What's the story you've been telling yourself?
The story that's keeping you stuck in the same spot
Hi friends & new subscribers,
How are you?
I can't believe it's been a week since my Creator Sandbox announcement. The process has been overwhelming and exciting at the same time. If you're new here, it's a small project that I've decided to embark on to help new creators give the accountability group they need to publish together.
I decided to make it small because having an online venture is hard. Just like with writing & content creation, you want it to be slow but gradual growth.
With this community, I get to learn what these people truly need. But sometimes, my brain gets in the way. It tells me that I need to do more. Get more. While that is the plan in the future, it's better to slow down and get to know what these new creators need.
So, that I can show up and serve these new creators better.
More on that next week.
The Power of Stories
This week, I'd like to talk about stories.
More specifically, the stories that you've been telling yourself. During a convo with a friend, she mentioned that she really wants to have a personal blog. She even made a goal of having 10 published posts by the end of 2021. When I asked her, "what's stopping you from doing more?"
She said, "I'm really bad at writing."
In her head, that's the "story" she kept telling herself. That's she's bad at writing. If you didn't know, the thoughts, stories, and beliefs that we tell ourselves are self-fulfilling prophecies.
"In Feeling Fat Can Make You Fat, Meg Selig reviews a study by researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology that showed just how powerful our thoughts can be. The researchers found that adolescents who thought they were fat, even though they were not, were significantly more likely to be overweight or obese as adults! And what contributed to their weight gain was not the thoughts themselves, but rather thebehaviourr that these thoughts produced: dieting, skipping meals, and stress caused by negative self-judgment."
Because my friend believes that she's bad at writing, her motivation for it isn't strong.
However, if she believed that she could learn how to write, her motivation would be different. She would be able to think that she's capable of writing.
And when that happens, she'd be keener to practice writing, and therefore write more.
This happens with other thoughts as well:
I'm really bad at math.
I'm not good with money.
I'm not good at doing exercises.
What you tell yourself over and over again gets embed in your subconscious.
And that's why nothing changes.
But what if you changed the way you thought about things.
I'm bad at math, but I can try to learn it.
I'm not good with money, but what if I started to learn more about it.
I'm terrible at filming videos. I wonder what would happen if I practiced for the next week.
Even reading these statements feels entirely different. They're not entirely positive, but they feel more empowering.
So, my question for you this week:
What's the story you've been telling yourself that you want to change?
Here's are the links to my articles this week:
Fascinating stuff I found this week:
As you know, I'd love to know your feedback, questions or comments, so don't hesitate to reach out here or on Twitter.🙂
‘til next week,
Jerine
Great post, Jerine. It reminds me of something that's stuck with me ever since the first time I heard it—from Jim Kwik: "If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them." These stories we tell ourselves play a bigger role than we know. Mindset is powerful—for better or worse.