Coach, specialized in transformation issues, particularly in the professional context, Béatrice Rousset focuses her expertise around the concept of mental models. A term that is far too little known for his taste and yet essential, in order to better understand his repetitive patterns and limiting thoughts.
Understand the concept of mental model
“ The most accurate definition is the way each of us represents the functioning and value of things. His person, an object, others, the world, a company. “. Mental models are therefore our habits, our clichés, our mechanisms, our pre-established patterns. “ When I speak at conferences, I realize that the majority of people do not know this expression. And yet, they immediately understand what it is about. All I want is for us to start using it so that an individual, a collective can reappropriate this notion “. To schematize these mental models in her work, Béatrice Rousset takes the image of a jar, “ this small world in which we live, thinking of sharing the world with others “.
How is the mental model a trap?
Sometimes the mental model is comfortable, reassuring, it also saves us time. But, as Béatrice Rousset develops: “ The trap of the mental model is that it is a belief that we have adopted and which we consider to be an absolute truth. It is necessarily reductive and confining. This is what I represent in the book in the form of a jar. This jar is what keeps us bumping into the same situations, these incessant repetitions in our lives. Until we take a step aside to get out of this, we cannot find the little space to breathe better. Let’s stop taking ourselves for a fool! That’s definitely not who we are. It is a gateway to finding our uniqueness “. The coach materializes this singularity in the form of a small dot, in the center of the jar. It is by discovering it that we manage to extricate ourselves from our narrow box.
Extract yourself from your mental model to access your singularity
To discern the limits of her jar, Béatrice Rousset recommends several approaches, including the Ofman quadrant, a method that she revisits in her work. To do the exercise, fill in the quadrant (2 columns of 2 boxes) this way:
- Your fundamental quality: Those around you have always agreed on it.
- The trap: your excessive quality traps you.
- The challenge: imagine a person who is the opposite of your trap, who amazes you:
you stand your challenge. - Allergy: what you really can’t stand
Béatrice Rousset then explains that quality and challenge are the two founding mental models, the trap and the allergy, the walls of the jar (your limiting thoughts). If instead of opposing each other, these contrary forces unite, we then access our singularity. “ A movement, a dance, between two models that seem contradictory to us. »
It’s up to you to do the exercise to discover the opposing forces that exist within you and that make you a unique person, full of potential and wealth. And Béatrice concludes: “ Above all, don’t try to be like others. Honor your uniqueness. Not your jar, your uniqueness! Because when we are connected to our uniqueness, we benefit from immeasurable energy and the impossible becomes achievable. “.
* What are your mental models? – Decipher yourself to awaken your singularity, Béatrice Rousset, Courrier du livre
Vanina Denizot
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