Taking Control of Your Story

A while ago I (Mark) was listening to a podcast by Michael Hyatt about how our internal narrator affects our daily lives. I highly recommend you listen to it. However, I will summarize what I got out of it here.

As we go throughout our day there is the little internal voice that comments about and weaves the story of what happens to us. It adds context to what happens and presumably why. For example, you are driving to work and a guy cuts you off. The internal voice (which very well may become external, because the guy IS completely insane of course) says that the guy is a jerk and deserves any number of terrible things to happen to him. Now, that may be true that he's a jerk, but then again it may not. Your internal voice does not know anything about the guy or what may have caused his lapse in proper driving etiquette. Similarly for ourselves, we can have a very negative narrative for why we do what we do or for who we are. Things like, "man I'm an idiot" or "what kind of loser says that?" or "my wife/husband hates me".

We think these things reflexively, but they very well may have no bearing on reality at all. And even if they do, that doesn't mean that it is helping us by repeating these negative story lines to ourselves over and over. It is really self sabotage. In the podcast Michael Hyatt outlines a five step process to take control of your internal narrator. To turn what potentially is a damaging cycle of criticism into something that is beneficial.

1. Recognize the voice in your head.
2. Jot down what the voice is saying.
3. Evaluate whether this story is empowering.
4. Write down a different story.
5. Start telling yourself the new story.

 Even doing just step one has been a big step for me. Realizing that the voice is not speaking from some deep well of universal truth and that I can identify it and control it's message is potentially life changing.

I can change my story.