So how do we break out of this cycle? What what is it that we can do, right? We're hooked on the story that we believe about ourselves. And it can be very difficult. It can be really, really difficult to break out of that trap, right? You basically consider that you've fallen into a hole in the ground and there's no ladder and there is no rope. Hi, I'm Jason Ramsden, and I believe we can all work on leading a more positive and intentional
life. And this show details my journey by sharing my learning stories and conversations with guests. If you want to lead a more intentional life, focus on being the best you possible, please subscribe today. Now, let's get into today's episode. Hello, my positivity posse, I'm pumped to share today's episode with you because it holds so much truth for myself. And I hope it resonates with you as well. Today we're taking a look at the stories we tell ourselves. I know heavy topic.
But I want to acknowledge that today's episode has a lot to do with my own journey and how I can change my mindset while offering tips to help you improve yours as a way to make edits to the narrative that we tell ourselves about our lives. So without further ado, let's get rolling with today's episode. If you're a regular listener to this show, you know, I'm a fan of Rene Brown, she had a quote
one time. So the most difficult part of our stories is often what we bring to them, what we make up about who we are and how we are perceived by others. Yes, maybe we lost our job or screwed up a project. But what makes that story so painful, is what we tell ourselves about our own self worth and value. Now, today's title of this show is the story we tell ourselves. And
there's good reason for that. I have been telling myself stories for probably a couple months now about who I am as a person, what I have to bring to this world and how I'm going about my my business and in a daily routine, and how my beliefs of myself and in my head are kind of interrupting a few things for me. And I'll share that story with you today in hopes that perhaps it resonates with you perhaps you find some meaning in it for yourselves. Because it's
true. The stories that we tell ourselves are our limiting beliefs are what hold us back from moving forward with progress in our lives. So as you know, I've been on this journey towards becoming a coach went through a program did something back this time last year in November, actually of 2020 did like an intensive weekend really found I was passionate about moving forward with becoming a coach did a six month program January to June, graduated have
credentials. This is awesome, you know progress for me as a person and as a coach. And throughout that process, you get matched up with somebody who's your your coaching partner. And so recently, I was lamenting to my coaching partner shamika about how I feel like a rocking horse, right? I'm doing a lot of different things. But I don't feel like I'm making any progress in my business in terms of finding clients and moving
forward. You know, I do a lot of different things this show is one I have newsletters, in social media, etc. But for whatever reason, I'm not attracting people to work with me. And I'm I'm being incredibly open and honest with you all here today. Because I feel like it's important for you to know that, yes, everybody goes through bumps, everybody has trouble with making progress in whatever they're working on. And I can certainly shut it down.
But it's not gonna stop me from having thoughts about Am I good enough? am I bringing value to people, whether it's on this show, again, in a newsletter or other posts that I do on a regular basis? Are people finding value in that, and I'm kind of lamenting that wish to meet them? And as a good coach, in our conversation, she says to me, what evidence do you have of that? And I said, I'm not sure what do you mean? What evidence
do I have that? And she rephrase the question, What evidence do you have that you're not making an impact? And I paused for a moment. And I said, Well, I don't feel like people are, are connecting with me, I'm not getting any sort of feedback. And she said, Well tell me more
about that. And so I started to describe how you know, every once in a while people will reach out to me and she said, see, okay, there's there's value just because it's not a regular basis, not because it's happening all the time, doesn't mean that you're not making an impact. And as you know, like that's huge for me impact one impact 1 million there is no difference to me, like impact
has impact. And so I want to create relationships with people that actually create impact for them so that they can move forward with their lives. Just like I'm working to move forward with my life, to have a change in direction to start a new business to hopefully impact the lives of others because that's what I feel I'm called to do. And throughout this process having this conversation with with shamika, it dawned on me that I'm telling
myself a story, right? I'm telling myself a story about my own self worth, and value that is causing me to doubt myself to doubt my abilities as an entrepreneur to doubt my abilities as a person to doubt my abilities as a coach. And I don't have any evidence otherwise, other than what stuck in my head, and what's causing me to have these thoughts about the progress that I'm making. And then you kind of compound
upon that. And I had a meeting with reason with my mentor, Coach Kirsten, and she said to me, Listen, here's what's happening, here's what I see is happening for you, is you show up a lot of different places. But you're not being vulnerable enough where people can understand kind of who you are and what you bring to the table. And again, boom, truth bomb on me. Yes, that's true, I have trouble with being vulnerable.
But I have trouble with being vulnerable, because I'm telling these stories about myself about not being good enough, I don't work fast enough, I don't have I don't have any value for people out there. And so it's a struggle between what's in my head, and what people are telling me. And I would imagine
that same for you, right? You're out there telling yourself stories about your own self worth and value, because something went wrong at work, because something is wrong in your relationship, because something hasn't quite worked out right, on your path in life. And I get it right, we all go through this process of focusing
our attention on ourselves. And we're focusing our attention on ourselves, perhaps in our heads, when we should be really focusing on what is in our hearts, like, we know that we have value in words, we know it in our heart. But because we're not getting the feedback from the outside world, our head tells us differently. So how do we break out of this cycle? What what is it that we can do,
right? We're hooked on the story that we believe about ourselves, and it can be very difficult, it can be really, really difficult to break out of that trap, right? You've basically considered that you've fallen into a hole in the ground, and there's no ladder and there is no rope. How do you get yourself out? How do you get yourself out of the hole that you've fallen
into? So consider for a moment what if the stories that we tell ourselves, right, that inner chatter in our head that's going on nonstop about what's going on in our lives? What if we imagine that inner voice as a cloud in the sky, right? Like a pie in the sky? It's a dream. It's up there. It's beyond us? What if we imagine it that way? That it's not really true, right? We have dreams, we don't believe they're true. We know them to be
dreams. So what if we had that same thought process about the stories we tell ourselves, there is no tangential evidence that when you dream that it's going to be true, or it's going to come true? It just doesn't happen that way, doesn't it doesn't manifest itself in
physical reality. Imagine for a moment that the hole that you're in is actually just you dreaming about a hole that you're in, rather than it being the actual story of your life, once you start to wrap your head around that, so that the next step would be for you to start to consider. And for me, we're in this together, right? It's probably the reason you listen to this is because you and I are on the same path. We may not be on the exact same path. But we struggle with the same things,
right? Let's be honest. So the next thing, let's try not to act on the story that we tell ourselves. It's no different than having someone do something to us. A great example of that is, let's say we've gone made a lunch appointment with somebody, we're out having lunch, and they're late. In our head, they're late because they're being disrespectful to us,
right? Okay, another story, we're telling ourselves in this particular scenario, which then brings up feelings, which then brings up additional thoughts, which then causes us to have actions that result in behavior. So in that particular instance, when we find ourselves kind of stuck in this thought process of churning the same story in our head over and over and over again, you get caught up in it, and you get caught up in it to a certain extent. You can't get yourself out of that imaginary
hole. You have to not act on the story, that you're telling yourself about the situation that what you're telling yourself is not true. It just isn't true. Because, as my friend shamika said, you don't have any evidence to the contrary. And I know it's tempting, right? It's so tempting, because as humans, we're storytellers, whether we tell people stories about our own lives, wherever there we tell them about experiences. We're always crafting stories. And it's this kind of act of
creation, right? This is how our lives were put together. We're always telling people Stories, when you hear the phrase, people are telling you stories, you think people are embellishing or that they're lying about it. No, that's not true. That's not what I mean by telling stories. But that's how we share information about what's going on. And so at some point, there was a psychologist at Northwestern University, Dan McAdams, he calls this, like our narrative identity. It's how we
refer to ourselves. So it's this internalized story that we've created about ourselves. And it's, if you want to think of it as like our own personal myth, that's what Dan McAdams is talking about. So when you get caught up in this scenario of there are heroes and villains. And there's this plot, there's major events that happen, think of it as a story again, we tell ourselves, all these characters come into play. And when we go to share our story, sometimes we just leave out the most
important part. So for instance, perhaps you have had a conversation with somebody, and they have said to you, hey, listen, I feel like at work, I'm going to get a really bad performance review. This week, I feel like it's gonna be bad, I'm not sure what's going to happen. But as you're listening to your friend tell you that story, you remember, earlier in the week, they told you a story about how their boss or their supervisor praise them for working, like miracles on a project that they
were working on. Where's the disconnect between the conversation around the good thing? And then the conversation around, hey, I think I'm going to get a bad review. Well, the disconnect is, we always focus on the negative, we feed off of negativity. I've said it before. In other episodes, it's how we learn to survive. We were walking the planet, there were things eating us, we're gonna face the negativity in our lives, because that's how we're going to survive, rather than
focusing on the positive. So how do we spend that? How do we start to focus more on our positive side? And this is where kind of I think mindset comes into it all, when you're talking about how to improve your mindset around the stories that we tell. Now mindset is really all just about thought patterns. So how do you clarify and correct the thought patterns in
your life around the story? You tell yourself, okay, well, here's, here's one thing, I'll tell you what the outcome is, and I'll tell you how to get there. So the outcome is people who believe their lives are meaningful, tend to tell stories defined by growth, communion and agency. So they're telling them, they're telling stories about their lives that are super positive, as opposed to people who don't believe in themselves, their stories tend to not be
meaningful. If there is no growth happening in their lives, there is no agency about how to move forward in their lives, they feel lost, they feel disrespected, and they feel disregarded. Now, I'm not saying that. To make light of it, I'm what I'm saying is that there are two sides to how we tell stories about ourselves. There's the positive side, and there's
the negative side. So let's go back to the story I was telling you before about you've gone out, and you've made reservations with a friend for lunch or for dinner, you arrive on time, you get seated, and they're running late, you don't have any word from them, but they're not showing up. And so in your head, you're saying to yourself, Well, my friend has not shown up on time. What does
that mean? In the first instance, where you have a negative mindset, you may say to yourself, that person doesn't respect me. Now you've had this thought. And whenever you have thoughts, obviously thoughts then create feelings that we have. And so in this particular scenario, that feeling may be that you're angry, may be sad, you may be feeling rejected or dejected about the situation,
which then leads to action. Your friend shows up for lunch, I'll be at late, you sit down and the next thing you know you're starting to throw zingers at at them, because they were late. So you fall into this passive aggressive behavior around making snide comments towards them, which then results in that person having less respect for you, which then becomes the fulfilling of the prophecy of your thought in the original spot, which was, that person doesn't respect you. Now what if
you flip this switch? Okay, here's where the mindset piece comes in. If you have paper near you go ahead and grab it, you're gonna write down how to flip the switch here. What if you flipped it around in such a way that same scenario, you've made reservations, lunch or dinner, you get there on time you get seated, and your friend is late. But instead of telling yourself when your friend is late, that
they don't respect you. What if you told yourself that perhaps they are busy, perhaps there was traffic, perhaps the babysitter didn't show on time. Perhaps there was an illness in the family, whatever it may be. Put it in a positive light, where it's not them doing something to you. There are shortcuts stances beyond their control, which are causing them to be
late. So But then, when you do that, right, when you spin it a little bit positively, instead of it being about you, the next thing, you know, when they do arrive, and they sit down, you're appreciative, you're appreciative that they they arrived, that they made it that everything's okay. The meal goes, Well, it's relaxed, you're not throwing zingers to them, in an effort to be passive aggressive to put them down, there is kindness and understanding. And perhaps they share with you why they were
late. And you can relate to it, because we've all been there, traffic, car trouble, lead, babysitters, whatever it may be, and then there's no effect at all. None zero, no effect, personally to you, and no negativity in the situation. Now, I know that sounds super simple, when here, listening to a podcast and listening to me kind of describe how you just
flipped the switch. But what I want you to remember, ultimately, is when you are telling stories, and this is another example of just you're telling a story, but you're telling it about that person, not necessarily about yourself, but you're telling yourself a story about your friend, is that it's not the circumstance itself. Right? It's not that person being late. That is the issue. No, it's it's your
reaction to it. No one can make you feel anything about that particular you have feelings, because you have a thought process in your mind wanders and goes down a certain path, what I'm seeing is that you need to choose the right path to go down, spin it positively instead
of spinning it negatively. And this is the same thing, when you're talking about diving into your own stories, when you're going back to telling yourself stories about your own self, and your own self worth and value, choose the positive, choose the things you know to be true, right? remove yourself from that dream thought of being stuck in the pit without a rope or a ladder, you can get out you can spend positive things about you go and take a look at what you've done in your life.
refocus on the good things you've done. And that's where you're going to find the value and worth and you need to then repeat those things to yourself time and time again. Otherwise, you're going to keep running into these roadblocks. So having limiting beliefs about moving forward, I'm sharing all of this to say this is exactly where I am, in my own journey is that I need to do the same thing I need to spin what's in my head more
positively than negatively. And I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying it's gonna be something that's going to be like a one and done. We're going to do this today we're going to listen to this show. And Jay said, and now I'm going to be fixed and I can move forward. But no, that's not how it works. Anything we're doing anything we're doing to make progress in your life takes time, it's gonna take time to move forward, it's going to take time to change your habits, it's going to take
time to change your story. But what I do believe is that even making tiny, tiny edits to your personal narrative that you're telling yourself can eventually have a huge, huge, huge impact on your life. And ultimately, that impact is leading to a more positive identity about yourself, which then leads to you living a life more purposefully than you had been previously. Because now you spend a story where you believe in yourself, friends have positivity on fire. I appreciate
you being here. I appreciate you going through this with me. Because this is something I've been struggling with for probably the last month or so. And if you are as well I'd love to hear about your journey reach out you can email me at Jason at positivity on fire calm let's connect. I'm here to be of service to you. Happy to set up a discovery call if you want to know more about how I coach and how I work with people. I work with them the same way I work with myself focusing on my
strengths. Now if you liked today's episode, please share this episode please share the show as word of mouth is the only way that this shows message will grow. Finally, as I close every show, I want to thank you for being here today, my friends your gift of time listening to this show does mean the world to me. And as always be well. Be happy, be you and until the next time may your quest for positivity begin today.
For more on my positivity quest follow me at underscore j y Ramsden on Instagram Tick Tock and Twitter. If you'd like today's episode, please give us a five star rating and review on your favorite podcast app or visit chaser comm and search for positivity on fire. Positivity on fire is a production of impact one media LLC All rights reserved.