That’s My Story, I’m Sticking to It…Maybe

The subject of story has been coming up a lot lately in my world, mostly in conversations and in collaborating with my peers around town.

I’m fascinated with the concept of storytelling because everything we tell is a story. The story of us, the story of them, the story of this, the story of that. Stories are our creations of reality. We write them, we own them and we live them.

A recent conversation with an old friend highlighted how attached we get to our stories. The theme of the particular story being told was, “I’m constantly disappointed in life”. This is a whopper of an example of unhealthy storytelling. Sadly, this friend is so attached to this faulty belief that she is having one experience after another that reinforces this belief. Failed relationships, missed promotions, financial difficulties: all painful realities that underscore this faulty, yet entrenched belief. That’s a hard, sad story to live.

Jim Loehr wrote a great book about stories, in fact it’s aptly titled “The Power of Story”. In it, he writes that, “anything that consumes our energy can be a story, and if you continue to tell a bad story, you will almost assuredly beget another bad story or ten.” He asks the reader, “In which important areas of my life is it clear that I cannot achieve my goals with the story I’ve got?”

The great part is when you break it down, you have full control over your story. We frequently say, “that’s my story, I’m sticking to it.” But why? Unless it works for you of course. You get to decide what gets told and how it gets told and what it means.

In reviewing your story, ask yourself: 1) who’s story am I telling anyway? (Is it yours or someone else’s?) 2) just how attached am I to what I’m telling? (Do I have to be right about this?) and 3) how attached am I to a pre-determined outcome (which may or may not happen).

Questioning your story generally is very eye opening. It becomes easier to see what’s working versus where you may be shooting yourself in the foot. If you aren’t getting results, there’s probably a big faulty assumption in your story. For example…

In Sacramento, I’m very active in the local business community and I am finding that the people who are having the hardest time adjusting to the myriad of economic changes of the past four years or so are those who are clinging to the story of “this is how it was done, this is how it should be, I don’t like this, Make it stop.” I’m also finding that those who are willing to change the story, try different tactics as well as even make stuff up as they go along are having a much easier time navigating the “new normal”.

All good work needs editing. Where does your story need editing?

To Quit or Not to Quit…

In 2007, Seth Godin published a little book called “The Dip”. (It really is a little book, 80 pages and in a small format). He refers to it as “a little book that teaches you when to quit and when to stick”. Which really is the perfect description.

Godin defines the “dip” as: “the long slog between starting and mastery…the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accomplishment”. Think about big huge epic things, such as, for random example, going to law school, or running a marathon. Lots of people drop out along the way. That’s the point. If everyone could do it easily, it would not have so much value. You want it to be a big, fat, hairy deal.

In life, stuff gets hard. We decide to do something, get all fired up about it, and once the day to day drudgery of getting stuff done sets in, it’s easy to want to quit. But how do you know when you’re beating a dead horse and when you are just tired?

Recently I had my own head-on experience with The Dip. Last December I decided to commit to doing a half-ironman triathlon. I had been doing triathlons for four seasons, and figured now would be a good time to take it to the next level (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run to be exact—gulp!). In January I began training for this July race. By April I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Training was grueling. After a major meltdown in the middle of a long training run one Sunday, I was ready to quit, face to face, staring down at the dip.

I contemplated quitting for a couple of weeks. Then I got really sick with pneumonia, which not only gave me the chance to just lay down and completely rest, it also showed me what life is like without health, and let me tell you, it sucked.

Then I remembered what Godin wrote in his book. He said, that when faced with The Dip, sometimes you quit and sometimes you just get mediocre and play it safe. Nothing scares me more than playing it safe.

So when I got well, I got back out there. Not many people attempt and complete a half-ironman triathlon and I was determined to be one of them. At that point I knew it was time to break through the Dip instead of give up. From this point on, I did my workouts and visualized finishing the race every single day. On July 17, in Sonoma County, I did just that.

Finishers Medal

Quitting is easy. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do. But when you find yourself quitting because you just don’t want to deal with the stress and pain of the current moment, that’s a sure sign that quitting is not the right thing to do.

Doing stuff that matters takes work. Making positive changes is rarely easy. Where are you getting stuck right now? Do you have what you need to make it through the Dip?

Default Settings

We all use them. Appliances come with them. So do computers, smartphones and cars. In short, default settings are the settings that are automatically assigned to apps and other things. Default settings don’t change until you change them.

But did you know your brain comes with default settings? Yep, hundreds of them, if not more. Since they are automatic, you probably you don’t realize that you have them, until one day you discover them on your own, or perhaps have a friend or counselor point them out to you.

A recent conversation with a close friend got me thinking about our default settings. My friend is going through an incredible period of personal growth and people in the outside world are starting to pick up on their new attitude. Long story short, my friend was presented with two cool opportunities last week and their words to me in response to their good fortune were, “now, don’t let me turn into a jerk”.

Eureka! Default setting.

My friend automatically assumed that carrying themselves a particular way and attracting a certain type of opportunity was going to turn them into a jerk, which is total crap. Bullshit was called. Day saved.

It got me thinking about all sorts of default settings, such as “I can’t speak in public…”, “I can’t confront my flaky brother…”, “I could never do video blogs on my website…”, “if I won the lottery I’d change…”, “I grew up during the Great Depression…”. “It’s so & so’s fault…” The examples are endless. All you have to do is listen to your self-talk and the things your friends or family say to get a sense of default settings.

So how do you know if what you’re spewing is a default setting? Look for cues in your behavior. Sudden strong reactions, feelings that seem out of proportion to the situation and excuse making are just a few of the signs you are playing to your default settings.

Two good questions to ask yourself when you think you may be playing to your default settings are “is this true and how do I know this is true?” Bounce it off of someone you trust. You’ll be surprised, or not surprised, that others generally see the “real” you, that shows up in the world, without the defaults and filters.