StoryJacking

Storyjacking™ is a technique that can be used in several ways, but at its core it is the recognition that stories are important.  We hear stories of success and stories of failure. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves and about others; some stories are painful, while other stories lift our spirits.  In each story we are playing out different parts and depending on the part we are playing, it makes all the difference in how we move forward in our lives.

Stories are epically important to how we view and interact in the world around us.  We define ourselves, our abilities and even our goals by the stories we believe and share.  These stories become part of our personal view of our world.  Organizations also create goals, missions, visions and values, and those become intertwined with the story they tell and believe.  Stories attract us to our friends, our lovers, our community of people and clients.  Stories fill out our memories and impact our feelings and adjust how we think about everything.  Every now and again when we notice something isn’t working or isn’t feeling right, we need to notice the story that we have assigned to the situation.  If our story isn’t serving us, negatively impacts our families, our communities, or our organizations, we might just have to find a way to “StoryJack” the story, transforming it, and creating a new story that we resonate with so that we can “Jack Into” a better version or experience the story – and our life – in a new way.

How StoryJacking works –

1: We “StoryJack” a story when we change it.  Maybe there is a story we’ve heard or a story we tell ourselves and we want to rewrite the story, changing the message into something that works better for us.  Maybe we have a story about not being good enough, or smart enough; these would be good stories to StoryJack.  It can happen with a story we’ve been told, like a fairytale, where we change the story into something more meaningful, maybe the princess kicks butt and saves the prince for a change.  Really, we StoryJack all the time.  Anytime you create a vision of a future that is different than the moment you find yourself in, you are working on StoryJacking.  The people who successfully StoryJack their lives go to the next step in the process of Jacking Into the story.

2: We can “Jack Into” a story that resonates with us.  We feel the connection to our new story and “Jack,” that emotion into our own story.  We have all had that experience when we hear something that creates a powerful and positive emotion or excites us.  We want to see and feel ourselves in the story. We have a resonance that occurs and it deepens our understanding of ourselves or the world around us.  It’s in these moments that the story and you connect. “Jacking Into” a new story can be exciting and even scary.  It may be moving from the story of being a student to becoming a fully fledged adult.  Maybe it’s shifting from being an employee to becoming an entrepreneur.  In business, it may be shaking up the story of the dysfunctional team and creating the new story of the Team that Rocks It! In intimate relationships, it might be the move from being “unloveable” to seeing ourselves as “loveable.” These story shifts are epic.  To do this well, we have to really create a story that matters to us. These shifts can be so big that it is important to create a rich and full bodied story, to create an excitement that propels you into your next story.  We won’t commit to stories that feel lukewarm to us. No one wants the cold oatmeal story! We want the exciting, passionate, and empowering story.  We may want our story to be a force for good, even a force for change.  We may want to share our gifts with our families, with our communities, with the world.  But, no change happens without a strong desire and StoryJacking is about how we create and manage the desire to change we want to have.

StoryJacking is rewriting the stories that aren’t serving us and creating a more powerful connection to the stories that do serve us. Then we can “Jack Into” them. Then the power of our new narrative can be felt – and shared.

I will be writing more about the process in the coming weeks. It all begins with once upon a time…

 

images from BigStockPhoto.com: retro typewriter Vagengeym and open book Remains

Develop your Positive Intelligence

Shirzad Chamine at TEDxStanford 

What a great TEDtalk!  By understanding your inner saboteurs, you can challenge all the negative self talk, and then start listening to your inner sage.  The guide to being happier and more successful is inside of you.  Develop your Positive Intelligence.

http://positiveintelligence.com

 

 

Every Moment Offers us Choices

 

Every Moment Offers Us Choices
Choose wisely
Because the Choices You Make, Make You

Lyssa
photo from Katmai National Park, Alaska

The Learning Journey

There is something interesting that happens when we get new toys and want to play with them. We unwrap them with all sorts of anticipation. The excitement of the new experience courses through our brains and gives us little adrenaline bursts.

Just like a present, new and novel experiences light up our brains like candy.  Unlike that new gift, we may discover that learning something new isn’t always so easy.  All that excitement can be transformed into frustration, because becoming really good at the new thing doesn’t come so easily.  The exciting idea doesn’t always transmit into practical application.

I am thinking of myself here. I was so excited to build my website! I got my domain name with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, only to be hit with the reality of using WordPress to build a website.  There is a real learning curve involved.  You can insert the new mastery of anything: WordPress, Marketing, any Adobe product, making friends, getting a degree, anything. We start off with loads of enthusiasm, and we might end up quitting because the new thing ends up being harder than we expected.

It’s important to know that there is a process to learning; let’s call it the “Learning Journey.”  The learning journey is made up of four stages, Unconscious Incompetence; Conscious Incompetence; Conscious Competence; and Unconscious Competence.  Understanding these stages will help you not feel less like quitting just because a hard new learning didn’t get instantly downloaded to your brain in 5 minutes.

Stage 1 – Unconscious Incompetence

This means that we don’t even know what we don’t know. Let’s say I see a beautiful photograph, I have no idea what went into making that picture.  I just know I want to make a beautiful photograph too.  What I may not understand is that the photographer had to understand how to use the camera, how to choose the shot, she may have had to use Adobe Photoshop (or some other software) to clean it up and adjust it.  But, I don’t know all that yet.  When I decide to get a camera and start taking pictures, I may find out my images aren’t as pretty, and I don’t know why.  So, I start to investigate, and find myself moving into the next stage.

Stage 2 – Conscience Incompetence

This is the stage at which we begin to know what we don’t know. It can feel like there is so much to learn.  This can be incredibly frustrating. We’ve begun to have a clear understanding of what’s expected, but we really don’t yet understand how to make that happen. In fact, this is the stage in which most of us give up. This can be true of a new skill, a new game or new software. It isn’t so easy to figure out, so we quit. Or, it can also apply to a new way of doing something, for instance, changing our diets or managing our anger. This is the stage that we have to start educating ourselves.  Reading books, taking classes, fiddling around and trying different things to see what we get.  It is truly the stage for exploration.  If we can persevere and make it through this stage, we will have the benefit of moving on the third stage of the learning journey.

Stage 3 – Conscious Competence

We now know what’s expected and we know how to make it happen. We have been learning, maybe teaching ourselves, reading tons of books, we have watched YouTube videos till our eyes bleed, taken classes and maybe consulted experts.  Camera’s are complicated and good photography is not just a quick snapshot.  It still takes a lot of energy to do the new task, but we are starting to feel confident.  Neuroscientists have taken P. E. T. scans of the human brain during stage 2 and stage 3. What they have found is that the brain uses a tremendous amount of glucose as it is learning and concentrating on new tasks. Your brain wants to attain mastery so it can do its thing with ease.  This is exactly what occurs in the fourth stage of the learning journey.

Stage 4 – Unconscious Competence

Finally, we no longer have to think too hard in order to do the task, but rather our brains can coast as we go into automatic drive. This is the stage in which we feel the most competent doing our task.  We have all felt this at times.  If you drive the same route to work every day, you may find that you left home and then arrived without noticing much of the drive; your brain didn’t need to focus on the skill of navigation, just on driving.  It’s also the stage that we always wished we started in, especially when we start a new skill.

Finally…

As we decide to learn new things or change patterns of behavior, we find ourselves moving through the first, second, and third stages again and again. The harder the thing we are trying to learn, the more frustrating it can feel.  It’s helpful to understand these stages so that when you find yourself learning something new or changing some behavior, you can recognize and understand what stage you will be in.  Then give yourself a break.  Honor that you are even trying something new!  It takes time and fortitude to become a master.  It will happen if you keep on pushing through the stages of the Learning Journey. Oh, as for me, I finally got my new website up – WordPress and all. Check it out.

 

 

images from BigStockPhoto.com: stairs bestdesign36 and woman photographer olly2

always and forever

Always and forever this moment is your life,  Freaking pay attention and enjoy!

image by Lyssa

Creativity: use it to have it

You can’t use up Creativity: the more you use it, the more you have.  Maya Angelou

A Balanced Perspective

There is a movie called, The Lady in the Water, by M. Night Shamalon. It didn’t get rave reviews, but I enjoyed it. That’s not really the point though.  In the movie, there was a character, who had worked out only one side of his body; half his body looked like a body builder and the other half was a normal guy size. He was physically out of balance.  And, while most of us don’t wear our imbalance so obviously, we play out our imbalance in how we interact with the people around us and the world in general.

In the past few weeks I have been talking with people about their negative versus positive focus.

We humans are hardwired for survival. Noticing what is odd, dangerous, out of place, etc, is a survival strategy. As we scan the world with our senses, it’s nice when we notice the pretty flowers, but when we can notice the tiger in the tall grass, it helps us survive. Even though the skill is a crucial survival skill, the wiring can create its own set of issues. All the focus gets turned on what isn’t working, what we don’t like, how bad we feel, where the problems are, what’s wrong. Then the imbalance pitches toward the negative. This lopsided perspective isn’t realistic, any more than only seeing only the positive is realistic.

This week when I was walking out to my car, I tripped. Not a big splatter type of trip, but a drop all my stuff and end up on my knees type of trip. “I am so clumsy!” “I am the clumsiest person!” In that moment I wasn’t thinking, “I take about 5000-10,000 steps a day, over the average month I take 150,000+ steps, and I tripped once.” People rarely focus on the 150,000 good steps, but will instead create a laser focus on the one bad step. Does that really make sense? I am not saying go to some perfect Pollyanna extreme the other direction, what I am saying is that we need to work on using the muscles on both sides of the situation.

How much of our self-esteem and our internal conversations are colored with this same negative laser focus?

It is really hard to shift our focus to something neutral when we’re in the middle of something that’s maybe pissing us off painful. As we’re in the middle of whatever the situation is, we chew it around and around, gnawing at all the bad parts. If I’ve gotten into an argument with my husband, and he did something that bugged me or hurt my feelings, in that moment it’s very easy to focus on solely what is upsetting.  The negative laser focus doesn’t help me think of all the times he’s been supportive, thoughtful, or caring.  It doesn’t remind me of the times he’s rubbed my feet or listened to my feelings.  In fact it doesn’t remind me of anything good at all. At that point, my negative focus isn’t the whole truth. At the point my focus is lasered on something negative, I’m missing out on the whole other side of the truth. So, in order to challenge the negative focus I have a couple of ideas to share with you.

Ideas:

First – Take time before responding; wait to see how you feel in about 2-24 hours. Take a walk, take a bath, read a book, talk to a friend.  Not every situation is a crisis just because we feel the pressure to try and resolve it instantly. This first step is really about doing no harm until you can have clarity and work towards having a good conversation.  It is the shift from being Reactive to being Proactive.

Second – While you’re waiting, giving yourself some breathing room from the issue, start remembering all the positive things about this person you’re upset with.  Is this a person who has been good to you?  Have they helped you in other areas?  Have they supported you in the past?  Do you care about them?  Do you love them? Create a thorough list of all the things you like about that person. Maybe you don’t like them, but you need them because they’re your boss, or in-law, or a co-worker.  You don’t need to make up anything; just really notice an honest reflection of who they are and try to find something that you can appreciate about them.  It’s an interesting thing, but we treat people differently based on how we think of them, the label of friend or foe makes all the difference.

Third – 

Pay attention to your feelings.  Feelings offer you a place to discover the deeper issues that may be affecting the relationship or situation. If you regularly find yourself feeling a negative feeling with your partner or friend or anyone, you may need to pay attention to what that feeling is trying to tell you.  There are often deeper issues at work.  Do you feel like you are being rejected or that you are not good enough the way you are? (Acceptance) Are you feeling controlled or manipulated to do something or be different? (Power and Control) Maybe you are feeling taken for granted or feeling like your hard work isn’t appreciated? (Recognition) Is there a sense of being criticized or treated with contempt? (Respect) The deeper emotion may have to do with trust, not feeling like someone will follow through with agreements.  Or, are you being challenged in your views of yourself? (Integrity)  In intimate relationships we may struggle with “Do you love me?” (Love) and “Do you want to be here?” (Commitment) These deeper issues will never be resolved arguing about whose fault it is that the dishes didn’t get done, or any other superficial problem.  It’s only when we understand what’s getting triggered that the important conversations can happen.  The more important the relationship is, the more carefully we need to handle the conversation.  Through years of relationship work, I have found that if you are feeling some of these deeper issues, so is your partner, be it an intimate relationship or a work relationship.

Fourth – Make sure to listen to hear and understand.  Often times we listen for ammo. This is not real listening; this is a form of war.  Unfortunately, winning a war of words with someone, means you lose something else, like their respect or help or love. There is always our side of the story, but there is also their side of the story.  Listening is a two way street. If you have something to say, make sure you are also doing what you ask of them; listen. Listening and agreement are two very different things.  You don’t have to agree with their side of the story, but try and put yourself in their shoes, if only for a moment. Look for what their intention was; if their intention was not to hurt your feelings, remember that.

Fifth – When you’re ready to actually talk to the person, try to come from a place of only talking about your feelings. Feelings are very difficult to argue with because they’re yours. I have seen “I” statements that are actually convoluted “You” statements.  “I feel like your are a jerk.”  These don’t work.  If you focus on what you don’t like about someone else’s behavior, you run the risk of either shutting the other person down, or you will turn up the volume on their defensiveness. We are masters at triggering other peoples’ defenses, especially in long relationships and in hard conversations. Recognize that in every conversation there is intent and impact. The closer these are aligned, the better the conversation will go.  Start important conversations softly to keep the dialog useful.

One of the super secrets in life is that emotions are not good or bad, but rather they are like road signs; they tell you something.  When we learn to read our own emotions, it helps us know ourselves better and hopefully get to know other people better too.  The goal is to shift the story from imbalanced to I’m Balanced!

images from BigStockPhoto: balancing balls Sashkin and Imbalance Bigandt_Photography

 

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Apparently it is not as simple as “yes or no.”  Kelly McGonigal talks about a Harvard study that shows that, how you think about stress matters.  If you see stress as bad, causing illness, and hurting you, it will.  Almost magically, the crucial difference between the stress that makes you sick and the stress that doesn’t hurt you at all, is how you think about it.  The mind is truly a powerful tool.  When you change the stress story, and you see stress as your body’s way of rising to a challenge, you fundamentally change your body’s reaction to the stress.  Your body believes your thoughts and your stress response becomes healthier.  It’s brilliant!  This is a great scientific example of changing the your world with your thinking.