Shifting Our Future Through Story

We are all storytellers

We learn to tell stories while very young, hone our skills over the years, and along the way, forget that we author many (but not all) of the stories we tell. Our life is one of remembering and forgetting our authorship, as well as obliviousness to other stories we live within but not authored by us.

Why does this matter? Each of us has the potential and opportunity to be a leader of ourselves. A critical activity for any leader is to set a context for any goal-directed activities to be done. This can include the direction or destination, purpose/rationale, priorities, mindset, and self-talk (often coming along for the ride and tends to have a negative tone and assessment).

Our stories run in the background, often out of sight/hearing but not out of influence. Our self-talk or chatter, on the other hand, often seems strident and insistent and in our face. The opportunity arises when we recognize the relevance of those stories and choose to take an active role in their authorship. What stories to keep? What stories to change? What stories to discard?

When we shift our attention inwards and listen, we can identify themes and stories that characterize our life or stereotype ourselves or offer commentary about a situation and its likely outcome. These might be worth writing down, both as a way of capturing them and externalizing them, moving them from inside to outside of yourself. Using a piece of paper and creating two columns, you can place your current stories in the left column, the “Current” column. For each story in that column, your action item is to draft a new, different story for the right column, the “Desired” column.

Which ones seem to be more foundational and central to your identity or a theme running throughout your life? Which ones seem to be more situational? Is there a category you prefer to engage in first?

A couple of examples may illustrate the point. I noticed that while my company had “associates” in the title, I didn’t design offers and seek work that would require me to include others in the new business development and ensuing work. My story was “I can do this well alone.” My new story was “I seek collaborative opportunities that enhance the difference we make.” Over the next couple of years, I have found myself saying “yes” to good-fit collaborative situations and enjoying the challenge and process of working with others.

A client of mine is a spiritual leader. He noticed that he often found himself upset with members of his congregation because meetings ran longer than scheduled, displacing subsequent meetings. He discovered that when he was scheduling meetings with those he intended on serving, he was putting all his attention on them and their needs. None of his attention was on himself – because he wasn’t even in his own picture. Thus, he was blind and oblivious to his own cares and unable to attend to them. In this case, his current story was “Serving others is all that matters. (My needs and cares are irrelevant and don’t count.)” His new story became “Serving others in a way that also takes care of my concerns is a sustainable way of doing excellent work.” With this formulation, he had put himself back in the picture as a legitimate player, worthy of being considered and designed into a workable equation.

Our negative chatter requires a slightly different approach, in fact, three approaches. Though different, all require repeated reiteration of the new perspective. Two of these come from Susan Ashford, Ross Business School Professor and author of The Power of Flexing.

Approach one: reframing the negative chatter into an affirmative statement, often repeated, to reprogram our perspective, shift our identity, and (better) align with what we are organized around. For example, negative chatter and pressure about being perfect, “I have to get everything right,” can be replaced with something more affirming, “I’m not perfect, I embrace failure and am a work in progress.”

Approach two: shift perspectives about the chatter content, from whatever is stated is (related to as) true to whatever is heard is, for example, simply the “hum of the machinery” and has no inherent meaning. It doesn’t mean anything.

Approach three: bring increased self-compassion to the chatter, acknowledging times when one had stumbled,?fallen, and recovered. Researchers have even shown that self-compassion supports learning and growth, the heart of a growth mindset.

Aligning new stories to our values and what matters more/most to us is an essential first step for aligning and designing our personal ecology. The second step is to make choices and take actions consistent with our new stories. Our new stories are going to be more visible, top of mind, and available to us after step one. As we approach choices of what to do, we can check to see how consistent our choice of action is with our new story. If it isn’t, can we identify the inconsistency and if it is connected to other, competing commitments? Sometimes we are inconsistent across our commitments and those intersections produce confusion and inconsistent action. This may reveal one commitment (and related story) as a higher priority than another one. What choice will we make and take to move forward?

Self-determination theory (SDT) tells us that the three intrinsic motivators that humans operate by are the need for autonomy, competence, and belonging. It looks like taking charge of our narrative becomes an expression of at least our desire to operate with autonomy and to become competent (or more) in areas of our life. It may even affect the extent to which our new ways of operating influence where and how we fit in and connect with others.

Mindset theory tells us that humans tend to have one of two mindsets (ways of thinking about ourselves, our relationship to the world, and our ability to learn and change): fixed (or performance proving: we perform to prove to ourselves and others how smart and competent we are) and growth (or learning: we accept the challenge of needing to learn and grow as a way of better living in our world; failure is part of that learning process). Taking charge of our stories and aligning them to our true north of values, cares, and commitments become an expression of a growth mindset, an affirmation of our ability to learn and adapt and grow in our capability to navigate our world more effectively.

What are you noticing about what’s shared? What curiosity and questions do you have about your stories, the ones that are the backdrop of your life? Can you identify new stories to author and align them with what matters most to you? Have you already had authoring experiences for the sake of tweaking your identity?

I’d love to hear about it. Please share your stories about your stories.

#selfleadership #designyourlife #authorship #agency