Your story, the one you’ve come up with, might well be a convincing and logical work of fiction. Yet it remains just that.
Don’t believe everything you think. A lot of it is bullshit.
I was working with a client recently, who came up with the compelling story that he wasn’t enough unless he was loved by everyone.
This is a persuasive story. It caused him to hide from the limelight and give away his power.
A bullshit story had taken over the narrative of his life.
Lance Armstrong, Tony Robbins, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, James Altucher, Ariana Huffington, Amelia Earheart…
All had their own stories. Some empowered them, others not. Some chose their stories, many had them written for them. Stories written on the basis of past events and put together with facts can seem true, but are all too often lies.
Lies that keep us safe. Lies that nurture our comfort zone. Lies that play out the story of our lives, but on the wrong path.
Don’t believe everything you think.
You are your stories. They determine your thoughts, which determine your feelings, which determine your actions, which determine your habits, which determine your daily life, which determines your destiny.
“Your days are your life in miniature” -Robin Sharma
Don’t let the story you’ve been telling yourself determine your life.
Question it, no matter how long you’ve been attached to it.
If you can’t question it, get someone to lead you to the truth. Allow someone to be a small light on your path. Let them into your story, let them show it up for the bullshit it is and let yourself be free. Get a coach.
“The only limitation is that which one sets up in one’s own mind” -Napoleon Hill
How do I create an empowering story?
- Question your old story
Keep asking yourself “WHY” until you find out the real reason why you are believing your story. It will be painful (you’ve held onto this bullshit for a while so it won’t let go without a fight) and it can only be uncovered when you are completely truthful with yourself. Write this old, false story down. It often reveals itself for what it is when you write it on paper.
2. Get in a peak state
This is Tony Robbins territory. He states that to create your new, empowering story you need to be in a peak state. Feeling emotionally and physically charged. To do this you simply have to make a radical change in your body. Do ten power moves (pumping fists and shouting “YES!” at the top of your voice!!!). Play your all time favorite song and dance like you’ve never done before.
Get moving. Do what makes you feel unstoppable.
3. Make a new, empowering story
When you are in a peak state you have to stay there and get out of your head and write down your new story without hesitation. e.g. “I am… confident, a leader, an innovator, unshakeable, an inspirer of change…” You cannot write with the filter of your brain.
Get out of your head and write from the heart.
You will know what to do when you are in the right state.
“Stay in your head, you dead” -Tony Robbins
4. Make this story YOUR story
The only way to do this and to get congruency is to repeat this in what Napoleon Hill calls “auto-suggestion”. This is the process of repeating your new and true story every day and with FAITH.
If you don’t attach unwavering faith and emotion to your new story, it will not stick. To do this, get in a peak state and repeat your story aloud with FAITH. This is the most important step and is the 20% of the work that gives you the 80% of results.
Conclusion
We all know when we are living a story that is not our own. We feel inner conflict, a gap between where we are and where we want to be. We feel like we are cheating ourselves and those around us. We feel like we are missing something.
We distract ourselves through addiction to the meaningless. We procrastinate, lie, cheat and ignore reality.
The only reason we stick with our bullshit stories for so long is because we are afraid of what will happen if we speak and live our truths.
Tony Robbins says (and truthfully) there are only two fears in life around which all the others revolve:
1. The fear that I am not enough.
2. The fear that I won’t be loved.
In truth, you are neither right now and will be neither at any time. You decide if you are enough and you decide if you will love yourself. Not a parent, spouse, partner or friend. Only you.
There is nothing to fear if your two greatest fears can be solved forever by choosing to live your truth.
Don’t live a lie. For the sake of those you love and for the sake of that moment of regret you will feel on your death bed when you realize that you and only you had the power to make a choice.
Do it now. Live without regret and change the ending of your story.
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Originally published at medium.com