Today we are going to create your new story and I love, love, love, a good quote so I could not pass this one up.
Jack Kerouac, American novelist who penned, among other things, “On the Road,” wrote: “I saw my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”
What a beautiful thought.
Do you believe it or is your mind already giving you reasons why this cannot be so?
I believe it 100%. I’ve seen it time and time again. I have seen clients who came to me for coaching who had absolutely no idea what they were going to do when their children went off to college. Clients who had been not only taking care of children, but parents as well. No longer caring for parents and children about to leave home, they were about to have more time on their hands than ever, but absolutely no idea what direction to head in and what to do with that time. Lost, lonely, needing purpose, needing connection with others.
After going through the program, these same clients:
- Found their purpose – their one pursuit outside of others.
- Are valuing themselves through self-care.
- Found deeper connection and fulfillment in their relationships.
- Are learning and growing.
- Know exactly what they want to be known for in their lives.
- They are taking daily imperfect action toward exactly what they want.
They uncovered their negative self-talk and believed that they could rewrite their stories on the vast, glowing, empty pages — and they did it.
So, let’s do this for you. Let’s create your new story. The story that gets you to your best life. But first, let me explain a little about how our minds create these negative stories of our selves.
Our minds are like file cabinets. From a very young age, we take experiences and words and create files or pictures from these experiences to help us make sense of life. We file these away in our mind like files in a file cabinet. As we have new experiences and hear other words, we browse through those files looking for similarities, so we know where to file that new experience and what sense to make of it.
The problem is as small children our brains are not to the stage of development where we can use abstract reasoning. Abstract reasoning is what helps us analyze information, detect patterns and relationships, solve complex problems. So as young children, without this ability, we make things simpler than they are. We don’t understand the whole picture, so we leave important information out of our files, letting so many papers fall to the floor unfiled. We especially leave things out of our files or our pictures that do not confirm what we already believe to be true.
Now, let’s get started on writing your new story … a more complete story of who you are.
- What have you let fall to the floor instead of adding to your files?
- What skills do you have that you have ignored?
- What talents do you have?
- What passions and curiosities fuel you?
- What positive personal traits do you have?
- What achievements have you accomplished?
Often we have a negative story about age and aging, “We aren’t as good as we used to be.” Is this story helpful to us as we mature???? Ummm no. Nothing about it is helpful. What can we add to our story about who we are in this stage of our lives?
Instead of letting the negative self-talk about age hold us back, let’s explore what is actually better about us than when we were younger.
When I was younger…
- I didn’t know what I know now.
- I did not have all of the experiences that I have had now, that I have learned from and grown from.
- I was insecure and anxious, driven by what I thought I should do.
- I did not really know what I wanted in life.
What about you now is better than it ever was when you were younger? Add this to your vast, glowing, empty page. I bet there are so many things that are better about you now.
Now think about this … What do your friends compliment about you? If you were to look at yourself through someone else’s eyes, what would they see?
Take all of these wonderful things about you and add them to your new chapter – Chapter 2 in the book of you.