a useletter on stories

Hey reader,

I've been asking myself many hard questions about unmeasured over the last week or two. It's led me to some interesting and constructive answers. This week I thought I might start the useletter with a couple of questions...

How have my bad habits become a crutch I lean on?

What stories do I need to let go of so I can walk freely?

For most of us these are hard questions that might leave us feeling vulnerable or at least called out. For some of us they may be difficult because they're in our blindspots. Whatever the case, I hope we can agree they're good questions to answer.

I got you

Michael

the stories we tell

Over the last few years the value of stories to businesses have come to the fore. Stories are powerful, they're emotive and memorable. They're an invaluable tool that every business should embrace throughout their work, in their marketing and in working with clients or staff.

There is a dark side to storytelling and it's highlighted in the questions. The stories we tell ourselves can act as a security blanket, to hold tight or bury our face into. They hold us back from our work or making a necessary change in our lives.

Before I started the useletter I kept telling myself that no-one wanted to hear from me, they'd resent me filling their inbox and shoving "promotions" at them. It stopped me from launching, I had to change my story. My new story was that people are subscribing to hear my voice, for ideas, insights or advice, it might be missed if they didn't receive that fortnightly hit. I had to accept it wouldn't be for everyone and to start writing as if I was writing for ten thousand subscribers. People were free to unsubscribe if they didn't want it anymore, and trust me when they do, there's a whole other story that comes up for me that's unhelpful and I need to quell.

In order to identify the stories we tell ourselves and hold us back, we might need help. We can get a coach (& I'm happy to support 😉) or you can ask trusted friends to give feedback - Brené Brown calls them her square squad. Sometimes by having our story reflected back at us we can see where we're holding ourselves back. Often we need a little more than a nudge to reveal to us the story we're telling ourselves. How ever we choose to identify our inhibiting stories we must accept that we need to let them go. It can be challenging, uncomfortable and always to our benefit.

You got this reader.

PS: bonus story

So often our stories begin "I can't do 'xyz' because...".

By using a "Can if..." framework we can change our story.

Change your story to "I can't do 'xyz' but I can if... [& explain how you might]"

I wrote a brief article about it at the start of the pandemic last year, “We can if…”