What is Your Story?

Stories Are What Make Us. 

Every culture is built around stories. Every religion. Every country. Every decade, century, and millennia are a set of stories…Your life is built around stories!

Every human being is an accumulation of stories, whether true or fabricated.

The question is, 

What Story Do You Believe to Be True About Yourself?

It’s interesting when you begin to dissect your life in this manner. When you start to look at yourself as a collection of stories, it sort of jars you out of your everyday flow. You’ll start to consider how you spend your day and whether it’s the story you want to live in that moment. 

Writing a great story involves many things, but the main ingredient needed is the protagonist. This is who the story is about. Think of your favorite book, movie, or TV show. Is it great merely because of the plotline, or is it great because you’ve created such an emotional connection with one of the main characters that you feel as if you’re living life vicariously through them?

Think about this; in your story, YOU are the main protagonist. You have a deep connection with yourself, yet the plotline may not be the one you want to tell. Does it mean you are destined to finish this tale using the outline or draft that’s been previously written?

Absolutely not!

This is what’s great about stories. Stories can change. They change all the time, and that’s what makes them so great. We love stories that have dramatic changes throughout because it can be inspiring. It can help us deal with all sorts of emotions. Yet, when it comes to our personal stories, we think they’re fixed.

Maybe we re-write a chapter here or there, but most people continue down the same path they’ve been heading down all their lives.

We get comfortable with our situations and circumstances. We consider change but after assessing what’s required, we give in to what we’re used to. Because it’s easy. It’s the path of least resistance. It’s the path with the least amount of fear.

Fear is a great motivator to keep you playing out the same story over and over in your life. Taking a risk to do something different can be costly, in so many ways.

Is Sticking to the Same Plotline Worth It?

We think it is, so we keep moving forward wishing our lives would change but never take the steps to make it different. 

We get stuck in the cycles of safe and normal, which are difficult ruts to break out of.

There may be many of you who feel as if you are living the story you want to be living, and I hope that’s the case. The only thing I would ask is are you consciously writing it on a regular basis?

What happens when it takes a turn you aren’t expecting? Our stories are a mix of good and bad, ups and downs. So what happens when you begin that chapter full of difficulties and hurt? 

Do you give in, think this is just your lot in life, or do you find a way to push through? Do you find a way to re-write it so that it continues to go in the direction you want?

Oftentimes, many of us feel as if we're stuck in the story we’re living, even if we don’t want to be. 

We feel trapped and stifled. We feel like we just can’t break free. There doesn’t even need to be any major issues going on in our life, it’s just that we aren’t living the life we want to live, the one we hoped we’d be living. 

Somewhere along the way, our dreams got shot down. Either we didn’t believe in ourselves and therefore talked ourselves out of chasing the dream, or maybe someone else told us that we don’t have what it takes. 

Sometimes life gets away from us and unplanned circumstances knock us off course. Whatever happened, it probably wasn’t what we intended. So, we started re-writing our story within the confines we found ourselves in.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. People all over the world are living a story they don’t want to live, and the truth is, that most continue to live that story because they feel powerless to change it.

When we’re young, we have so many aspirations and dreams we want to live up to. Many times, those dreams get slapped down. Some of them come true and some of them don’t.

Others achieve the dream only to find out it wasn’t everything they hoped it would be…and that’s okay too. 

It doesn’t matter which road you went down or how you got into the story you are currently living. The reason why is because you can still do the things you want to do. Maybe your dreams have changed, but it doesn’t mean you can’t still chase them.

Depending on where you are in life, it may be a little more difficult than it once was, but it doesn’t mean you can’t make it happen. 

Don’t Let Your Mind Disqualify You from Becoming the Person You Know You Can Become

The great news is, you are constantly growing and changing. Therefore, YOUR story is growing and changing.

You can still write the story you want to live. It may be difficult at times. It may break you down and make you question why you’re trying to change your story in the first place. 

It will definitely take consistency and working toward this goal on a regular basis to make a change. 

You will run into hardship. You will want to give up and quit. You’ll think you’re stupid for trying. You will fail…probably several times. 

People will think you’re weird or crazy. People will try to talk sense into you and reason with you. People will talk behind your back. People will cheer when you fail and say, “I told you so”. But they’re only doing that because they’re too afraid to write the story they want to live.

The Great Thing Is, You Don’t Have to Listen to Them. 

And when you feel like giving up on the story you’re writing…you don’t have to listen to yourself. Just keep writing.

Because you can make it happen. 

I can promise you one thing. If you don’t try, you won’t live the story you want to live, and the only person you’ll have to blame is yourself.

Jessica Ennis has a great quote that says, 

Your mind is a powerful thing. Humans have overcome so many harsh and difficult obstacles through the power of thought alone. 

David Goggins is a man who has overcome a tremendous amount of adversity in his life. If you haven’t heard of him, you should consider listening to him on a podcast or two. Be forewarned, he curses a lot, but you shouldn’t let that keep you from listening.

His story is powerful. His story is tragic, yet it’s also very inspirational. He transformed himself from a scared, abused, and insecure boy into one of the toughest men to ever walk the planet.

The only adversary he has is his own mind. 

It’s the only thing that can truly hold him back, but the story he writes on a regular basis is that his mind can’t hold him back. 

He’s gone through Navy Seal training with double pneumonia. He’s run mile after mile on broken shins. He’s had his feet blistered and break open from running ultra marathons. He had the palms of his hands peel off while attempting to break the world record for the most pull-ups in 24 hours…and these are just some of the tests of life he’s experienced.

He’s faced so many agonizing moments in his life, whether in an attempt to overcome himself or at the hands of others who mistreated him. 

His story is inspiring. It’s a great wake-up call to help all of us understand that none of us are living up to the potential nestled deep inside of us.

You don’t have to be maniacally obsessed with running the longest races and breaking world records, but you should be obsessed with becoming the best version of yourself that you can be. 

Because the World Needs the Best Version of All of Us.

The great news is, that you can begin today. You can rewrite your story to be the one you want to live.

Start training your mind to be the hero of your story. 

Write the story you want to live and then start living it.

If you want a story where you live in a world of peace and harmony? Start writing it. 

If you want a story of abundance and love with great relationships? Start writing it.

Mahatma Gandhi said, 

And the only way to do that is to be the one who writes your own story. If someone else is writing it for you, then you are living their story, not yours.

I hope this finds you well. As always, share with someone who needs to hear this.

Much love to you all,

Josiah

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