We Are the Storytellers of Our Lives

First published on October 25, 2018

We don't always realise it, but within us is the power to change our story. To see things differently, and to shift from a place where we are a victim of circumstance to a player in the game of life. To shift from Life Happening To Me to Life Created By Me. 

I was talking to a friend recently about the restrictions she had on her time to see coaching clients, because of her responsibilities as a parent. It felt like a challenge to only be able to see clients on one day a week - can she support them? Is that enough to offer them? What if they aren't free on Thursdays? 

But what if the story is different. What if instead she is a coach who creates her life first, and her business to support the woman she is. What if only being able to see clients on one particular day each week isn't about her failures as a coach, but about her power and success as a Creator, as a Player in the game of life, as a role model for other players, and as a sign that the dream - a business that allows you to do all the things outside it that fulfill and enrich and matter - is possible.

And what if only having three slots a week to see clients actually makes her more attractive to clients, who want to work with someone who role models that kind of whole life success? And it will certainly change who she wants to work with: if there is only space for four clients at once, then she is suddenly in a place of choice - a player - when it comes to the work she accepts.

This is an important thing to remember. But it is a hard thing to remember. One of the core principles of the book I am working on is that we can be the storyteller in our lives: we can choose our own adventure. We can change how we see things, and create a new story.

Sometimes, the story of the victim is important. It's how we cope and deal with what life throws our way. And sometimes it's safer, and easier. Because being a player, a creator, comes with responsibility. If this is down to me, all this, all of life, then it is down to me. It is my fault, as well as my success. 

But also within this responsibility comes freedom. It doesn't feel like we live in a world of responsibility most of the time in this day and age. We are surrounded by blame and judgment: the others out there whose fault our circumstances are. It may be true, we may be massively affected by others. But is it the story that will help you change things?

Is there another story - just as true, but more useful, more empowering - that you can tell? What happens for you if you change your story? It can make a difference straight away - the rush of seeing the world differently - or it can take weeks or months to come to terms with a new story. To embody it.

But what if. What if there is a new story out there that changes everything. And what if you have the power to tell it?