How to Tell Your Story (2)
A Coaching Exercise
In the previous post I described how we edit our own lives. Sometimes, without us being conscious of it we have given negative events a much bigger role in our past than they deserve; we have allowed them to become powerful influencers of our current lives.
Try This
This is an exercise I have used when coaching with all age groups, initially with young children who had been part of the care system, but I have found it’s just as helpful for adults.
Take a large sheet of paper and some pens. Start with your earliest memory and draw a box for every significant event in your life. Write the event in the box.
Your Memories
For example, I have a very vivid memory of my brother being born at home (well, it was January and a neighbour sent me to play in the garden – I was cold!) It was a significant life event because I stopped being an only child at age 4 and a half.
Other examples of significant events in my life include leaving home to go to University, my first plane trip to the US, my first experience of loss. The older you are the longer your list will be!
At this stage don’t worry about whether events are good or bad, just collect them. You may have several on the page and need more paper. Keep them in date order but wind about the page at will. It will take you some time.
Some years you may have several boxes of significance, and some will be relatively incident free.
After you’ve done this part of the exercise leave it for a while, hours or days; go off and do something else. When you return to it, look at it again with fresh eyes and check you’ve not left anything out.
Pause a While
Now you have your life in front of you, or specifically your memory of your life. These are some of the building blocks of your life (some you won’t have remembered.)
Using the data you have collected try writing down a few paragraphs about yourself for use in the following circumstances. In all cases you must focus only on the positives.
Three Scenarios
1) You are at a networking event and meet someone who you think could become a really good friend. They are bright and bubbly, and in the course of conversation they ask you to tell them about yourself, your life. You say…..
2) You have been for an interview for a senior post and are at the ‘trial by sherry’ stage. A senior member of the board says you seem to be really strong personality (which is what they are looking for). She asks you where your resolve to succeed came from. You say….
3) You meet an old friend you haven’t seen for over ten years. They ask you what you’ve been up to for last ten years. Remembering you are focussing only on positives, you say….
This exercise is not about putting on a false face, a mask, but being conscious of the image you choose to present to the world. We all edit our past- just make sure your good bits haven’t ended up on the cutting room floor!
How to Tell Your Story
Have you ever thought about your life as a story?
You can tell your story in so many different ways. How you choose to tell it affects how you live your life.
Past Lives
All of us have had sad and difficult times in our lives. All of us have done things we wish we hadn’t. If we fill up our story with these episodes we feel hopeless, buffeted by life’s events, at the mercy of others. And that’s the face we show to the world.
Believing that bad things happen to us tends to become a self fulfilling prophesy. We fail to spot the good things in our lives and take the opportunities that arise.
Happy Endings
However, if you focus on the good that has happened in your life, the story looks very different, and can have a very different ending! It’s not simply a question of adding up the number on each side, because the value of each event is different. And unique to you.
In my next post I’ll give you an exercise to help you look at your story in a positive light. Meanwhile reflect on how you describe the story of your life so far! A sad soap or a feel good film!
