WHAT'S YOUR STORY?

Who are you?  Seriously, how would you answer that?  I could say I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a daughter of God.  Some things are true and factual, but the rest is just our thoughts about who we are.

How do you know who you are?  How do you know what you are capable of?  In reality, we define ourselves with our thoughts.  Do you look to the past to define who you are, basing it on what you have done or accomplished, experiences you have had, things that have happened to you?

When we base our belief about ourselves on the past, we allow it to define us.  When we retell the same story over and over we easily fall into the "victim of my past" trap and get weighed down in the thoughts of it all.  It's easy to do when we believe so hard that it's all true.  But our past is really just our thoughts about it.

One of the most powerful coaching sessions I have had with a client went like this...I asked her to tell me the story about herself.  She started with things she remembered as a small child and told me things that happened and experiences she had all the way up to the present.  Most of them were really hard and sad things.  Then I asked her how she felt about her story.  She responded that it was accurate and it made her feel really sad.

Then I asked her to retell the story using the same facts and experiences and change each thing in to something positive.  For example; we moved a lot when I was a kid and I always had to switch schools(negative).  Instead it became; I got to live in a lot of different places and make many new friends.  I learned how to be flexible and adaptable.  When we were finished I asked her how she felt about her new story.  She said it was accurate and she felt really empowered.  Same story, different outcomes!

"If you're only allowed to think what you've already thought and imagine what is possible based on the capability from your past, the world will always stay as small as your past.  If you get to define yourself based on what is possible for you, everything is opened up!  There is no limit as to what you can do." ~ Brooke Castillo

And one more..."Don't let who you used to be hold you back from who you can become." ~Al Carraway

What is the story you tell about yourself?