Self-Narrative: is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
The narrative that you tell yourself about yourself is the most important story you know.
If you tell yourself a story of struggle, inadequacy, insufficiency and failure; that reinforces your present experience, your current reality - it becomes your identity.
We either have a narrative of scarcity or one of surplus/abundance. It is either self-limiting or self-empowering.
Too often our narrative consists of the story another person is telling. Our identity developed on the basis of someone else’s narrative. We heard the story of “me” through the voice, the eyes, the thought and opinions of others. We bought into that story and experienced life on the basis of that narrative.
But is it a true story?
1965 Robert Rosenthal, Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition:
Teachers were given a list of names representing 20% of the student population and were told that these students had exceeded expectations on an IQ test they had administered. These students were referred to as “intellectual bloomers.” In reality the students were selected randomly.
The researchers returned one year later to find that the students on that list had significantly out-performed their classmates in all subjects. More impressively the scores of the “bloomers” had increased significantly when they administered the IQ test again.
The researchers proposed a new narrative which in turn created a new reality.
The researchers changed the story and in the process the students became something more than the limitations of any preexisting narrative.
“…stories are the best inventions ever created for delivering mental models that drive behavior.” Daniel Coyle
Consider the story that replays itself in your mind. The story you keep telling yourself about yourself. If it is a narrative that no longer serves you, then it’s time to change the story.