"There are NO STRAIGHT LINES on the road to progress. Life is curly, so enjoy the ride."
— James McPartland
Last week I shared how I've been thinking about this concept; how whether we look back or forward in our life, there are NO STRAIGHT LINES to our progressive journey.
To break this down, I'm going to be rolling out a series of emails, each unpacking one foundational life truth at a time; tools to help us navigate the curve balls life will inevitably throw at us.
So first up, STORIES. Today's message is about the narratives we write in our heads that end up guiding every decision we make, whether we realize it or not.
Some of these stories are long-held beliefs, formed in childhood and carried on in our subconscious minds to this very day. Some are newly adopted beliefs, formed by more recent encounters and experiences.
Whether new or old, these stories are worth uncovering, so we can discard the ones holding us back, along with any beliefs that no longer serve us.
So let's clear a path to becoming the person we aspire to become, shall we?
We're looking for stories that are not true, yet we've carried them in our souls as though they were. Narratives like...
"I'm not good enough"
"I'm ruining my kids"
"That kind of freedom in a career is for other people, not me."
"I'll never lose this weight. Why try?"
"I can have fulfillment or financial security. I can't have both"
Somewhere along the way in life, we wrote stories like this based on assumptions we made from our observations, experiences, and often, our hurt.
Someone or something in life hurt us-- and we built a wall around our hearts that said: "NEVER AGAIN". We wrote a script to justify our beliefs and the stand we were going to take in our lives from that day forward. That's how we coped with the pain.
Why strive for something that hurts too much? we think to ourselves...
Why push through the pain of setbacks when we can just tell ourselves it's out of our reach and not really try?
That feels safe. So we take the easy way out.
Except it's not easy living with these lies that hold us back, is it? It's just a different kind of hard.
It's hard to set the alarm at 5am every day and hit the gym before work.
It's a different kind of hard to watch our waistlines expand.
It's hard to push ourselves to build confidence by facing our fears and trying new things.
It's a different kind of hard to struggle with low self-esteem thinking we'll never measure up.
We CHOOSE OUR HARD with the stories we allow ourselves to believe.
But the choice is ours at any point to REWRITE OUR STORY.nIt's not easy, but is EASY really what we're after? Or is it fulfillment?
More on STORIES in the next series of this NO STRAIGHT LINES series. Stay tuned.
Until then, get your wheels spinning on this: What story do you need to uncover, that if discarded, might change the trajectory of your life?
You got this,
Mac
