ITAC
Pronounced Eye-Tack.
Identity → Thoughts → Actions → Consequences
ITAC is the framework used to examine the relationship between Identity, Thoughts, Actions, and Consequences.
You can use it to look backward at something that already happened and understand how it came together. It becomes most useful while the next action is still available to you, because that is the point where examining anything can still change what you do.
The sequence
- 01
Identity
How you understand yourself as you enter a situation. It is the starting point the rest is examined from, not a guarantee of what comes next.
- 02
Thoughts
Thoughts can be influenced by identity, experience, environment, and pressure. A thought can carry weight, but a thought is not an instruction.
- 03
Actions
What you actually do. An action is separate from what you intended, what you considered, and what you told yourself you would do.
- 04
Consequences
What follows an action. Consequences give you information; they do not automatically prove that an action matched or violated your standards.
Where your part begins
Things happen that you did not choose, did not cause, and could not control. ITAC is not an argument that everything in your life traces back to you.
It is a way to recognize where your own choices begin, so you can examine the part that is actually yours to examine.
The framework is the beginning, not the whole of it.
The book works through the standards behind the identity you are examining, and what it takes to keep that examination going.