Tell yourself a better story

If I had to pick a month of the year I like the least it would be February. At least it has the good grace to knock a few days off so it doesn't last as long.

It's not got the buzz and after glow of Christmas. Spring optimism is still some way off. You see how easy it is to construct a story, just about February.

Imagine each of us like a book that’s being constantly written.   The first page was drafted the moment we were born.  Even before we had the power of words, we were learning through stories and actions of those around us how the world works and our place within it.

As we grow older, we subconsciously check our “story of me” when faced with major decisions and crossroads in our lives.

But what happens when the “story of me” is inaccurate or leans on us to play safe rather than to our potential?   That’s what we’re exploring this week.

In my story, I’ve always disliked February

February is an in between kind of month for me.

The anticipation of Christmas and the buzz of entering a new year has receded.   The days are still short.  The weather, in the UK, often at its most bleak.

It’s not surprising therefore that thousands of Brits spend their winters in Spain and Portugal and if you’re in the northern US, the prospect of being a snowbird appeals.

In February as I write this, there are thousands of Brits warming themselves in Spain.  Spain’s a big place.   The majority will be in the south-east and often living quite closely to each other.   The grocery store will be filled with British staples.  The traditional English breakfast, easy to find.

It may not have the tweed and thatched cottages that many tourists feel they’ll find the moment they visit England for the first time.

It’s a story of a version of England where the sea is blue, rather than brown.  The skies are blue, rather than grey.   And where our notorious lack of confidence and capability in learning foreign languages doesn’t matter too much.

Ancient storytelling

Spain of course is a big country.  Much bigger than many tourists ever know.  There’s always more to discover with every country and up in the North, there are regions that are much more rugged, wetter, wilder and a little more Celtic, which for me, being Welsh, holds an appeal and in a way, somewhat familiar.

Up in the north are a series of caves.   Altamira, El Castillo, La Pasiega and so on.

Inside these caves are the most amazing drawings and they help us understand the life and values of the people who lived during that time.

What’s even more amazing is that caves are somewhat dark, so to be able to create these amazing images required fire – for light and warmth.

We have these cave paintings to thank for helping us understand something of the lives the cave occupants lived.   But they didn’t draw on walls to help unknown people thousands of years down the line, painting and pictures were part of storytelling.

Story-telling is an ancient form of communicating both important facts, values & traditions.

Stories in those caves told generation after generation how to hunt, how to stay safe from danger, how to work together in a team to stay safe.

Many years later, Aesops fables entertained the young but slowly and gradually told those that listened about virtues and vices, behaviours that were appreciated and accepted and actions and deeds worthy of disapproval.

As I kid I had countless books based on Grimm’s fairy tales.   If you ever go to central Italy near the city of Viterbo there is the “city of fables” where images from fables of our childhood decorate the entire village.

Some stories, like Little Red Riding Hood, helped us to remember that we shouldn’t wander off from our parents, because danger lurks in unseen corners of forests, whether real or urban.

Some taught us that pride comes before a fall.  The tortoise and the hare told us to never give up.

The Crow and the Pitcher taught us if at first you don’t succeed try, try and try again.   I could recite that one by heart as it was a family favourite.

The flawed stories we tell ourselves

Though the cave paintings can’t change, the stories we tell ourselves aren’t always based in fact.  This makes the “story of us” unreliable.

How so?

Our brains are wired primarily for protecting our physical well-being.  We have a heightened sense of danger and what could go wrong.   We have a better recollection of things that have gone wrong for us than things that have gone right.  Because remembering the unfortunate things protects us from doing it again.

Our brains can’t cope with all the information coming in through our senses 24x7 so the brain takes some short-cuts.  As well as focussing on threats and danger, to cut down on processing time, the brain uses pattern recognition to simplify decision making.

And this is where our ability to tell stories to ourselves often comes unstuck.

Our brain’s prioritisation of protecting us leads us to have a heightened sense and memory of things that go wrong than things that go right.

We now have MRI scanners that help show how the brain lights up to alert us to things that have been negative experiences, things that are unknown and therefore could be a threat.  They say it takes five good memories to overcome one bad one.

The brain can even do this based on simply imagining the situation.  Let’s say for example you had to do a poetry recital in high school to a bunch of bored and unappreciative students – the brain is awesome at envisioning that now in your late 20s when asked to do a business presentation people are certain to be bored and unappreciative.

The “story of us” now has a chapter on how you suck at giving presentations.   Each time you’re asked to do a presentation, the brain will open the chapter that tells you the end before you started.

When I coach people looking for career change, many have hard-written chapters on how badly they perform at interview.   When questioning more closely it’s surprising how those with greatest fear of interviewing have relatively limited experience of them.  It’s just that what experience they do have, hasn’t ended well.

The brain then condenses this experience down to the simplest denominator possible.  In the case of “suck at interviewing” it might for example conclude – no-one wants what I have to offer, I am not of value.

Self-storying and imposter syndrome

Some folk suffer from pre-imposter syndrome.  They have the opportunity to move forwards but are paralysed with fear that they are not good enough.  Even when invited to move forwards, pre-imposter syndrome screams – you’re a fake, if you take this person’s endorsement and mess up, which you will, then you’ll be outed as a fraud.

And those that have made the move and experience imposter syndrome now have the mantle of glory and responsibility but with self-storying telling them they got there by fluke, that their talents don’t match the responsibility and the time for being caught out will come along shortly.

The book “the story of you” has many chapters filled with inaccurate recollections and pages inserted by well-meaning relatives.   Last year I was doing some pro-bono coaching with children as young as 13 – just listen the some of the chapters they told me were already in their book.

-        I don’t make friends easily, people don’t like me

-        People laugh at me when I speak, my ideas and thoughts aren’t worthy or interesting

-        Telling people something you know is showing off, pride comes before a fall

And this is where some of our fixed beliefs, I am never, things always happen, and so on, come from.  Not just when we’re 13 but from each chapter we write in our story book.

You can change how the story ends

As we know from the awesome work of Carol Dweck and others, we can change the future story at any time.  Yet many of us won’t.  We remain stuck in a pattern of believing that the “story of us” so far has already pre-determined the path the story can now take.   It’s not true.

Take your biological age and divide it into six.  For example if you’re 41 at the moment, roughly 7

Get six sheets of paper.  On sheet one write – the story of me aged 0- 7.   Try to write out five significant memories, more if you can.

Then write a short couple of sentences summarising the story of you at the end of this chapter, who you were, what you’d become, what you’d learned.

Do this across your six chapters and then bring each of your chapter endings into one place.

Take a step back and look at the story of you so far.   If you feel the chapter endings are an unfair or imbalanced reflection of that time period, go back and change it until you’re happy.

The route from Imposter Syndrome starts with the story of you

Remember that awesome and yet flawed brain of yours?   Likely you, like most of us, have written so many stories in your book of you, they’re so focussed on the negative stories that they’re no longer keeping you safe.

Instead, they are keeping you trapped in interlocking rules that in order to obey them all means you’ve nowhere to go.  And so you don’t.   And the longer you stay that way, the harder those rules become to break until you find yourself saying something akin to not being able to teach old dogs new tricks.

February is that month where most of the new year resolutions you made have long been forgotten.

Instead of focussing on dreaming up big audacious goals that will never be delivered, focus on your self-stories and reducing their ability to limit your potential.

When you start to re-write the ending of your self-story, then you will have that new beginning.

Eradicate your Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome is real.  It affects our resilience, relationships, performance, work-life balance, leadership skills and countless other things.

I help people improve their confidence and eradicate Imposter Syndrome.  To feel Better Every Day without pretending to be someone you’re not.

Want to talk about how we can do this for you – then chat with me here https://oncehub.com/ianbrowne

Find other resources to become Better Every Day here https://www.ianbrowne.com/better