How to change your narrative
Your beliefs and thoughts create the story you end up having about yourself, your life, and all of the circumstances you’re in.
Your thoughts and beliefs influence your perspective and how you end up showing up in the world, which impacts every aspect of your life. The narrative we have about ourselves impacts our interactions with others, our relationships, how we show up for our job, and our relationship with ourselves.
If we take a second to really look at our lives, we can be honest about where we may be wanting things to be different than they currently are. Maybe we want a more accepting and loving relationship with ourselves, maybe we want healthier relationships with others, maybe we want to feel damn good in our own skin, maybe we want to stop settling in our career, maybe we want to live up to our potential, maybe we want to be more empowered versions of ourselves.
Luckily, we always have the opportunity to change our narrative and create change in our lives. It might not be easy, and it will not be comfortable (human brains don’t tend to be big fans of change or the unknown), but it will absolutely be worth it.
First, understand that there is nothing you did “wrong” to have any unhelpful narratives about yourself.
We have spent our whole lives surrounded by marketing, media, music, and television that continue to tell us how we are not good enough and need to change something about ourselves for someone else’s gain. We internalize so much more than we ever are consciously aware of. Our inner stories and beliefs can come from anything we have observed, been told, or experienced.
BUT WE CAN CHANGE THAT. So let’s get to it ;).
Start with awareness
Yep, it’s time to pay more attention to what’s going on internally and externally, which might feel rather uncomfortable. But hey, discomfort is only a bad thing if we see it that way, and we can always decide to change the lens we’re looking through.
Start observing. Pay attention to your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors, and the contexts of each. Be present and an observer of your own experience.
As you go about your day, notice the thoughts going through your head. Notice how different things you do, think, or experience make you feel. Notice your behaviors and reactions. Notice your patterns.
I know, I know… it’s not flashy or sexy. But it IS what’s going to make a massive difference. We can’t change what we don’t know. Without awareness, honesty, and understanding, we’re just putting bandaids on a fire hydrant hoping it will help.
Once you’ve started to pay more attention to yourself and your experience, it’s time to dig a little deeper and look at your current beliefs.
What are your current beliefs about yourself, your life, or life in general? You can also look at your beliefs toward the specific areas of your life you’re looking to change such as money, exercise, food, work, relationships, etc.
I highly recommend writing these down somewhere you can see them and look at them more objectively rather than letting them stay floating around your own mind.
Take an objective approach to your beliefs and ask yourself: Where is this coming from? What is this rooted in? How is this serving me? How is this impacting how I show up?
Start bringing more awareness to what is serving you and what is not. What is helping you be who you want to be and achieve what you want to achieve and what is not?
Challenge your current narratives. What’s the evidence that it’s 100% true? What’s the evidence it’s NOT true? How is it impacting you? Play devil’s advocate with yourself.
These are the important questions to ask. Understanding what beliefs and behaviors are serving you and which are not will help you shift in meaningful ways that help you change your reality.
As you go through this process of awareness, it is SO important that you take a neutral approach, stay non-judgmental, and show compassion for yourself. We can leave the shame, blame, and judgment behind :).
creating your new narrative
Now that you’re recognizing where your current beliefs about yourself are holding you back, start leaning into what you do want to believe about yourself.
Looking at the beliefs that don’t serve you, write down beliefs that are more helpful/do serve you.
If you’re not sure what another perspective would be, ask yourself what someone who doesn’t have your belief might believe or talk to someone to get a different perspective. Let yourself open up your mind and try on new perspectives!
You also want to practice viewing things through the lens of the new belief(s). This may be uncomfortable as it’s not what you’re used to, but you want to lean into allowing yourself and your mind to change.
I recommend only working with a few beliefs (~1-5) at a time rather than trying to unpack everything at once. You can think of the main beliefs that aren’t serving you or you can narrow it down by focusing on a certain aspect of life such as your job or focusing on what’s coming up for you in a certain moment.
Write the new beliefs down and choose to commit to making this your new narrative.
find ways to consistently remind yourself of this new belief
As with anything behavior related, what works best differs from person to person and may take some trial and error.
Sometimes simply opening up your mind to new perspectives is all you need to firmly take on a new belief. Other times, we need reminders to think and behave differently than we are used to. And the more we say something to and about ourselves, the more we are strengthening the neural networks
Here are a few ideas to help you keep the new beliefs top of mind:
Creating a mantra to help remind yourself. For example, if you’re working on believing you’re capable, you could use “I can do hard things.”
Write down and say the new belief(s) out loud daily or throughout the day
Be intentional about the content you’re consuming (both with cutting out content that reinforces the beliefs you no longer want to have as well as finding content that reinforces the beliefs you do want to have)
Say the new beliefs out loud to someone else
Create a Pinterest board that reminds you of your new narrative that you can quickly scroll through throughout the day
These are just a few ideas. Try them out and play around with what works well for you!
interrupt your current patterns and create separation between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
If we want to change our narrative, we have to step out of living on autopilot and continuing to be who we’ve been in the past.
Intentionally pausing and allowing space between our innate and auto-pilot thoughts, feelings, and actions is how we can rewire our brain. This allows neural pathways in the brain to weaken while also giving us space to consciously choose a response that’s different from our norm.
You can have a thought and pause before immediately reacting emotionally or behaviorally to it.
You can feel a certain way and pause before engaging in a behavior.
After you do something, you can pause before falling into other thought or behavioral patterns that usually follow.
Even if you don’t end up doing things differently (yet) simply having more time between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors helps these patterns weaken via synaptic plasticity.
Take action in alignment with the new beliefs
Let yourself get into the mindset of the new narrative you want to have for yourself. What actions would help reinforce this belief? How would someone with this belief behave or react in situations?
Taking action one time may not do much for you, so you want to find ways to follow through with taking action often. Maybe this means implementing something new into one of your routines. Maybe this means creating a habit tracker and committing to take action consistently. Maybe this means creating a specific action plan towards a goal. Maybe this means visualizing how you’ll act in specific scenarios and visualize how you’ll overcome potential obstacles in those scenarios.
As with nearly everything, this is highly individualized and context-dependent, so you have to find what makes sense for you and your situation!
Regulate your nervous system
It's tougher to change our thoughts and behaviors when we're in chronic "fight or flight" mode. Integrate practices into your daily and weekly routines to help regulate your nervous system.
Check out this article here to learn more about nervous system regulation or this article here for what you can do to help regulate your nervous system.
Just spending time breathing deeply each day can do wonders for many of us!
Do NEW things
Doing new things helps promote neuroplasticity, helps us change our thoughts and behaviors, exposes us to new perspectives, and helps us get out of our comfort zones.
Switch up your routines (even just the order in which you do things), go to new places, try new activities, move your body in new ways, meet new people, learn something new!
There is no right or wrong way to do any of the steps listed here, and if you find for whatever reason something isn’t working for you, use it as a learning opportunity.
Sometimes it’s difficult to see what beliefs are beneficial to us or are limiting us, what beliefs would be MORE beneficial for us to have, and what kind of action plan will help reinforce these beliefs. Having an outside perspective is SO helpful in this process, especially as we always have blindspots to ourselves.
Having an outside perspective and receiving guidance, support, and accountability is invaluable. If you believe you’d benefit from working with a coach in this process, you can inquire about working together here.
I also offer a 60 minute future self mapping session where I’ll help you gain clarity on what you desire, the characteristics and actions of the version of yourself you wish to become, and the specific actions you can take daily to help you step into this new version of you. Head here to schedule a session.