The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Whatever story you are currently telling yourself about your career, is the story you’re living.
Tell yourself you can’t find that dream job today because of whatever reason, then you probably won’t find it.
Tell yourself you’re happy and comfortable, then you’ll get passed up and miss out on opportunities.
Tell yourself you’re wasting your time doing something extracurricular to get ahead, then you probably won’t get value out of the exercise.
Tell yourself you’re on the verge of something big, and you’ll probably crack the code soon to that promotion.
Whatever story line you are using, then that becomes the story line.
In the last few weeks I’ve spoken to people who are trying to find new jobs, drum up new business, or network with people out of their job level. I’ve heard a common theme from all of them which is a sentence that goes something like this, “I don’t think there’s any value in that task.”
That statement is a story line they are telling themselves to protect their egos and hearts from disappointment, in the event that they don’t get the traction or success they are hoping for. It’s much easier to use a story line that resonates with protection, than a story line that resonates with risk and putting yourself out there.
But the people who use the story lines that are different than most, typically end up achieving greater results than most.
You see it all begins and ends with your mindset. The story line your mind feeds you is the outcome you achieve based on how you go forth on the task.
Imagine being tasked to run a mile in under six minutes. It’s a hard task, even if you’re in shape. The chances of you running it in that amount of time are slim. So you tell yourself a story that there is no way, you’re out of shape, you don’t have the shoes, and you don’t have the stamina to make it happen. On race day, you go out and you start the morning with a defeated attitude. You tell your friends who have come to support you that you’re going to try your best, but there’s no way you’ll do it. You start thinking about being done, long before the race even starts. Once the race begins, you’re already mentally done as you prepared as though you couldn’t win, and you raced like you couldn’t win.
The story line you told yourself was there is no chance, and low and behold, there was no chance.
On the other side of that story, you could prepare your ass off, get your mind right, eat right, work as hard as possible to get in shape, and then go into the race with the idea that you’re going to achieve the goal. Even knowing that a six minute mile may be close to impossible for you, you could still end up running a seven or eight minute mile and you would be incredibly proud of yourself. Sure, you missed the goal, but you got as close as you could and learned through the process.
The only difference is how you set yourself up for success going into it.
Have you ever done this to yourself in your career? Are you doing it now?
Stop.
Give yourself the confidence that you can run that mile in record time, and be proud of yourself when you get close.
Because you can.
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