The results in our lives can be tracked back to core beliefs that shape us. The core beliefs are impacted by our experiences and many times by the stories we tell. Those stories give us insight into our beliefs. Our core beliefs then shape our thoughts which in turn shape our emotions. Those emotions lead to actions which end up in results. You’ve heard it I am sure that if you change your thoughts you change your life. This is the framework that this comes from. I’ve attached a slide from a workshop to show you how it plays out.

As an example of how this plays out, I have a friend who isn’t getting the results she desires around her eating habits and she’s carrying 10 more pounds than her goal. Whenever she talks about why she has a hard time losing weight and eating right, she continues to tell the story about how her dad showed her love by giving her junk food (like twinkies) at the local convenient store. They’d go in the store and her dad would say “Since you’ve been such a good little girl and because I love you, here is a twinkie for you”. She goes on to explain that she associated food with love and being a good girl. So when she feels like she’s deserving, she buys and eats that junk food.

The experience you had and the story you tell about it has shaped your core belief. For my friend, she learned that food is a sign of love, so the belief she carries with her is that “food is an expression of love”. From your story, what is the belief you have acquired that is not serving you? This isn’t easy to find at first pass and it may take awhile for you to dig down deep enough to uncover it. On the top of a blank sheet of paper write “From my story, I believe that….” and then just start writing. Brainstorm it. Let yourself try things at different angles.

So what results do you get from that core belief? Write them down. Again, brainstorm it. For my friend, the results she gets are things like she eats junk food when she feels down or feels the need for love and she catches herself giving junk food to her kids when she wants to show her love to them. In the end she feels controlled by this habit. Ultimately, she isn’t at her ideal body image and weight. So what are the negative ramifications of your story and your core beliefs in that area?

There are five steps to changing the stories you tell in the areas of your life that aren’t ideal:

1. Bring awareness to your old stories
2. Identify how it doesn’t serve you
3. Challenge the truth of your old stories
4. Stop telling your old stories
5. Reframe your old stories into new ones

First, is to be conscious of the stories you tell. Once you are, then you can begin to address it’s impact. Most people don’t even know that they habitual tell the same stories over and over again. Second, is to identify how it doesn’t serve you and what the negative impact is. This gives you the fuel to want to change. Next is to challenge the truth of your story. Many times we have interpreted the story in one way, when there are many ways to interpret it. What would be another way you could look at it, or from someone else’s perspective? Fourth is to go on a story fast. Simply stop telling that story. When you go to a dinner party and someone asks you about your issue, simply refuse to go back to your old habit and old stories. Fifth and last, reframe your old story, one that better serves you. For my friend, she changed her story to the new perspective that it wasn’t about the food, but yet the story was about the quality time the family spent. That the love was about the walk to the store, the conversations that happened, and the fact that her Dad dedicated time to just be present with them…that was love. The junk food was just a detail she stopped telling and eventually forgot.

So when will you change your life by changing the stories you tell?