Stepping Out of Our Stories and Into Our Future

Stepping Out of Our Stories and Into Our Future

By: Denise Fournier, MS

As human beings, we live storied lives. We use memories, ideas, and language to weave together stories about who we are and what our lives mean. Like any story in a film or novel, our life stories tend to be dramatic. They contain a range of experiences, both good and bad, which we use to define ourselves and our place in the world. Our stories help us connect with each other; when we share a similar story with other individuals, we feel bound to them in a distinct and valuable way. At times, we are judged on the basis of our stories. Anyone who has experienced discrimination knows this to be true. Stories are powerful. They shape the way we think about ourselves and others. They have the potential to connect us, divide us, inspire us, or limit us. And if we’re not careful, our stories can become us.

The trouble with life stories is that they get rewritten, and therefore solidified, every time we tell them. It becomes so that people associate us with our stories, thereby inhibiting us from acting in ways that take us off the plotted path we’ve helped create for ourselves. Let me offer an example to make this point a little clearer. Let’s say Sam (a fictitious individual created for the purpose of this article) has a life story that is saturated with examples of how much of a failure he is. When he talks about his childhood, he highlights all the mistakes he made and all the things that went wrong around him; when he speaks of his more recent experiences, he illustrates his missteps and shortcomings. All in all, Sam has a pretty negative and hopeless story, and he’s gotten really good at telling it. Without really realizing it, Sam’s recruited everyone in his life into believing that he really is a failure, so nobody encourages him to take risks anymore, assuming it’s not likely to go well. One day, Sam is driving his car with the windows down and singing at the top of his lungs to his favorite song. A talent scout in the car next to him hears him singing and offers him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to audition for a promising new band. The truth is, Sam has always dreamed of being a famous singer, but he’s never tried to turn his dream into reality. He gives the talent scout’s offer some thought, but ultimately declines. Sticking tightly to his story, he feels compelled to turn down the offer, thereby missing out on a viable chance to change his luck—possibly even change his life! The risk of failure is just too great, and Sam’s saturated story is just too powerful.

When we get so consumed by our stories that we allow them to define us, we limit ourselves from trying new things and creating fresh possibilities for our lives. We let our past shape our future. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We have the power to re-write our stories and fill them with potential and hope. Today, I encourage you to stop living your story, and start living your destiny. With an awareness of the power of stories comes the ability to do things differently. I invite you to step outside your story, move beyond the circumstances of your past, and step into your promising, limitless future. What new possibilities might emerge from this liberating shift in perspective?