The Stories We Tell Ourselves

There is no greater enemy to our dreams than the stories we tell ourselves. Many a times have I found myself being guilty of creating these stories. You know those stories, those excuses we use to get out of challenging situations, the ones that stop us from going for that promotion, running that mile or kicking that bad habit. These stories usually manifest as a result of our fear. Whether it be our fear of failure or fear of rejection rest assured our minds will get us out of the bind by creating stories for us. Those stories are our minds way of protecting us and as a result we listen to them, after all who wants to fail. When ever we start to set ourselves amazing goals we tend to hear that little voice in the back of our minds that is constantly coming up with reasons why that would never work. For instance I have set myself the goal of becoming a Spekaer and although I am actually trying and making the effort to move forward with this goal there are times when I tell myself so many times why I cant be a speaker yet. I have enrolled in a Brian tracy class and I did watch the videos and put in some work but stories I tell myself are I m not there yet and I cant come up with the right audience or goal for my first speech. But I do know that I can do it and as long as I keep waking up everyday and remind myself what my number 1 goal is right now then I will find the time and drive to keep at it and take the necessary steps to get there. I have voluntarily spoken to my son’s basketball team, I have spoken at some major health conferences by overcoming these stories.

Another point to be aware of is that our minds create stories about what others are thinking about us. I am sure you have been in conversations where your mind started to create stories about the person you were having a conversation with. Many a time my voice has had a full blown conversation with someone and even come up with outcomes of a conversation that hasn’t actually happened. Although it is great to listen to our voices at time as it tells us when something might be a bit dodgy it is best to ignore our voice when it is there as a result of fear. Fear can be a good thing but in most cases fear blocks us from following our goals when we are striving to become the best versions of ourselves to the point where we end up not doing anything because the fear has already convinced us through voices that there’s something wrong with the idea that we have and how it could never possibly work. My strategy to address this continues to be a work in progress and I must say it requires a lot f strength and perseverance to shut down the voices. As Napoleon Hill would put it you need to have decisiveness of purpose. You have to have a great big personal why as to why you want to achieve a certain goal and having this decisiveness of purpose is what will call out your voice when it is trying to bring you down and have u work at less than your potential. I will bet you anything that even succeful high achievers still struggle with the stories they tell themselves but they take the necessary steps to shut down these stories. Such steps could include sharing these goals with people that you believe will help you focus on the end goal and the process of how to get that result. When our voices are trying to shut us down in terms of limiting our dreaming due to negative talk back we need other visionary people to help keep us on a path of greatness.

As part of my job I face times when I have to give not such glowing feedback and obviously that is not easy and my mind starts coming up with reasons as to why the other person will take it badly. I can create stories about how the feedback will be recieved or I can to just go ahead and do what needs to be done. I will admit its easier to avoid the uncomfortable feelings and our stories make it easier to do this but this is not the way forward. Moving forward we all need to make more of an effort to be aware of our stories when they start showing up. I want to make myself ccountable for my actions and to call myself out when I start letting my stories/excuses take over and limit my growth and I hope you all can also do the same.