Change Your Story

Sunday, 15th August 2010

I finally got around to watching some behind the scenes footage of Tony Robbin’s new program on NBC - Breakthrough, where Tony helps real people overcome serious challenges in their lives. Sure he’s been doing that for decades now but this was the first time that I’ve seen him go one on one with people and to watch them transform their attitude towards their lives right in front of you is truly inspiring. The guy is a genius! Something Tony said though really struck a chord in me so I thought I’d explore the concept for this week’s blog post - “Change Your Story”
In Episode 1 of Breakthrough Insider (The Story Behind the Story), Tony helps Frank and Kristen, a couple facing a massive challenge in their life. On their wedding day, Frank suffered a broken neck after an accident in the pool which turned him into a quadriplegic. The happiest day of their lives was now the worst day of their lives.

In the video that I saw, Tony outlined his strategy to work with the couple. Basically he said that in both Frank and Kristen’s minds they had this story playing over and over again: “the best day of our lives was now the worst day of our lives”. Everything in their immediate surroundings supported that story and everyone they spoke to reinforced that story.

The thing is though, their story is not positive at all and Tony’s idea was to replace their story with another one, much more positive and set about using his belief changing techniques to go about achieving that overall goal.

That got me thinking about our own lives and how sometimes we can get into these pockets where life throws some serious things our way and we start to believe the worst. We look around our surroundings and they confirm everything we are thinking in our minds. Then we speak to friends and family who sympathise with our plight, again reinforcing our belief in our story. And down we go…

Changing Your Story

But what if we were to change our story like Tony suggests? How would we re-write it? One technique that I’ve used in the past is “My Perfect Day”. About a year ago I sat down and wrote down what I believed would be the most perfect day in my life. I forgot about my circumstances, my surroundings and the rest of the constraints in my life and just transferred all of my dreams down to paper. I wrote about how I had achieved all of my goals that I set out to achieve, how that made me feel, my attitude towards business and life and last but not least all of the material things that I had in my life - my “toys”. I kept reading that new story over and over again to make sure I was working towards it.

So now the big question is did it work for me?

Yes…and no.

Everything that I wrote down in “My Perfect Day” that related to non-material things became true. So my attitudes and belief towards life and business, my circumstances and surroundings, and the people in my life became true. But my “toys” are still on the drawing board (yes including the BMW M6!). But I’m happy about that. It takes incredible passion and persistence to build something out of nothing so I’m quite grateful for achieving what I could achieve within one year. The toys will come soon enough.

The Challenge!

So this week I challenge you to re-write your story. Put together your own version of “My Perfect Day” and watch how it makes you feel inside to leap and bound above the constraints in your life and give you a solid plan to turn your dreams into reality.

When it comes down to it, your outer world is a direct reflection of your inner world so if you are not satisfied with your circumstances and your surroundings re-write the story.

You can see the whole episode of Breakthrough Insider here. Check it out, it’s pretty inspirational.

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!

AJ~

p.S. Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! is having it’s 3rd Birthday next month and I’m not sure how to celebrate it. I want to give something back to you guys to say thanks for coming back time and time again to be inspired by my adventures but I’m not sure exactly what to do. So if you have any ideas for me leave them in the comments section below or get in touch via Twitter - @ICT_Guru

Author: AJ Kulatunga

Category:

Inspire, change your life, perception, story, stories, Tony Robbins, Frank and Kristen, My Perfect Day, Breakthrough,