Written by: Albana Vrioni, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In business, like in private life, everyone has a story that prescribes their destiny.
I believe stories are at the core of what makes us human. They contain the code of what pivots our life to accomplishment – privately and professionally.
We are goal-striving beings, and as we have new goals and create new experiences, we outgrow our old stories. When old stories are putting us off balance, when our goal seems out of reach, and when our narrative feels and sounds gloomy and discouraging, it is time to revisit our story. When we change our stories, we change our lives.
And this becomes urgent in times of disruptions when most of our old stories are shattered and questioned or despised. New stories are born from the aches of outdated ones and the victory of evolutive thinking.
If you want to be the agent of your new story, how would you craft its power?
Here are 6 tips that will help you make your new story meaningful and powerful:
1. Feel the inner call.
Everything starts with sensing an inner call, often a desire of where you want to see the biggest breakthrough in your life happening.
Attend to that inner call. It may not give a destination but may indicate a direction. Envision pursuing it. Where is leading you to? Where is it leading others to?
Sometimes your creative imagination takes wings and sometimes gets blocked and hunted down by limiting fears and emotions that occupy your attention and are part of your current story.
2. Understand the current story.
You need to understand the current story, to craft a new one. Truths need to be named before they can be changed—the old story is to be told before it can be changed and revived.
To uncover your current story and its roots underneath, you’d want to understand: What factors created it? What did it serve to? Then consider how your current story became a part of you. What is sustaining it? What values and beliefs of you or of your surroundings support your story?
You need to get dismayed enough with “the limiting side” of your current story to take the courageous steps to replace it with a new one. But “don’t through the baby with the bathwater.” Find the good in your old story, understand it, name it, and praise it. Then decide to leave it behind or give it a new place in your new story.
Old stories that are not understood or honored inhibit your new story from taking shape and come to life. It is only when the old story is understood that you can have the new story shine so bright that you’ll take a step towards bringing it to life.
3. Dream the new story
Dream the new story in all its intimate details. Image it is unfolding on the finest colors, shapes, emotions, places, people, objects, keywords, since the rewards. The rewards need to be clear and attractive, but they need not be necessarily material. If fear of disappointment holds you back, don’t ignore it, nor let it take control. Be curious! Do the reality check!
4. Nurture trust in you
Trust that you can leave the old story behind and embrace the new one. Search inside you. Find that one meaningful event in the past that would spark the courage and confidence you need now. Search in your role models and in your guardians of the faith. Breathe in the energy they radiate on you and radiate it back.
Articulate and voice your new story – say it out loud and repeat it to yourself like a mantra.
Memorize it – anchor it in your subconscious. Make it the last thing to do every night before you go to bed and every morning as you get up. Your brain will understand it is important.
5. Keep on nurturing your story
Embody your story – a story lives in your muscles as much as in your mind. Feel your new story in your body and live it in your movements. Train your voice to go with your story.
Train your muscles – intellectually, physically, emotionally, psychologically - gain any skills that would nurture your new story. A new story emerges from your strengths - not from your weaknesses - and it builds on new competencies and skills. No new story can flourish without having new skills replacing outdated ones. These new skills will need to get into your muscle before you can tell the new story is life.
6. Connect your story to other people’s stories
Your story will never take flight in isolation from those around you. Let important others understand your new story and realign your constellations. Announce a clear stance of the direction your inner call is asking you to explore. Your inner journey will sooner or later manifest outwardly by creating new connections and balances. Build bridges, and manage boundaries; bond with others, and safeguard your identity; connect, and preserve your uniqueness.
Consider that everybody has a story. Will your stories collide, and or will they amplify?
As you shape and strengthen your story, you climb a ladder that enriches your understanding of other’s stories. Connecting with other people’s stories creates a ripple effect, increasing the power of your story.
Your new story is the one you create through you, principally for you and unavoidably for the others. How you connect it with other people’s stories will craft its power.
Albana Vrioni, Exexcutive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Albania Vrioni coaches and advises business leaders worldwide on Generative Leadership and Entrepreneurship - supporting them re-imagine the future, see beyond what’s obvious, and reconcile conflicting truths and competing values. Having succeeded in critical transitions, Albana developed strategies on how to shift the mindset for creative achievement, boost resourcefulness, and manage one's energy to achieve what matters and thrive in changing the game.
Her mission: A conscious leader in each game changer.
