Our stories define us: Behaviour and Transformation - Part 4

Posted on June 05, 2015 by Sandhya Reddy, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Our personal stories have deep impact on us.

If you have a goal in mind, and if you are feeling stuck, you may want to spend some time by yourself to understand what is happening. Think about the thoughts that are occupying your mind, and understand how they are affecting you, making you feel stuck.

Try and understand where these thoughts come from. What’s the story behind it? What’s the belief? Once you discover the belief, you can put some more thought into it and figure out if the belief is true.

Disempowering beliefs make you feel stuck. Once you realise that, you are ready for change, for transformation.

How does personal transformation happen? All changes are tough. Once you have made up your mind to achieve your goal, identified what’s stopping you and decided to stay committed to achieving your goal, then personal transformation becomes easy.

Transformation with Chapter Two involves changing the personal story from, ‘No, I can’t do it’, to ‘Yes, I think I can do it’. With a realistic goal and a strategy to transform and a goal execution plan, the story can become, ‘Yes, now I know I can do it’.

Saying, ‘Yes, I know that I can do’, involves developing a high degree of self-efficacy. Saying is believing. Believing is half the goal achieved.

Here’s a simple example. Many of us make New Year resolutions every year to lose weight. We are enthusiastic for the first few weeks. We enrol into a fitness program in the nearest gym. We buy new shoes and clothes. After the initial weeks, the enthusiasm fizzles out. Along the way we go back to our old ways – because the story playing in the head is that ‘I have tried it so many times. It’s too much effort. It’s not easy. It’s impossible. So, let me take it easy’.

How can one change this belief? It’s easy. There are 2 key factors essential for goal achievement – the commitment to stay fit and lose weight. And the belief that you can do it.

There is a huge difference between trying to lose a few kilos and committing to adopting a healthy lifestyle. If one is committed, then the motivation with follow. One can make a fitness routine and follow the routine.

Transformation comes with the right thoughts and in taking the right actions. Transformation begins with taking small incremental steps towards the goal. Being in action in progress.
Ensure that you have a fitness program included in your daily schedule and a committed plan to eating healthy. If you start following your routine, and continue to do so long enough, you begin to re-wire your brain into believing that the goal is possible to achieve, and that you can do it. What is happening? The blueprint of the belief is being forced to change.

Along the way, you lose a few kgs, begin to look fitter, your friends compliment you and this will motivate you further. The story in the head begins to change. The story in the head becomes positive, and you can hear yourself saying. ‘Yes, I am getting there. I can do it.’

After a few months into the routine, you get to a state where going to the gym or following your fitness routine becomes automatic, routine and non-negotiable. If you want to do something everyday, then make it a routine.

What’s on your daily schedule is what’s important to you, and reflects your priorities and values. As you get towards the 1 year mark, you will realize the story in your head changing to, ‘Yes, I know I can do it’. One day, you will wake up as a person who is saying, ‘Yes. I have done it. Everything is possible.’

A daily fitness routine or a jog in the park in the morning, has its own perks. It is the greatest anti-depressant. This hypothesis has been proven medically as well.

The same transformation process can be applied to other areas of life as well. If you are a person who is disorganized and procrastinates, you need to make a fresh start and make incremental changes in your daily routine. The daily to-do list is a good start.

If you plan on completing as many things on your list by the end of the day, and check them off, you feel happy. The brain begins to feel that you are a doer, and can do anything that you have planned to do. You begin to re-wire your brain into believing that you are a very organized person. Over a period of time, you would have become one. They say that if you did something for 21 days straight, it would become a habit. Some people say 66 days. Research indicates that it can take anywhere from 21 to 350 days to make something a habit – there is a lot of variety and range when it comes to human beings.

As Robin Sharma says, ‘All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and so beautiful at the end’.

Transformation means changing from saying, ‘I can’t do it’, to ‘I think I can do it’. Self-efficacy enables you to say, ‘I know I can do it’. And this makes all the difference.

So, pick a goal that you have been putting off, or trying to achieve for a long time. Do some introspection and try to understand the story running in your mind. Then, try to change the story and see the change in the behaviour. If it doesn’t work and you are really committed to the goal, you can seek a coach. Chapter Two enables people to discover, transform and lead their life by replacing self- imposed limits with powerful stories.

Part is part 4 of a 4 part blog – Our stories define us – The 4 building blocks of the stories we tell ourselves.

About the Author:

Sandhya Reddy is a leadership & transformation coach based in Bangalore, India. She is the Founder and Principal Coach at Chapter Two Coaching, a coaching consultancy that enables everyone from CEOs to work-from-home parents to achieve their goals by replacing self-imposed limitations with enabling stories. Sandhya’s services include Executive Coaching, Life Coaching and Career Coaching.