Use the Power of Story to Change Your Life
The reason you aren’t seeing massive change in your life might be because you are creating a terrible story.
Let me explain…
Stories make us laugh. They make us cry. They even make us indignant. Sometimes, they do all three.
Stories excite us. They evoke wonder and awe. The reach deep inside and pull at longings you never knew existed. This is key!
You can harness this same power of stories in your own life to create incredible change. Because they evoke emotions, you can even use them to understand yourself on a deeper level.
To put it simple: You can use the power of story to produce incredible results in your life.
Before I show you, I need to clarify a few keys about how stories work.
(If you already know how stories work, then go ahead and skip to the next section.)
1.) Stories Are Created Using “Story-Loops”.
A good story-loop is how the story sucks you in. It dances inside nagging at your soul. It plays in your dreams and fills the contours of your subconscious. That is, until the story closes and the loop is over.
A story-loop is a loop the writer opens at the beginning of a story. The better the loop, the greater the engagement. By the end, the story wraps up concluding the loop.
That’s it. That is a story loop.
I know! That wasn’t super engaging. But, let me show you an example…
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
It’s cliche, I know, but for good reason.
“It was a dark and stormy night.
The man, cloaked by the howling winds and drenching rain, stepped off of the main road leading to the center of town. If anyone was awake they would have hardly noticed. Few men dared to be out at night. Fewer still in a storm.
He knew where it was though no one ever showed him. Come to think of it, no one ever told him either. It was as if he always knew. The whispers in dark corners and back alleys. The kinds that carry themselves on the winds of change to whomever listens.
It was as if something ancient was reaching out, beckoning him to go. Or maybe to come. He wasn’t sure which.
He glanced sideways as he darted across the street. He wasn’t particularly concerned with being noticed, especially on a night like tonight. But still, he made his way towards the trees on the other side of the road. With shadows dancing on branches in the wind, he was just another figment of someone’s imagination. If that someone decided to look.
THE END!
And that’s a wrap. That’s the end of my story.
How do you feel?
What emotions does it evoke?
Do you feel intrigue? Uncertainty? A yearning to know more? To have the end of the story or to at least know what the hell is going on?
Anyone would! Unless I’m a terrible storyteller, which is quite probable, you started creating the story in your mind. You envisioned it. You saw it happening, playing out as if it was right in front of you.
This is the power of the opening story-loop. It has the incredible power to suck you in. It begins by creating questions you don’t have answers to yet, and the only way to find out is to finish the story.
Let me share another story.
He awoke with a jolt. Lifting his groggy head, he swung his legs onto the floor.
“What was that noise” he thought to himself still trying to clear his head.
The realization dawned on him just like the morning. “Ugh, my alarm”, he moaned to himself. Grabbing his new phone off the nightstand, he furiously tapping his screen hoping to end the awfully cheerful noise.
Cursing under his breath, he managed to turn the volume down and left it as he went into the bathroom. He kept mumbling to himself about the time, and how stupid it was to call it an ‘iPhone’ when it doesn’t even do what ‘I’ want it to.
Waking up an hour early left him irritable. He decided to get ready anyways, taking only 15 minutes to rinse off, and get dressed.
He slowly backed out of the driveway heading towards the local diner. It was the only one in town. Not that it mattered, it was the only one he would ever go to. It was a habit, and habits are hard to break.
He walked in and sat down. His table was open as usual, and the waitress brought coffee without speaking. Just the way he liked it.
Fifteen minutes later two eggs, a side of bacon, and oatmeal appeared. Again, without asking and without speaking. Just the way he liked it.
He finished his breakfast and was on his third cup of coffee when Joe walked in and sat down. Fifteen minutes later his breakfast appeared as well.
They rambled about the hardware store going out of business, politics, and the local football team. The usual. People came and went over the next two hours as they sipped through a few more cups. By 10:30, they ambled out, and drove towards the golf course.
It was their morning ritual. Breakfast and golf. Always.
They bantered back and forth through 9 rounds, never quite knowing who was ahead and who was behind. They didn’t really care either. Well, Joe didn’t at least, but that’s because he usually won. He did care. It was the fourth time this week, and it was becoming irritating.
“Tomorrow would be different,” he kept telling himself as he pulled into the driveway. And because his alarm decided to go off early, he decided a nap early too.
THE END!
What do you think?
If you’re like me, by the end you were thinking, “What’s the point?”
Both of these stories showcase the power of story loops in our lives. They can entice us and draw us in. Or they can leave us confused and frustrated at wasting our time.
Each one opens a story-loop, but neither of them finish. It is what happens inside of you that is powerful!
Point #1: You need to create a big, enticing opening to your story. The closing will follow if it is enticing.
2) Stories Have Plenty of Conflict
Without conflict or difficulty, it is an extremely boring story. Every story contains conflict both large and small. As the story arcs towards its climax, each rise and fall of conflict is inching ever closer to the climax.
Conflict makes the story worth telling and re-telling.
Watch any movie or read any book and you will find conflict. Conflict excites us and draw us in. Too much and it’s overwhelming. Too little and it’s underwhelming. We love to see characters overcome great odds to win in the end. We especially love it when it is on behalf of others.
Think of any Marvel movie, the heroes and heroines live and die for the sake of each other or the world at large. They will gladly put themselves into harms way for their fellow comrade and mankind.
In a love story, if the man’s world revolved around him we would come to resent him. Once he looks beyond himself at the women, and lives selflessly for her, we are captivated. Well, at least the women are.
Conflict and selflessness are the bedrocks of great stories. Whoever the person is when the story started is not who they are when the story finishes. They change. The adapt. They grow. They become.
Point #2: Take your cue from the movies you love — you WILL have conflict! Overcoming conflict and who you become in the process is what makes it a story worth telling.
3) Putting it Together: Dissonance is Your Best Friend
Take some time to reflect on what type of person you want to be and what you want your life to look like in 10 years.
I’m very serious. The better you can imagine it the greater the power you give it.
Imagine the following…
Personal:
Where do you live?
What kind of house?
What is your family situation like? Partner? Kids?
What are you hobbies? Vacations?
Career:
Where are you at in you career?
How much money are you making?
What are you doing with that money? Investing? Saving?
Outward:
Who are you helping?
Who are you looking out for?
What are the issues in the world you care deeply about?
What are you doing about it?
Friends:
What kind of friends do you have?
What do you do together?
How often?
Health:
What does your health look like?
How often do you work out?
What do you want to do you cannot do today?
And Lastly:
Who do you want to be?
What type of person?
How do you want the world to see you?
…Angry or kind?
…Stingy or selfless?
…Loving or resentful and bitter?
…etc?
The more you can imagine, and write it down, the greater impact it will have on your life.
If you have done any type of life planning, you will have come across this before. There is a difference between life-planning and using story. With story, you are harnessing something embedded in humanity. You find it in our own American, cultural stories and myths. You find it in fairy tales, movies, and even the ancient myths and stories we’ve forgotten. These same elements are always found in stories.
This is where creating cognitive dissonance is your friend!
When you write it down, you must read it everyday. This opens a story-loop in your mind. The opening- where you are at now. And the closing — where you want to be in 10 years.
Opening this loop creates cognitive dissonance inside of your head. It either forces your brain to comply and begins to move you in the direction of who you want to be. Or this dissonance will pull you back into who your subconscious knows you are.
We all know we are NOT where we want to be in life.
We want to be a better person. We want to create a better life for ourselves and our family. We want to be a leader, or an entrepreneur, or a speaker, or a sales person. We want to live somewhere else. We want to become someone else. But our own mind gets in the way and pushes us back to what is easy, comfortable, and normal.
The only way to move past our fears, failures, and insecurities is create a story where you must change.
Take back control of your life, and create dissonance that forces your brain to comply. Realize you will have to overcome great conflict to achieve it. Realize conflict is the hallmark of a great story! And set yourself up to succeed.
Do not live a boring story where you have a bunch of toys and no real life. Live a story for the world around you. Live a story people will want to tell. Live a story where the best of who you are is what the world gets to have.
If the story you are currently living is boring, then make a new one. And find yourself coming alive in the process.
