Is The Story You Tell Yourself Worth It?
3 practical steps to upgrade your thinking and to grow
“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t - you’re right” - Henry Ford
This post is about stories, so let’s start with a quick one.
World renowned memory and learning expert, Jim Kwik, wasn’t always skillful and influential as he is today. At a young age he fell out of a window, headfirst into a metal object and became unconscious. After losing lots of blood and being escorted to the hospital, it was announced that his brain would never be the same again. He was soon later known as the kid with the “broken” brain.
He was labeled as such by his teacher, and then he started labeling himself with words such as “I’m stupid”, “I’m too dumb to learn”, and “I can’t understand”. His words became true. Focusing became tough. Memorizing became almost impossible. And just understanding things he read was extremely challenging (it took him three years longer than most to learn how to read).
A common thread is that people with limited beliefs don't realize they can improve, but that itself, is a choice of thought.
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of it’s thoughts” - Marcus Aurelius
This is similar to how Jim changed himself. The consistent action of uplifting his inner dialogue (thoughts).
Think “how can I do this?” instead of “I can’t do this”.
Think “that person is interesting” instead of “that person is “weird”
Think “I can get better, no matter how slow” instead of “I’ll never improve”
If you stop and notice, there’s a shift in energy.
Even though this sounds simple to replicate, it can still be difficult for people to start taking the right steps. Some might not even know where to take the steps. Similar to trying to grow an oak tree but you are not sure what seed you have. It’s easier for us to create change when we can label what from what. Or when there’s a guide helping us.
So what’s the first step? Where do we even start? Or what can I do differently?
To answer this, I want to share 3 practical tips you can use starting today, to upgrade your story to be more fulfilling.
1 - Intentional Questions
For this first tip, it might need some context.
According to James Clear, author of the best selling book Atomic Habits, he states that in order to change ourselves, we have to change our habits. And the most effective way to change our habits is to change our identity. Sounds paradoxical, right? Let’s dive deeper.
When we focus on the outcome, we may change our habits momentarily to hit that outcome. Once that outcome is hit, a new outcome must be created in order for people to continue changing their habits for the better.
If our goal is to lose 10 pounds, what happens after we achieve it? It’s a great way to start, but will the growth continue to last? It’s not like we can keep losing weight. What if you just set a new goal? If that works, great.
What if there’s an obstacle (Being overwhelmed by the nuances of “bulking” and “cutting”, or not having the necessary resources to guide them). It’s easy to call it quits this way.
In order to make our habits permanent, we want to make the habit a part of our identity. So rather than trying to follow someone’s workout program in order to hit an arbitrary goal. We can change how we fundamentally view exercising.
Exercising because that’s now something we value and identify with. Or because of longevity, pain free movement, natural source of energy, etc. Once we align the habit with our identity, that’s when a perpetual growth cycle forms.
Why try to change if it’ll only be momentary. Every change should be used as a stepping stone for father, greater change. Not to go back to where we started. Now to move on to the practical step.
A good way to start changing our identity is to ask ourselves a trick question in the morning, called “Intentional Questions”. This method was introduced by author and speaker, Christie Marie Sheldon.
It combines positive affirmations and questions to shift our identity.
Positive affirmations are used to change our beliefs about ourselves, and questions are used to selectively focus on what we’re curious about.
So we are combining the declaration of the affirmation, which is intention, with a question, which opens us up for inspiration.
According to author, Jose Silva, “affirmations alone, may not be enough”. So to put these new types of questions into practice, we want to first, visualize what kind of life we want to live and experience.
If it’s bliss and happiness we search for, we can ask ourselves a question such as “Why am I surrounded by bliss and happiness no matter what?” What you’ll notice is that the universe will give you an answer. Similarly to any question you ask it.
This is the Law of Resonance.
If this sounds silly, remember that it doesn’t cost anything to try. Any efforts to improve your overall well being and richness of life, is worth the shot. Experiment for a couple weeks, and you might see a profound shift in how you experience the world.
2 - Practice self-gratitude
The next is appreciating the best parts of your personality.
Thanking yourself for the hard work you do, the compassion and patience you show towards your family, the focus and love you pour into your work.
Normally we are grateful for materialistic objects that tend to make our lives easier, but when we do ever thank ourselves for who we are? All change stems from within us, so we can start with noticing and loving ourselves. We must remember, what we focus on multiplies and grows, so if we channel our focus on our great qualities, we might be able to make them ever greater.
The purpose is not to feed our vanity, but rather recognize the good in ourselves so we may recognize the good in others.
Appreciating and being grateful for yourself is essentially upgrading the story we tell ourselves.
It alters “I’m trash, I can’t do anything right” to “I can do this”. Once again, there will even be an energy shift, if you can feel it.
3 - Two-Minute Appreciation Technique
Lastly, we can change ourselves by increasing our social connections with the people we know and spend time with.
If we are the average of the five people we spend time with, if we help the people surrounding us to achieve more, will it not help us achieve more ourselves?
Using this philosophy, I want to share an exercise created by Shawn Achor, a best selling author of The Happiness Advantage and Ted talk speaker whose video has been viewed more than twenty million times online.
It’s a simple, yet incredibly powerful tool in which we spend two-minutes of our day to craft a message or email to a person who we feel gratitude towards.
When Shawn did this experiment with a school, bus drivers wrote handwritten thank-you notes to the kids on their bus. The standardized test scores of the children rose by about 22 percent. The school went from a bottom 10 percent school in the United States to one of the top 150 schools to work for in the United States. A result caused by a practice that is as simple as brushing your teeth. When our social connections improve, our performance improves.
It’s much easier to commit to a change when we have a strong support system from those we love. Once again, it all stems from us and our thoughts.
Our “broken” brain friend also realized this and fast forward to the present, he now changes millions of lives helping others become better learners, better memorizers, and better versions of themselves by helping them actualize their full potentials. (Check out his book Limitless for the full transformational story).
We can choose to wait and try to miraculously find inspiration, or we can choose to take action and mold a narrative into our own liking. From objects like pencils, toys, or buildings, to more complex systems like government, relationships, and money, are stories that were made in someone’s head.
We have the freedom to create stories for ourselves too. To fight for a cause. To make a difference. Or to just smile. It’s your choice.
What do YOU want to believe in?
This post was inspired from The Buddha and the Badass by Vishen Lakhiani