Rewriting Your Own Story

If you were to write a book about yourself and then read it to yourself, would it inspire you, or would it make you feel worse about yourself?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to round out this conversation about your identity by helping you rewrite your own story.

Over the last few weeks, we've been talking about your identity. Your identity is not what you do; it's who you are. It's who you believe you are and who you believe you're not. All the experiences you've had, all the things you've done, have either built up or eroded your identity.

Your identity is the foundation for everything you do. Everything you believe about yourself, everything you take on as true, will either propel you forward or hold you back and, if your identity is a negative one, then that will stop you from reaching your full potential.

Last week, we talked about the inner dialogue, the self-talk that you have, that constant opportunity for you to remind yourself of everything that's gone wrong, of every time that you've got it wrong, every time you've failed.

That rumination that goes on around what people have said to you and about you that you've made means a certain thing about yourself. It's that dialogue that reminds you when you are stepping into the danger zone of those 3 universal fears of not belonging, not being enough, and not being loved.

And we talked about the ability to shift that dialogue, to change it, to get that mini-me working with you rather than against you.

Well, today (as my dog barks in the background), what we're going to do is step that up. We're going to put all those things together, and we're going to rewrite our stories about ourselves.

When you have a story about yourself that is made up of all this negative, all the things that have gone wrong, the times that you've got it wrong, and all those things we've just talked about, then that's not really reading that's going to inspire you.

What you want to do is to draw a line in the sand today, knowing now what you know about being able to shift your identity and build it up to where it needs to be, and write the next chapter, version, and edition of your story.

To do that, there are certain things that you need to do and we've started that to shift that dialogue. You’ve already recognised when you’re operating out of those 3 universal fears, an approval addiction, imposter syndrome, the performance trap, all those things. So, you understand that now, and you understand that you can shift that dialogue.

The key thing to do right now is to look at all those things you actually believe about yourself, and put them under the microscope, test them, be able to discredit them, and then change them to beliefs about yourself which are true and empowering.

To do that, you need to sit down and write out a list of all the beliefs that you have about yourself. What I want you to do is start with the words "I am" because "I am" is about your identity. "I do" is about your performance, but what we are talking about here is the foundation of who you are.

So, sit down, write out a list, starting with "I am", and then write down all the things that you believe about yourself....

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/rewriting-your-own-story

Grant Herbert (aka The People Builder) describes himself as an ordinary guy, with an outstanding wife and 5 amazing kids, who has a passion to help people escape the performance trap and regain their authenticity in every area of life. He is a VUCA Leadership Mentor, Sustainable Performance Coach, Master Coach Trainer in Social and Emotional Intelligence,?and the founder of People Builders.

Visit www.grantherbert.com to find out how you can connect.