Changing The Story We Tell Ourselves

Using the conscious and subconscious effectively

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Hi Growers 🌱,

We’ve all had the feeling of being stuck.

Where the days go by and we feel like there is no progress in-between.

This sensation nags at our soul which can send us in a spiral that is hard to escape from.

I’m here to help us rewrite our story and get us back on track.

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Remembering the Unhelpful Story

Some time ago, we told ourselves a story about ourselves.

At the time, we might not have viewed this story as unhelpful.

Most likely, it is hard to even identify this story.

It could be that we don’t like to workout, that we get depressed from time to time, or that we will go after our goals one day when the time is right.

Once we tell ourselves a story, our subconscious mind internalizes it. Usually without us even being aware.

As the days go by, it becomes harder to workout. We may just get sad and begin to accept it. We’ll keep kicking our goals down the road because the timing isn’t right.

Sure enough, we will have forgotten when we first planted this idea in our heads.

And now we find ourselves stuck in a life we don’t want to live.

For me, I felt like I was making moves with my job at eGenesis and HyperGuap. I told myself I would start writing and building my own personal brand one day.

I told myself this narrative for years, but this delay started to decay my soul. I needed to identify that this story of developing a personal brand one day in the future, was no longer serving me. I needed to begin to achieve it now!

There are other stories that I have told myself, that are no longer helpful and don’t reflect how I want to live my life. At the end of this piece, I will give some examples of how to address these head on.

The Story We Want To Live

If we want to live a different life, the most important step is getting crystal clear on what we want.

It’s best to be as specific as possible.

Once we have decided what we want consciously, the idea will sprout like a seed in our brains subconsciously.

From the movie Inception

Just like we told ourselves unhelpful stories that spread subconsciously into our lives, we can tell ourselves helpful stories!

It’s funny, because we get overwhelmed that we have to achieve all of our wants when we write them down.

But we forget how the mind works….

Once the conscious mind decides the target, the subconscious mind does all the work automatically.

We make a desire from our conscious mind, but the subconscious mind makes the magic happen to change our reality.

Our subconscious is very powerful. Our conscious mind doesn’t breathe for us, pump our blood, digest our food, or think about every little action we need to do. Our subconscious does!

Again.

The brain is an automatic success seeking mechanism once it identifies a target.

Our subconscious mind is like a mirror for what our conscious mind wants. It reflects back to our conscious mind through actions.

Everything your conscious mind decides feeds your subconscious mind material to work with.

Thus, be careful what you wish for — because your subconscious mind is much more powerful and will run with whatever material your conscious mind feeds it.

Addressing Unhelpful Stories

As I mentioned earlier, one unhelpful story that I’ve been telling myself is that I want to build a large online brand one day. For now, my small personal brand is okay. I justify the lack of scale by saying that its not the right time…

Now I see this as an unhelpful story.

I can build my personal brand at scale today. I don’t have to wait. In fact, that’s what I want. I want to take what I’m doing up a notch.

Here are some other stories I’ve told myself that aren’t helpful. In the sub-bullet, I’ve included ways that I am changing that narrative to serve me.

• Diet Doesn’t Matter Now: I will fix my diet one day. I can eat whatever I want as it doesn’t really effect my body. One day when it matters, I’ll change it.

  • Diet Could Make Me Ripped: I work out 5 days a week. If I get my diet right, I could get my body into the best shape ever.

• Learning is Meaningless: There is so much to know and I’ll never learn it all. Plus, most of the information I learn isn’t helpful. I will learn casually and when I feel like it.

  • Learning Can Make Me Happier & More Fulfilled: Being thoughtful about what I learn can create a sense of purpose. I can choose topics to learn and gain a fairly deep understanding of it. Constantly trying to learn will improve my life.

• Meeting New People Is A Waste Of Time: A lot of random networking doesn’t lead anywhere so I’ve decided to eliminate it.

  • Meeting New People Can Lead To New Ideas & Projects: It’s never a waste of time to meet someone new. I’ll never know how the connection could change my life or spark some inspiration.

These are just a few examples of how I’m transforming unhelpful stories into a new narrative ark for myself.

Changing Your Story

• There are unhelpful stories that you may not be aware of that you told yourself long ago.

• These stories are deep in your mind and no longer serve you.

• Get clarity on what you want in life.

• Your subconscious mind will do the work and improve your life without even trying just like the unhelpful stories once did.

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