What’s The Story? How to Be Wrong about People. Including Yourself

The unfortunate impact of creating a story.

He drove me nuts in meetings. His arrogant and condescending tone had me wishing the floor beneath my feet would open up and swallow me.

Doesn’t he see how he’s acting? I used to think.

That is until I had an epiphany.

I saw his humanity one day. He opened up, out of nowhere, about how underwater he was with his workload and how he couldn’t bear to bring it home anymore because it was taking time away from his family.

That presented a problem for him, and greatly impacted how open, patient, and reasonable he could be at work, and by extension, in meetings.

This wouldn’t be the case for everyone, but it was for him.

Was he being a jerk? Yes.

Was he unbearable? Seemed to be.

Was he a truly arrogant and condescending person? No.

He was just buried and didn’t know how to manage it. He was acutely focused on his family life, as we all are, and it appeared to be in shambles.

That was a real learning experience for me.

From that moment I realized that everyone has a story that leads them to behaviors in their life.

Creating my own story around his behaviors impacted how I felt about this person. That wasn’t fair.

Research shows us that we not only have the capacity to pay attention to and stop the chatter of our stories, but we can also reduce our stress, rewire our brains, and reinvent our relationships by responding to them differently.

Knowing that has made me realize that I need to be more aware of assuming I know a story because that can have consequences that impact relationships.

According to Abraham Maslow, “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

The more you hold to a particular belief, the greater power it has over you.

Your Own Story

The story you tell yourself can have some unfortunate impact as well.

Things will never change for me.

I don’t have the patience for that, I’m not a patient person.

I don’t think I can figure that out.

If you change the narrative, it can change your present and future. Likewise, how you view the present can alter the meaning you have given your past.

It’s easy to shape your story to fit into whatever emotions you’re experiencing at the moment. That can lead to frustration and a fixed mindset that has no confidence in what you’re capabilities are.

Before you allow yourself to get pulled underwater with your story, ask yourself:

Is the story actually true? In other words, let’s say you've been telling yourself you’re not creative enough to venture out and start a side hustle. Your mind has never worked that way. Is that actually true? Maybe it’s not.

Is believing this story serving you in some way? If you’re telling yourself you’re unable to do something because of some past belief, you might be giving yourself permission to stay snuggled in your comfort zone, and never venture out. Maybe that’s what you want.

Is this the story you want to tell? Telling yourself a certain story may allow you to justify some past behaviors or shortcomings. As long as you succumb to the narrative you’ve chosen, you don’t have to take any ownership or make any amends. That might work for you.

In order to rewrite your story, you’ll need to take an honest look at whether you’re blaming others for circumstances in your life.

Do you have lingering resentment about a promotion you didn’t get or a friendship that broke apart? If so, try asking yourself what you learned from the situation.

You learned something.

Reframe those outcomes in the positive and see if they may have manifested some good things in your life. They likely did.

Don’t live in frustration or stuckness based on a story that may no longer be true. Maybe it was never true.

The point is that things can be different if you allow your mind to open up and consider alternate thinking.

When working through stories or readjusting your mindset, observe your thoughts objectively and do your best to refrain from getting attached to them.

Stories don’t define you or anyone else, so remind yourself that as a human being, thoughts will stream through your mind nonstop, it’s normal.

You can decide whether to believe them or not.

🎉 P.S. More midlife wisdom on 🔥 🎧 The Badass Midlife Podcast 🎧 🔥

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