Rewriting a Story I Tell Myself
My mind loves telling me stories. One that comes up often is “I am way behind. I should have accomplished much more. I’m not great at anything.”
There’s no way for me to know for sure, but it seems like I’m catching more of these stories and I’m correcting or, at least, reframing them if I can. The “I’m not great at anything” jumped out at me recently because I know that’s not true. Relative to most people, I am great at carving a snowboard, backpacking, and parenting.
I’m comfortable saying that because of the amount of time and energy I have invested into them and the results that come out of them. I needed to share this perspective, but it’s not one of the points.
The fact that my mind can skip over these things I’ve poured myself into is frustrating. When I try to retell the story in a more colorful way it goes from being a failure to being a glowing success. Here’s the reframing I woke up thinking about:
Someone that is great at snowboarding, backpacking, and parenting must have a lot of qualities as none of those skills is simple.
To snowboard, he would have to be athletic, be good at learning, care about precision, dedicated to practice, and know how to be comfortable in 15 degree, snowy weather.
To backpack, he would have to know how to read maps, plan routes/campsites/meals for 10+ people, have endurance, and value being in nature enough to sleep on the ground and poop in a hole for 11 days.
To parent, he would need to learn to fail, seek advice, listen, be wrong, be thoughtful, make people laugh, be loving, be great at seeing and connecting with people.
Someone with these abilities might be able to:
Teach a kid how to tie a knot and apologize well.
Help someone all in love with nature and show how it’s possible to have a good attitude after bad weather and sleep deprivation.
Coach a nervous first timer onto the ski lift and help them believe in themself.
Explain how there is beauty in both the mountain top view and the kitchen floor tantrum.
Taking qualities from different activities and combining them is a reframing technique I’m going to try to keep using. I like how telling the story that way makes me sound so powerful!
