Everyone loves to hear a good story - what's your story and why it matters.

How many times have you, wished you could have a do over/mulligan, re-write in your day, week, or month? Unbelievably to many this all has to do with the stories in our lives.

Let’s talk about the stories you’ll tell yourself and the ones you will be telling yourself in 2021, can actually help you get what you want.

What I'm talking about in hindsight, is that no one that has ever succeeded, to the height their imagination would allow, doesn't have a few stories they can tell us, a few exceptional stories, some good ones and of course the bad ones, that we choose to forget, but always end up remembering.

Why is that, because each and every success story, just like failures has some stories that need to be told, if we are to learn from the lessons these stories hold. And the first storyteller and listener of your greatest dreams of success is You - so the stories you tell yourself are very important. These stories will ultimately determine whether your dreams become real, or stay just a dream.

Here is a reminder why it is always important to revisit a story we tell ourselves at the end of each week, consider this a reviewing process in your steps moving toward your eventual future (dream.)

Step 1: Reflect on the week that passed. Spend time identifying the events that happened in the past week — hard moments, awesome moments, big and small moments — and write them in a journal.

Step 2: Analyze those moments. Take a minute and assess what you wrote down. Are there hidden beliefs in there? Thought processes or self-talk that could be holding you back or could propel you forward? Make note of those.

Step 3: Rewrite. If there was a story from last week that wasn't serving you, consider how you could rewrite it for the week to come so it has a better ending. Could you shift your perspective and approach it a different way? And then, after all that story work…

Step 4: Plan for the days ahead. Include something you want to accomplish this week and the steps to make it happen.

I would like to walk you through one of my stories, from 2020 and how the review process helped, but in honor of the new year, I would like to do this instead.

 I want to talk to you about a potential, new year, self-storytelling pitfall, and that is... the story of the Failed Resolution.

Have you ever set resolutions before? Or set some goals (maybe a whole bunch of goals) at the beginning of January?

And if you have… have you ever had the experience of, by the time February rolls around, those resolutions are long forgotten? If so, you are not alone. And especially if you set goals for 2020, the idea of planning anything seems almost laughable.

These two realities, previous failed attempts and the 2020 pandemic, combined are enough to create a self-story that goes something like...

“Why would I even set a goal or make a plan to get better when I never see it through??”

And while there is a lot of talk on both sides of the conversation whether to set goals or not… Here is some advice I would like you to consider:

One of the MOST important parts of the self-storytelling process is to ask yourself, “Does this story serve me?”

Does re-telling yourself all the stories of your failed attempts make you BETTER for the year ahead? Or does it hold you back?

In my few short years (but with many long hard traveled roads,) I have learned that the person stopping you from becoming the you, you want to be - Is You.

Hear me out for a second, if and I am only saying if your past failures at something, is stopping you from trying again or something new - Then You Are Living Your Life In Fear.

Your Fear Is Yours, and yours's alone - nobody else is responsible for owning it and letting it take up too much space in our heads. Sure, there are other people, places and things in our lives that contribute to us in only two ways - negatively or positively.

Unfortunately, too often we let the negative aspects of these other people, places and things control more of our lives than we want to admit. And part of this controlling factor helps keep Our Fears Alive.

Fears of failing, fears of embarrassment, fears of disapproval, fears of being judged, fears of disappointment, fears abandonment, etc. etc.

The sooner we (yes, I still fall under the spell of others too,) take back more control of our lives from the other people, places and things, that we all to wreak havoc on us - The Sooner We Will Stop Ourselves From Stopping Us.

We will be able to make decisions based on our wants and needs, instead of our fears of what others will think of us. What does this have to do with storytelling. Everything, because if you don't believe in your own story (who, what, where, when, how and why,) of who you are as a person and your dreams, then how are we supposed to expect others to believe in the stories we are telling them.

The more positive stories you have on the tip of your tongue and the front of your mind, the more likely you will be to take the actions necessary to achieve whatever it is you desire.

I can’t wait to hear the stories you’ll tell in 2021!

co-written with Kindra Hall of InsideSuccess.com