If you find yourself stuck in a loop, running an unwanted pattern, prisoner to a story that isn’t working anymore, it’s time for a review…
Clients come to me with well-rehearsed stories. Job searches require them to do so. The client tells me their story, as they’ve been telling it for months, years, decades. It seems like FACT at this point, as true and irrefutable as the ten commandments, etched into stone tablets.
But it’s not.
My job is to hand the client a mallet and a chisel and to inspire them to break their story into little pieces. I can’t break the story personally. They have to do it. But I can point to the areas of the story that hold it together.
These are the transition points, the important places where decisions were made.
You have transition points just like everyone else. Think about your decision to start something – a degree, a job, a relationship, a novel, a project – and then think about your decision to leave it. It’s the coming and the going that hold all the secrets.
Remember that the reasons you do things are not just owned by you, rather the entire world is involved and everyone in it. Ask for a friend’s opinion, read the headlines, simply look around when you’re in that memory, and look in a different direction than you’ve been looking.
That’s when your story will begin to break apart and you’ll realize the pieces can be rearranged, discarded, and filed down. You’ll see new pieces you missed and old ones you can’t find a place for anymore.
And, just like doing a jigsaw puzzle or watching the clouds pass overhead, a new image will emerge and off you go.