What's your story?

Who are you? What things are you good at? What are you proud of? What about the things that you’re not so good at? What do you constantly mess up? How do you define yourself?

“I am someone who helps others. I am good at maths. I am a good swimmer.”

“I am not as smart as my colleagues. I don’t have much to say.”

Thoughts like these are evaluations — that is, the content of these thoughts can mean that you are essentially either good or bad. When we go with the ‘content’ of our thinking about ourselves, then we are ‘self-esteeming.’ The research on self-esteem is beginning to show that people with higher self-esteem do not necessarily perform or even feel better than those with lower self-esteem. Instead:

•  See these ideas about your tastes, skills, habits and virtues as just that: ideas!

•  See these ideas about yourself as only a small fraction of who you really are.

•  Think of new and different ideas about yourself — maybe you are really these?

•  Start to do some of the behaviours of who you might possibly be.

•  Be flexible — be ready to change who you are and who you think you are.

•  Be open in your mind — there is much more to you than you have ever imagined!

What you can do

Write a list of five things that you are good at and five things that you are very bad at. See the bottom of this post to find out how we will work with this list. Think of who or what you might like to be/do. Choose one small thing that you can do that would be part of this new ‘you,’ and start to build this activity into your life. Do this one activity again and again until it is part of your idea about yourself. Then choose another. What shall we do with your list of what you are good/bad at? Scrunch it into a ball and throw it into the rubbish bin! You are much, much more than this tiny, biased list. It has very little value at all — so allow these words and ideas to go.