Sculpt your story to maximize your potential

 Yesterday I wrote about the idea that the stories we have about ourselves create our reality. Today I want to share a simple exercise you can do on an ongoing basis to start sculpting your stories in a positive direction.

Try this. Sit down and make a list of positive things you believe about yourself - your positive stories. Next, make a list of your negative stories about yourself. Then try an experiment. For the next week, spend some time sculpting your stories (you can make this an ongoing habit, but try it for a week first).

Reinforce the positive

Pick one of the things from the positive list and ask yourself, where is the supporting evidence? What have I done that supports this? What has happened that reinforces this belief? Build a conscious picture for why it's true. Spend some time every day focusing on that. Make a point of looking for more evidence to support that story from your daily experience and activity.

As your list of evidence starts to grow, pick one of those things and go deeper. What happened? Why did that work? Start to build an intimate understanding of your positive story.

The negative: Create a contra-story

On the flipside, we all have negative stories about ourselves. While they may feel like Truth with a capital T, typically they're not.

There's a big difference between having done something - even repeatedly - and taking that something on as your identity. If your negative story is, "I'm lazy," it's the difference between, "I have historically had lazy habits, but that is possible to change" and, "I'm lazy at the core, so there's no hope of change."

Just like you did with the positive stories, you're going to look for evidence here. Except this time you're going to look for evidence to counter your story. This may be a bit more challenging, especially at first.

Look for any evidence to support the contra-story (e.g., why you're not lazy, why you're actually motivated and hard-working). It doesn't need to be big and dramatic. At first all you're trying to do is to gain a toe-hold on a new story. "Well, maybe I'm not completely lazy. Maybe there are times when I'm actually motivated and hard-working. Like that time I shoveled my neighbor's sidewalk because I knew she wasn't feeling well."

As you go through your week, keep looking for more evidence to support your contra-story. Start to build a new pattern.

This isn't a magic-wand solution. I'm not suggesting that a negative story will suddenly change overnight just because you're looking at evidence to the contrary. But by creating a contra-story, and actively, consistently looking for supporting evidence, you create a new space and a new direction to grow into.

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Comments

[PowderLover]

Thanks for sharing this positive way of looking at ourselves.

PowderLover

[Curt Rosengren]

You bet! And thanks for reading. :-)