Ever wonder what’s really steering your decisions and shaping your life? What unseen force causes someone with little resources to radiate joy, while another person feels miserable despite having all the success in the world? It’s not just your hard work or your life conditions that shape your life. There’s a deeper level at play that goes beyond everyday awareness, influencing everything you think and do.
So, what is this driving force? It’s the story you tell yourself. Your story is one of the most powerful forces that shape your life. It determines every thought, feeling, and decision. You may have written parts of your story, but much of it was written by others – friends, family, society, or even your environment. All the outside influences, people, places, and experiences have a hand in collectively putting your story together.
The problem is when you live on autopilot without ever rewriting your story to learn how to change your life for the better. You go through the motions of daily life, conditioned to accept the story others have written for you – even if it’s not the right story for you.
But what if you could rewrite that story?
How a limiting story affects your life
To be precise, let’s first clarify what we mean by story. A story is simply the set of beliefs you have about your life and yourself. It’s not just a single belief, but an entire belief system about the core of who you are as an individual. It defines what we’re capable of but also what we can’t do – a subconsciously imposed set of limiting beliefs.
The stories that limit people most tend to stem from pain. Powerful evidence of this comes from Martin Seligman’s experiments on “learned helplessness” – a belief system where you think you’re helpless to change your life, even when it’s within your power.
Seligman found that when humans were exposed to a loud obnoxious noise with no way to avoid it, they eventually stopped trying to avoid the noise. When the conditions changed and they could avoid the noise, they still didn’t try. They just accepted the limiting belief that they were powerless to escape the irritating noise.
In other words, the story they told themselves about their lack of control led to their giving up – even when an opportunity was present to change their situation. Everyone has their own limiting stories – stories that we can never change our life, stories that we’re not good enough, or stories that we can’t find or keep love.
