What story are you telling yourself?

Oh, how we all love stories. And we don’t only love to hear other people’s stories, but we also LOVE making up stories for ourselves. And we’re not one bit bothered by if these stories that we tell ourselves are real, the truth or even if they are serving us. 

So, let me tell you a story: The day before I went on vacation at the end of August, I tried to set up my autoreply. However, I made a mistake, and the whole system went wild. Apparently, it sent out multiple auto-replies to everyone in my mailbox, I spammed everyone. 

I FREAKED out. I was mad at myself, I was being annoyed at my partner and I even cried. I seriously thought this was the worst thing. This would mean that people now all got spammed by me. They would now think I was incapable as a coach and wouldn’t want to work with me anymore. Because who can’t set up their auto-reply properly? They would think I’m unprofessional. I was just not yet looking for another career… 

And then I stopped, looked at myself, looked at my partner and said… OMG, this is just another story I’m making up in my head right now. The story that as a professional (coach) I can’t allow myself to make (easily preventable) mistakes. 

I realized that this story is absolute nonsense. It’s not a fact, it’s not the truth, and it’s not serving me at all. EVERYONE can make mistakes. So I chose to not play the main victim of this story anymore. I let my partner help me set the auto-reply up properly and wrote a short e-mail, telling everyone that my system went wild and that I apologized for spamming everyone. That it won’t happen again (now I do know how it works, haha). 

I got some kind responses back, people telling me that it can happen and not to worry about it, and none of my clients have stopped working with me. And now, 3 weeks later, I barely think about this little incident. 

I know we all do this. 
We tell ourselves that we’re not good enough for that job, promotion, or for that man or woman.
We tell ourselves that we still need to gain more knowledge before we can take the next step. 
That if we make a mistake, other people perceive us as unsuccessful, unprofessional or unworthy.
That we still need to gain more knowledge before we start our own company, give that workshop or launch that course. 
That if we make a mistake, other people perceive us as unsuccessful, unprofessional or unworthy, or if we are confident, others will think we’re arrogant.  

So whatever story you’re telling yourself, YOU have the power to change the ending. Or the beginning, or the middle part or even the whole damn story. You always have a choice and if the story you’re telling yourself is not the truth, not a fact or not serving you in any way, change it. 

So in Brené Brown’s words: What story are you telling yourself?
And what is the story you want it to be?