You are the storyteller of your own life

“How we see ourselves is the most important factor in what we will do and the results we will get in our lives.” (Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School)

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How to intentionally organise your thoughts about you 

The stories we tell ourselves determine how we show up in life – and how we show up in life determines the results we get.

If we want to make changes in our life, we need to intentinally change the stories/thoughts in our mind.

• • First, we have to become aware of the stories we tell about ourselves. 
  • Then, we clean up the thoughts we think about ourselves. We declutter any self-limiting thoughts and replace them with new thoughts.
  • Supported by our new thoughts about ourselves we can start to feel differently and act differently, more in accordance with who and how we want to be. 

What thoughts do you think about yourself?

Our thoughts often are so ‘normal’ and common that we don’t realise we have them.

We have to learn to pay close attention to what’s going on in our mind.

Ask yourself questions like these 

• • What do I think about myself? About my personality?
  • What do I think about my abilities? About my weaknesses?
  • What do I think about my accomplishments? About my failures?
  • What do I think about myself compared to others?
  • What do I think about my life?
  • What do I think about important parts of my life (my relationships, my finances, my work, my home, etc.)?
  • What do I think about my past?
  • What do I think about my future?
  • What else do you think is important to think about?

What’s your story?

If your life was a book, what would the title be? What would the titles of the chapters be?

Use the questions listed above as a guideline and start to write down your story.

Don’t overthink it, just start writing. Trust yourself and don’t hold yourself back, tell yourself all your thoughts about yourself and your life.

What do you like about your story? What do you not like?

Write it down. Think about it.

What could be your new story?

Now start to write the story you want to intentionally tell about you. There are no limits to who you want to be.

Useful questions to ask yourself:

• • Who do I want to be?
  • How do I want to define myself?
  • How do I want to think about myself?
  • How do I want to feel about myself?
  • What do I want to achieve?
  • What do I want my story to be? What are the titles of my new story and its chapters?
  • What else do you want to ask yourself – and answer?

Don’t rush into your new story! 

For many of us, putting ourselves in the centre of our attention and care feels a bit weird.

Intentionally thinking about ourselves and uncovering the stories we have been telling ourselves (and others) about our life and about ourselves are activities we are not used to and we have not been trained to do.

So it’s important that you don’t try to rush through the process.

Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t feel like noticing, observing, evaluating your thoughts about yourself.

Take your time, be patient and compassionate with yourself, take care of yourself.

Always remember:

The stories you tell about yourself, the thoughts and feelings you have about yourself – they are all choices. You can but you don’t have to keep them. You can intentionally make new choices.

You are the storyteller.

You can edit and change the story of your life and you can exchange the thoughts and feelings you have about yourself – at any time.

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“You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend, or not.” (Isabel Allende)

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