Releasing Your Old Stories
Only 5 to 10 percent of what most of us do in any given day is driven by our conscious awareness.
Conscious awareness is where we actively are aware of our choices that drive behavior. The other 90 to 95 percent is driven by unconscious programming. Think about an iceberg, we only see around 10 percent above the water and 90 percent is underwater.
Start with your morning today. You probably woke up made coffee or tea, brushed your teeth, showered, etc. you were not consciously aware of most of your behaviors. These are just the motions of life. Just as we create habits involving out day-to-day tasks, we also develop habitual behavior based on the stories we’ve told ourselves about how life and how we should be.
So how do we bring these “unconscious” beliefs to the surface that have been driving behavior that no longer serves us and is not creating the results we want? I’m so glad you asked!
Your Life Timeline Exercise
This exercise had a profound impact on my life and I think it will change yours too.
We are going to start by putting on our investigative detective hats. We’ve decided that carrying around old stories like a big bag of garbage we drag around with us is not helping us achieve the sales we want or the life we have desired. And garbage stinks, especially old seafood garbage…
- Find a quiet place, a cup of tea, your favorite pen, and your journal. (I’m assuming you have a journal here but a stack of paper you pulled out of the printer works great too).
- Draw a continuous line in the middle of your paper. This is your timeline.
- On the line, markdown significant life events that were challenging for you with the corresponding age. For example, “Age 8 = Moved to California”, “Age 19 = Didn’t get job I wanted”, “Age 12 = Mom Got Cancer”, Age 14 – Dad fired from job”.
- For each life event, list the beliefs you formed due to this event occurring in your life. For example, “Didn’t get job I wanted = No matter what I do, I never win at anything”. Take your time with this portion of the exercise and don’t rush it. Lean into this as emotions will pop up and ah-ha moments emerge.
- Look at your life now and for any limiting beliefs that have been dragging behind you in the metaphorical seafood-smelling garbage. For example, you might have thought that getting your dream job would make you happy and you feel like you put in the effort to get what you want but you never win. This could lead to you stop trying to make your life better because it’s hopeless and you will never win anyway.
- Now look at each belief and write down the expectation created from it. It would be positive or negative. For example, you might not have gotten the job you wanted so you could have created an expectation that dream jobs equal happiness but also you never win at anything so why try for the dream job. You don’t deserve it anyway because you are not a winner.
- Look at all of the beliefs and expectations and look for common themes. A story of your life is being unearthed. Spend some time writing about this story and what you have been telling yourself.
Congratulations! Celebrate your vulnerability and courage to complete this exercise. I will be talking in a later post about how we rewrite our story.
xoxo,
Jaime
Work With Me to Release Sales Blocks and Reframe Your Sales Mindset
