“Look at the bright side.” “Look at the glass as half-full.” “Turn that frown upside down.” You may not have thought about it, but these phrases are a way of triggering the process of cognitive reframing.

Cognitive reframing is a technique used to shift your mindset so you view a situation, person, or relationship from a slightly different perspective. It is not simply putting lipstick on a pig. It is the ability to change whether you believe the thing is a pig in the first place.

Let me get one thing out of the way right off the bat. Not every situation is subject to cognitive reframing; to say otherwise is total bull*hit. I am no Pollyanna.

I’ll give you an example: My dad died of his second heart attach when I was fourteen years old. There was no way my mother, sisters, brother, or I could reframe the situation and the loss we all felt. It was tragic. Period.

I would venture to guess, though, those situations, the ones that can’t be reframed, are relatively rare. They have been in my life. The more common situation is one that can be reframed.

Did you know: The neurochemical cocktail in your brain for fear and excitement is the exact same. Your autonomic nervous system is stimulated and the sympathetic nervous system engaged. The fight-flight-freeze response is triggered, epinephrine, aka adrenaline, is released, your heart rate increases. You are ready to spring into action.

Whether you are fearful or excited, though, depends on how you’re viewing the situation. Put another way, the chemistry is the same and beyond your control, the emotion is 100% in your control. That’s where cognitive reframing comes in.

The purpose of cognitive refraining is to learn to stop automatically trusting your thoughts as representative of reality and to begin testing your thoughts for accuracy. The goal of cognitive reframing is not to be ultra-positive and kid yourself, instead, it is to be fair and to prevent exaggeration.

There’s a five-step process to cognitive reframing:

1. Identify your negative inner monologue. For example, the negative inner monologue surrounding what is perceived to be a “difficult” conversation may be: “The other person is not going to take this well and I am afraid I won’t be able to move the conversation forward in a meaningful way.”

2. Identify your negative feeling. In the example above, the negative feeling(s) could be: overwhelm, worry, powerlessness.

3. Scan for opportunity. Ask yourself: “Is there opportunity in this?” In the example above, the opportunity could be the ability to grow as a leader or to stay on point in the face of distraction.

4. Create a new frame. In the example above, the new frame could be: “This is an opportunity to grow as a leader, show up authentically, and control my 100% of the conversation.

5. Identify new positive feeling. In the example above, the new frame could be: I am capable of having this conversation in a meaningful and authentic way.

Knowledge without action is useless.

What action will you take now that you know, for example, excitement and fear are the same neurochemically, they differ only in emotion you are attaching to the situation? What is one thing in your law practice or your life you can cognitively reframe today?