Change Your Story, Change Your Life
Are there parts of your life that you really want to change but can’t work out how? Is your life starting to feel like a constant re-run of an old film where you know exactly what is going to happen and how it is going to end up? Are you tired of repeating the same old patterns that keep you feeling stuck?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it could be time to make a decision to finally ‘change your story’ – yes you know, that one that you keep telling yourself in your head every day or keep talking about to others…
Everybody does it and that is ok, it’s normal to have a set idea of how life ‘is’ right now and it’s human nature to want to share that with others, either as a focus of conversation, to empathise with each other, to get some comfort or simply because we want our feelings validated.
What we do have to be mindful of however, is ‘what our story is’ and even more importantly – ‘what our story is creating’ for us.
Why is this so important?
….Because our story, the one we tell ourselves and others day in and day out is what we become, a self fulfilling prophecy… and it’s these stories that we tell ourselves about who we are, how we are and what we deserve that can keep us stuck in old thinking patterns that stop us being who we really want to be.
The story of our life, how it is, our hardships and what we don’t want, how we are not good enough and so on just becomes a subconscious daily habit that moves us further and further away from what we do want often without even realising it.
Just recognising this in itself can be a great catalyst for change because we are conscious of what we are doing and can start making changes from there.
What is your story?
So what are some of these stories that we keep telling ourselves? It could be things like:
I am not as good as others
I am not deserving
I will never make that much money
I can never get it right
I always fail
I have always been fat
I can’t stop eating
I will never be as successful as others
I always sabotage myself
Something always goes wrong for me
I always struggle
I can’t trust anyone
That will never happen for me
…and so on. I think most of us can recognise a few of the above or other similar variations – I know I can!
This voice in our head that tells us something over and over again until it feels like it just becomes who we are!
Making the shift
You really can change your story and change your life but this takes a conscious shift and this is what puts the brakes on for many of us – I know as I have been there many times myself!
Sticking to what we know may seem like the easy option but it isn’t. All this does is hold us back from creating the life that we truly desire and deserve.
We’re so used to the old stories and our perceptions of reality that we resist trying to look at it in a different way, yet looking past ‘what is’ and making the shift to ‘what we want’ is all about our self talk.
The good news is that you don’t need to sift through all those thoughts that aren’t serving you any more to create change and this should be a big relief for us all as it would take so much time to unravel and dissect those old thinking patterns and doing that would just keep us stuck in our old ways.
If you want to create something new in your life, the fastest way and the least resistant way is to tell yourself a new story. You really can change your story to change your life if you don’t like the way things are.
Start where you are
Firstly we need to work out what story we are telling – both to ourselves and others.
Sometimes we don’t even realise the story we are telling is so far from what we really want in life. So for the next few days, start paying attention to what you are saying and jot down some of what you notice. You just might see a pattern developing that tells a story that is not supporting your aspirations and goals or even simply goes totally against the person you want to be.
Once you realise what your story (reality) is right now – take the part of that story that is making the most impact on you and work out what you want to change it to. It is so worth writing this down and reading it often to remind yourself.
Make sure you change the story to something that sounds right for you. It’s all very well trying to go from the depths of despair to total euphoria but sometimes that’s just too big a step, so you might want to just start with that better feeling thought and change your story gradually.
Here are some examples of reaching for that better feeling thought:
‘I am not as good as others’ becomes ‘I am recognising more and more that I am just as good as others’
‘I am not deserving’ becomes ‘I am learning that I am as deserving as everyone else’
‘I will never make that much money’ becomes ‘I am finding new ways and opportunities to make more money’
‘I can never get it right’ becomes ‘I get a lot of things right every day, examples today are…’
‘I always fail’ becomes ‘I have learned a lot from my failures and appreciate what they have taught me’
‘I have always been fat’ becomes ‘I am learning how to listen to my body and becoming slimmer each day’
‘I can’t stop eating’ becomes ‘I am learning to stop eating when I am satisfied’
‘I will never be as successful as others’ becomes ‘I can be successful at whatever I put my mind to’
‘I always sabotage myself’ becomes ‘I may not get it right all the time but generally I follow through on my commitments’
‘Something always goes wrong for me’ becomes ‘A lot of things go right for me, I am choosing to look for them every day’
‘I always struggle’ becomes ‘I am allowing myself to go more with the flow and find that I do many things with ease’
‘I can’t trust anyone’ becomes ‘I acknowledge my feelings totally and am learning to trust again one step at a time’
‘That will never happen for me’ becomes ‘I am open to all good things coming onto my life now’
From the space of that better feeling thought, you can now make a conscious effort to weave it into your story every day. Every time you catch yourself relaying that old story to yourself and others, do your very best to stop that thought in it’s tracks and replace it with your new improved version.
Easy to do? Not totally – it takes conscious effort to do this again and again until our new story becomes second nature to us but once we do, we will find our outer world has started to shift and change to reflect our new inner world and that totally makes the effort worth it…
… and finally – a little inspiration from Abraham-Hicks
Don’t tell it like it is, tell the story of how you want your life to be. Tell the story of how you want it to be until you begin to believe the story. And when you believe the story, your vibration has shifted and the universe will match your story… every time.
Since that is so, you may as well make sure that story is a good one <3