Did that actually happen?

In my late 20s, I embarked on an in-depth journey of personal transformation. Courses, spiritual communities, books, friends and even music. It seemed the whole world had galvanized around getting a message through to me.

You aren’t the product of your past, you are the creator of your future.

This was, and often still is, a hard pill to swallow. Pointing to experiences and people from my past make it very easy to explain (ok, blame) why things are the way they are. Note, this is especially helpful when things aren’t exactly the way I want them to be.

As I filter through the myriad information and tools I’ve gathered, there’s one that is so core to building resilience that it belongs here, at the start of our journey together.

We must learn to discern what happened from our story about what happened.

I’ll use an example about money because I know how much we all love to talk about money. (You do, right?!)

I had a great job at a global Fortune 500 company. I managed a team of early career professionals, several who were older than me. I had been managing others since my 18th birthday and I felt fairly confident in my skills. Then I had to hire a role for my team. I remember the day I extended an offer to a man, around my age but with a different educational background, and he would be making almost $10k more per year than me.

So that’s what happened. An offer was extended, the compensation was what it was. I was his manager. We actually became friends.

But here’s where it falls apart.

The story I made up was that I deserved less than men and most certainly less than anyone with a better education than me.

Then you know what? I forgot that I made that up. I conflated what happened with the story. I simply lived as though I deserved less.

This informed my lack of effective negotiation and self-advocacy for the next decade of my career.

A 5-minute Practice

Now it’s your turn. Consider something that’s not exactly how you want it to be. Money, relationships, job title, health, friendships, etc. You could even choose the state of your closet if you want to start easy.

Now write down “WHY” that area of life is the way it is. Keep going for at least 5 minutes. You will likely be shocked by how many reasons you have stored up.

Next, look over your list and divide it into two sections; what happened and your story. You can use two different colored highlighters, and x or check mark or re-write them into two columns. However you do it, you want to visually be able to see the difference.

The real freedom comes now. It happens in the smallest of moments.

• The guy you just cut you off in traffic. Is he actually a jerk (story) or did his car move quickly in front of you (facts)?
• The credit card bill that shows how much you owe (facts), not that you are an irresponsible mess (story).
• The boss who emails at all hours of the day (facts) might not actually distrust you (story).

You’ll start seeing how quickly you make up stories, especially to explain frustrating situations.

Start living and responding to the facts.

Imagine my compensation trajectory had I just taken the facts of that job offer, walked straight to Human Resources and asked for a pay equity adjustment.

As for the stories, you’re going to make them up anyway so you might as well choose ones that are more empowering? Play with it until you find something that excites you.

I’d love to hear an example of a story that you can pull apart from the facts.