5 Tips To Change The Stories You Tell Yourself And Turn Your Life Around

Change the narrative to alter your life

You are the creator of your own reality

Have you ever paused to notice your inner narrative — the stories you tell yourself and the impact those stories have on your mind?

What starts as a minor episode, error, or a small thing, gets woven into a huge lie, a tale you repeat enough times to start believing in.

In your mind, you add layers and layers of imaginary clues regarding your inability to do things and achieve goals with the result that you actually start to believe you’re not enough and you’re incapable of doing anything worthwhile.

This gives rise to self-doubt; you begin to think less of yourself, and your performance further deteriorates. It, therefore, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you manifest what you falsely imagined in your mind.

“The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves determine the quality of the selves we imagine we are.”

— Rami M. Shapiro

You are what you tell yourself you are, and you create your reality by telling yourself stories. What you focus on, you become. Your subconscious mind creates your reality, and your narrative becomes your beliefs. So to change your life, you have to rewrite these stories.

Here are five ways you can change the stories you tell yourself and alter the outcome.

1. Examine your thoughts

Your thoughts are created in your subconscious mind. They become relevant only when you assign them meaning and accept the narrative as true.

If you take time to examine and evaluate your thoughts, you’ll understand that you’ve been sabotaging your success and happiness by the way you are thinking and making up stories.

By telling yourself false stories, you are feeding your mind incorrect information about what you are capable of and how far you can reach in life.

What you say to yourself shapes your thoughts, creates your feelings and beliefs, and guides your actions.

If you want to live an empowered life and tap your true potential, you must direct your thoughts in the right direction and feed your mind with positive thoughts.

“Be positive. Your mind is more powerful than you think. What is down in the well comes up in the bucket. Fill yourself with positive things.”

— Tony Dungy

2. Your story is not your truth

Your mind is a blank slate; whatever you write on it gets displayed to you. If you give faulty inputs to your mind, you’re bound to get wrong outputs.

For instance, if you made a small mistake some time and called yourself stupid, that label will get etched on your mind.

Further, if you keep the memory of that mistake alive by revisiting it, again and again, you’ll remain stuck in that negative space.

Henceforth, you will either hesitate to take up a new task for fear of making mistakes or make more mistakes because, in your mind, you’re convinced that you’re stupid and are bound to make mistakes.

So don’t be taken in by what your mind tells. It’s giving wrong signals because you’ve been telling yourself false stories.

To set things straight, each time you make a mistake, do something wrong or miss out on, be compassionate and treat yourself with kindness. Know that you didn’t do it deliberately.

Acknowledge and admit your mistake, make conscious efforts never to repeat it, and no matter what happens, always tell yourself you’re good enough, capable, and can be anyone’s match. That’s the way you turn around the false stories.

“We are the stories we tell about ourselves. But when those stories are lies, we are the most surprised of all.”

-Brent Weeks

3. Practice mindfulness

To stop the wrong stories from becoming your reality and running your life, be present in your life and watch intently every moment what is happening.

Observing your life objectively will unfold the reality and show you how the stories you’re feeding yourself are not matching with the truth, that is.

Being mindful will give you an overview of what you are and how the chatter of the inner narrative interprets and distorts your actions and behavior and paints an entirely different picture.

You’ll become more self-aware and realize you are not your stories and the lies that you or other people tell you.

If you don’t perform well or measure up once, it doesn’t mean you lack the ability. It only means you missed it that one time. Your state is not immutable or set in stone. You can be better if you try longer and work harder.

“Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.”

— Sharon Salzberg

4. Narrate a new story you want to manifest

Your life will begin to change when you get into the habit of purposefully engaging in telling yourself stories that you want to manifest.

If you want to achieve a goal and become successful, you better begin a positive narrative.

However, new stories cannot be spun out of thin air. You have to make your talking powerful, convincing, and substantiate them with enough proof.

So direct your attention to your previous successes, achievements, and victories. Reinforce faith in yourself that you have what it takes to succeed. You have done it before, and you have the ability to make things happen in the future as well.

Once you begin rewiring your mind, it becomes your new reality. When you’re programmed to win, you’ll think of yourself as a winner and do everything possible to accomplish what you desire.

5. Work on your self-belief

The fact about your stories is that you have invented them, and they are the figment of your imagination.

To change the stories in your mind, remove the self-imposed limits and work on your self-belief. The onus is on you.

If your mind falsely thinks you’re incapable of doing anything, challenge that thought and prove it wrong.

Do the things you think you can’t, step out of your comfort zone, give yourself big goals to achieve, and take calculated risks.

When you see yourself stretching your boundaries, pursuing things that you thought were outside your reach, and changing what your imagined was beyond your power to control, your self-belief will get a tremendous boost. You’ll no longer rely on the negative stories about yourself.

In Conclusion

Everyone tells themselves a story about who they are and what they are worth. However, the kind of stories you tell yourself is instrumental in setting the course and deciding how far you will go in life.

By taking charge of your thoughts and changing the stories you tell yourself, you can turn around the negative narrative into a positive and change your life.

“Stories help shape the way we see ourselves in the world. They help tell us who we can be and what we can achieve.”

— Nicola Yoon

Dr. Roopleen is the author of ‘And So Can You’ and From Average to Awesome