Change your thoughts, change your life? Really?

You have probably heard people say that you need to change your thoughts to change your life. This is not entirely true. Your life will not change by changing a single thought. We think 50000-90000 thoughts every day according to research. Most of our thoughts are subconscious, meaning you don’t even know they run through your head. Subconscious thoughts form a current in your mind that rule your day and your entire life. Changing a few of them can embark you on this cross-ocean journey, but may not get you safe and sound to the other side. You need more. The good thing is that you have everything you need.

What is this hidden ‘more’ that will help you on change your life? It’s stories, narratives. Your life is not directed by single thoughts, it is led by stories, by narratives. Thoughts are connected to one another and build networks. The brain builds networks to process information more easily. The key to making desired changes is understanding how your mind works and learning to use these patterns for your benefit. So getting to know your stories is the key to changing them.

You have stories about how life works, how it should work, what life and things in life mean, what is their value, what is good, what is bad, why things happen one way or another. Some of these stories are called values, some of them are called conditioning, some of them are called culture, some are called history. The most powerful of the stories are related to identity. Since birth you have built an identity on various stories. These are stories from your close ones about you, your own stories in response to what has happened to you, your friends’ stories about themselves and about you, stories you read about in books and hear or see on Netflix.

Your identity is a collection of narratives with their protagonists and side characters, heroes and villains, supporters and adversaries, their bloodlines and causal connections, journeys and returns, defeats and wins. All of this is summarised into your identity. Some stories we love, some we hate, some we hope to forget, some we fear to lose. Some of them we deliberately revive every now and then when we feel lost and start looking for ourselves again.

So, to change your life, it is not sufficient to change your thoughts. To change your life, you need to change your stories. Of course, you first need to learn to listen to the stories you tell yourself. Then scrutinise their value – are they still serving who you are right now, and are they serving the one you desire to become? Keep telling yourself these stories. More loudly and more often than you would like to and feel you need to. Get clear on your stories. If these stories are not serving you any longer, close this chapter or entire book about you with gratitude, and write new ones. If you don’t have any stories that would support your ideal self, your new desired identity, then make them up. That’s the magic of stories – you simply make them up. Few people remember a story when they hear it the first time. Repeat the stories of your new self over and over and over again, until they stick. How many times have you heard Cinderella or the Red Riding Hood? Probably a gazillion times. If there is a story worth repeating two gazillion times, it is a story of your greatness, virtues and contributions.

Go ahead, change your stories, change your life.?

#changeyourlife #identitychange #storytelling