It’s the story you tell yourself about the problem, about what’s possible, and about what you’re capable of.

For example, when I’m in a Scramble state, the stories sound like:

• “I need to find an escape plan ASAP.”

• “I’m probably going to run out of money soon.”

• “I need to sell everything and take what I can get.”

But when I’m in my Grounded state, the stories sound completely different:

• “Everything is going to be okay.”

• “There’s plenty available to me.”

• “I have a solid track record of figuring things out.”

Same situation. Two completely different stories.

3. Your Strategy is the set of actions you take based on the story you’re telling yourself.

We already talked about this earlier. It’s everything on your to-do list and everything you do to cope when the to-do list fails. Most of us think this is where we have the most control.

The truth is, by the time you get to strategy, the first two steps have already written 90% of the script.

Now, let’s go back to your problem.

Remember the situation I asked you to think of at the top? And the list of strategies you’ve tried? Look at that list again.

Every single one of those strategies came from somewhere.

Your strategies were informed by a story you were telling yourself. And the story was informed by your current state. Unless you address your current state, you will keep coming up with subpar strategies.

So here’s what I want you to do this week.

Look at your problem, but instead of frantically asking: “What should I do differently? Why is nothing working? What should I try next?!”

Slow down.

Ask a different question first: “What state am I in right now?”

Think about your Primal Question. Are you grounded in your Primal Truth? Or are you living in your Scramble?

Odds are, you don’t need a better strategy. You need a better starting point. Get the state right, and the stories change. When the stories change, the strategies take care of themselves.

Here are 2 journal prompts to help with this.

#1. What would I do if I was already okay?

Imagine that you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt…

1. I am already safe.

2. I am already secure.

3. I am already loved.

4. I am already wanted.

5. I am already successful.

6. I am already good enough.

7. I am already significant.

If that were true, what new story would you tell yourself about your problem? What new strategies or actions would come out of that?

#2. What are 2 things I can do today to get to a grounded state?

In other words, how can I answer my Primal Question with a YES?

Friends, this is the ultimate form of self-leadership.

The most important thing you can do for yourself and the people around you is protect your state.

Everything else follows.

To your growth,

Mike Foster

P.S. Was this helpful? If so, please don’t click away without leaving a like or comment. Your engagement helps other people discover their Primal Question :)

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