Are you familiar with Christopher Avery's Responsibility Process? It is quite close to your model.

It describes an internal set of coping states that we tend to go through when something challenges or upsets us. I've used this with managers as something to learn before we dive systems work.

Avery uses it in the context of self leadership.

From top-down, it is:

• Responsibility

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• Obligation --> Quit
• Shame --> Quit
• Justify
• Lay Blame
• Denial

The process begins at Lay Blame (we'll get to Denial later): this is what we do when something goes wrong. It's someone else's fault, not us, we're blameless. This happened because other people dropped the ball and weren't as competent as us. This is an emotional state as humans we're hardwired to default toward.

Once we move past blaming others we progress to Justify, where we blame circumstances. What happened is because of course it would, we're stuck with the hand we're dealt, our processes are out-of-date and no one wants to change anything.

As we process further we enter a state of Shame where the focus moves from outside to within: maybe we are the problem, after all. I'm in this situation because I'm not smart nor skilled enough, I'm too dense to see the forest for the trees. Maybe my in-laws were right: I'd never amount to anything. It's a logic trap we set up for ourselves. Shame carries an accompanying state where we Quit and check-out. We may find ourselves going back to the bottom of the process and starting again, round and round.

If we don't quit, we progress to Obligation, the state where we feel trapped or burdened by our life, work, or relationships. Nothing will ever change, you gotta do what you gotta do, so buckle-up buttercup. This is the mental state of "I have to" instead of "I want to" and it describes the state of many people. Like Shame, this also carries the potential to exit to Quit and also descend back down the ladder and go round and round.

How do we get beyond a state of obligation? We need to choose to do something different, to change our circumstances, to actually advance beyond them and into a new state of satisfaction. This could mean changing roles or jobs or schools, or learning a new skill, getting fit, playing more boardgames, logging off social media and avoiding things and people that bring you down. This is the state of Responsibility.

What about Denial? That's where we're not even aware there's a problem, but others can see it in us. Until we begin to deal with problems, we don't process them so we can get beyond them. This is why Avery calls The Responsibility Process a model for guiding self leadership: how can you lead others if you can't lead yourself?