We all love story. How often are you mining your story for gold? Your stories are filled with little nuggets that’re shimmering with lessons and insights.
This week my theme is story AND my newsletter and podcast are taking very different approaches.
The podcast is exploring a story I embedded after receiving feedback early in my career and discovering how, by failing to fully explore the nuances of it, I was making poor decisions as a result. In the newsletter I’m reflecting on how a client’s insight, when mined from within her stories, took our engagement in a unique direction. Additionally, in this post I’m examining story more generally. Those we tell our self, those we refuse to let in, as well as those that embed themselves. Sharing a bit of my origin story, I illustrate how deeply embedded stories often are found in your beliefs AND therefore, your choices. You will also find my signature story in the footnote of this post OR on the services pages of the website.
Covering this rich topic in this week is not possible so you can expect I’ll return to it many times in the future. Your career success is depending on you taking the challenge and engaging in it too!
The Stories We tell Our Self
What story is central to your sense of self? Where did it come from? What gives it control over you? AND, how might you leverage your stories to make your career and your life better?
The Story You Adopt
Stories when mined deeply from within offer significant insights
Most of the time you likely don’t even realize when you’ve adopted a story as your own AND yet you’re doing it all the time. Sometimes you may even adopt a brand story and feel completely indebted or beholden to that brand. Perhaps it’s the brand you’re working for OR another whose founder shares a story that’s speaking to you. I know some feel this way about Apple and others felt this way about BlackBerry (RIM). Many Canadians relate to Tim Horton’s and Roots in a similar way. Brands, knowing this, manipulate it in their marketing and advertising.
What are the personal stories you’ve adopted? Where did they come from? Was it that person who paid you a special compliment as a teenager and, in doing so, shifted the way you see yourself? Are you building a story out of this engagement and is it defining you? Is your story coming from a teacher who “put you in your place” or ridiculed you for your confidence or your cheekiness? Was it that music teacher that adapted a piece of music to fit your needs as a child with smaller hands or a unique anomaly? Are these past experiences driving or possibly steering your current story? Is the underlying message confirmed by what you think you are hearing in your current workplace? Here’s the thing…you’re interpreting what you’re hearing today through the lens of the stories you’ve adopted over time whether they’re true or not.
By digging into the stories you’re recycling, you may diffuse their power. Refusing to let them impact your current decisions, judgments and choices WITHOUT your express consent, allows you to take back your story. This act of bravery is hard work AND making the effort will change your life. What if it takes you to where you really want to be? Would that make it worth the effort?
The Story You Reject
What about the stories you hear periodically that you’re refusing to believe? Perhaps they’re describing you as someone you don’t want to be or perhaps, someone you just can’t believe you are? The story may be leading you toward where you want to be or NOT.
Some of you are refusing to hear or remember the stories in which you’re brightly shining. You’re so caught up in the messages of your inner critic or, what you believe the world is expecting from you, forcing you to miss what’s possible. By rejecting the vision of your beauty, strength, gifts and perfection, you’re refusing to lean into them, fully embracing what they’re offering you and the world.
Some of you are actively pushing away the messages that your stories are revealing about what’s not working and of what’s requiring your attention. Why? Because it’s simply easier to ignore the pain or the call to action. By rejecting the lessons and being unwilling to learn from them, you’re digging in deeply and choosing to live a life that’s limiting and small.
Face it – only by embracing your stories fully, will you see the messages they offer. Where they’ve brought you and where they can lead. IF ONLY you’re brave enough to start looking at them.
The Story You Embed
Usually there’s a story or two from your childhood that you’ve embedded. While this is common, the most potent stories don’t always come from childhood; some are birthed over the course of your career as you’re receiving feedback and judgment from people you respect. Story embeds itself and may become a belief – a hero story may help you believe you can overcome the odds and a victim story may continue to hold you small. Regardless, make no mistake, allowing A STORY to embed itself deeply inside you, will impact your life.
Are you giving informed consent to the stories that are embedding within you? Additionally, are there a few that are invading you without you consciously taking note? It may be time to start mining and monitoring the stories to see how they’re keeping you from getting to where you want to be. Interestingly, often by simply flipping them, you’ll start seeing new things and gaining new insights that rock your world.
Yes, a picture’s worth a lot! YOUR STORY builds your life.
My Origin Story
My great grandparents were all refugees from eastern Europe. While not Russian, they fled from the Russian colonies in the early 1920’s. Being married only a few years, my maternal grandparents literally entered Germany on borrowed papers and talked their way into the group heading to Canada.
The part of the story that captured my family, impacting how my mother engaged with her daughters, was the detention of my grandfather in Germany. Failing to clear the health checks, but trusting that they would be reunited in Canada, my grandparents plowed forward with their plan. My grandmother, feisty and independent, traveled to and across Canada on her own. Settling in Alberta as a farm worker, awaiting my grandfather. Following her a year later, together they had seven children, ultimately building their own farm in Saskatchewan. My grandfather died suddenly from an infection in his heart 21 years later leaving my grandmother with responsibility for the children ages 4 to 19 years of age. Once again left to her own resourcefulness, sustaining the family with her grit and tenacity. THIS story has shaped me in two distinct ways embedding hyper-responsibility and tenacity.
My Grandmother’s Tenacity and Her Burden
My grandmother could be described as plowing through life, never willing to simply take it easy! She was always making things happen, even taking prisoners along the way; she was showing the women who came after her the benefits of taking risks and fighting for what you envisioned for your life. What you wanted from and for the world!
On the other hand, she’d been raised with and had deeply embedded the belief in the importance of hard work, service and humility. Perhaps to a fault! She lived meagerly and was always willing to “do without”. It became a bit of a badge of honour. Her example deeply impacted on her children and grandchildren. Thoughtful stewards with money and resources, generous to a fault and still living in a reality that far too often felt like scarcity. The story is full of contradictions and lessons.
How We Can Walk together…
Your story is your foundation; mine it for the gold it’s hiding. Listening to my signature story – available on the player below, HERE OR you can click over on my website BIG WHY Story on the services pages – you’ll hear me struggle with a core story I believed as a child. Being aware of the signature story or stories in your life and how they weave themselves and turn up patterns that seem impenetrable is a key element in your life’s journey. Mining your story and noticing when it’s impacting you in a good or bad way is a skill that you’ll find supports a progressive, consistently growing, career. When you fail to notice how your stories guide your decision-making and choices, you may actually relinquish your independent will to live the life you want. While my signature story makes me sound brave and daring…listen carefully to recognize how I got lost in the story I told myself.
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