How to Tell Yourself a Story About Yourself That Will Enable You to Create the Life You’d Love To Live

This is the 300th story I’ve published on Medium and the story I have been trying to write for all that time. It turns out that creating your story is a lot easier than I thought it would be.

I have always found it very hard to visualise exactly how I’d love my life to be. There are so many “things” that seem to be important, like love, possessions, location, and happiness. And then you have to consider myriad other factors that might make your life the way you’d love it to be.

But this time I have found it a great deal easier to write my own story of how I’d love my life to be. So what has made the difference?

One factor that has made the difference is that I have become more self-aware. This didn’t just happen suddenly, out of the blue. I have been working to make myself more mindful, more present, both by meditating daily and by checking in with how I am feeling several times a day.

Is mindfulness worth the effort?

The short answer must be “yes” because I believe it has made it much easier to write my story of the way I’d love my life to be. This is something I have not previously been able to do to my own satisfaction.

But there may also be an answer that says you don’t have to make the effort to become mindful to write your story. It may be that the discovery that I made whilst practising mindfulness will enable you to write your story quite easily.

Is it essential to write your story in order to create the life you’d love to live?

My answer to this question is, “writing your story will probably make it very much easier to create the life you’d love to live.” It will help to write your story down becasuse this will make it more “real”. But you don’t have to do this, you can simply create the key elements of your story in your mind and hold them there as your reference points and your inspiration.

There are advantages to writing it down, like it somehow makes your story more real, and it makes it more difficult to change when some new fantasy occurrs to you.

The advantage of not writing it down is that the key elements of your story are always with you, in your mind.

The best way to start writing your story

I have tried this a lot of times, so I consider myself something of an expert.

Do NOT start with possessions. In other words don’t start by telling yourself, “my life would be perfect if only I had a house in a beautiful location.” And don’t tell yourself, “My life would be so much better if I had so much money I never had to work or worry about money ever again.” Such goals are the stuff of fantasy. They are attainable, but they require skill, knowledge, hard work and a modicum of good fortune.

I have found that the best place to start is by asking yourself, “How would I love to feel every moment of my life?” Emotions give you energy and also inspire your imagination. With the right emotions energising you it is likely that you will obtain the possessions that are really important to you.

These are the feelings most likely to make your life enjoyable

I suggest you focus on positive feelings like: love, happiness, confidence, compassion, loyalty and generosity.

When you start your story by telling yourself, “I am a loving, happy, confident, compassionate, loyal and generous person,” you immediately fill your being with these good feelings and good qualities. This is probably the way you are in any case. However, you are probably not giving yourself credit for these wonderful qualities.

Are you making the good qualities you possess part of your self-image? Do you really see yourself that way? Are these good qualities the most important part of how you see yourself?

I can tell you that when I allow myself to feel these positive emotions on a regular basis my overall feelings about myself raise to a much higher level. And when I see myself as someone who lives by the standards of these feelings I experience a surge of energy and confidence that enables me to recognise that I am living a really good life.

The extra special feeling that liberates you

For most of my life I felt that I was a kind of prisoner. I was imprisoned by feeling that I ought to live a certain way. I was constricted by the rules that other people imposed on me. I was the victim of my own fears and anxieties.

The cage I had built for myself was the result of trying to be the person I thought I was meant to be. Or perhaps I was trying to be the person I thought other people expected me to be. Either way I was not living like my true self. And, as a result, I constantly felt constricted. I just didn’t feel right about myself.

Being mindful of how I feel in different situations has allowed me to liberate myself from the chains of trying to be someone that I am not. It has given me the courage and the freedom to express who I really am.

I can tell you that using positive feelings as benchmarks for who I am has elevated my life to a new level.

The life you’d love to live

It’s not about what you’ve got, your possessions. And it’s not about where you live. It’s not even about who you’re with, although this can make a real difference. It’s totally about how you feel. And you can make yourself feel any way you want to feel in any circumstances in any location.

My personal experience is that the form of Zen mindfulness that I practice has given me awareness and self-discipline that have been of inestimable help to me in being able to generate and sustain positive feelings.

How to write your story

Start with the positive emotions you want to feel every moment of your life. It won’t be a long list so write these feelings down now.

I would recommend that you write no more at this stage. Just spend your time allowing yourself to feel and become familiar with your feelings.

You will find that the more time you spend with your positive feelings the better you feel about yourself. In a short time you will find that focussing on these strong feelings will actually change the way you think and behave in many areas of your life. You will have started your journey.

As you spend more and more time feeling your positive feelings your imagination will likely start to suggest to you ways that you can behave that will make your life the way you truly want it to be.

This is how it is happening for me.

Thanks for reading.