Stories We Tell Ourselves – Impact Our Behaviors

Kelly Hatfield: 00:00:04

We believe life is precious. This is it. We've

Kelly Hatfield: 00:00:08

got one shot at this. It's on us to live life to the fullest to

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maximize what we've been given and play the game of life at our

Kelly Hatfield: 00:00:16

full potential.

John Mitchell: 00:00:18

Are you living up to your potential? Are you

John Mitchell: 00:00:20

frustrated that despite your best intentions, you just can't

John Mitchell: 00:00:24

seem to make the changes needed to take things to the next

John Mitchell: 00:00:27

level. So you can impact your career relationships and health.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:00:32

If this is hitting home, you're in the

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right place. Our mission is to open the door to the exceptional

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life by showing you how to play the game of life at a higher

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level. So you're playing at your full potential, rather than at a

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fraction as most people do. We'll share the one thing that

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once we learned it, our lives were transformed. And once you

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learn it, watch what happens. Welcome to think it'd be the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:01

podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield.

John Mitchell: 00:01:03

Hey. And I'm John Michell. Today,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:05

we are going to dive into the topic of stories

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:10

that we tell ourselves and how that informs how we kind of move

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:14

through the world. So what do you think, John?

John Mitchell: 00:01:17

I love it. Love it. I think it's so true. Those

John Mitchell: 00:01:21

stories that we unconsciously tell ourselves that are from

John Mitchell: 00:01:27

decades old, darn sure impact our behaviors.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:31

Yeah, absolutely. And it's

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:32

interesting, you know, so let's talk a little bit about that.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:35

Because the story is, your story is your story. Right? So let's

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:40

do a little bit of clarification here. Your story is your story,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:43

the events of your life happened, they've unfolded, how

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:46

they've unfolded. But then there's the narrative, which is

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:51

the story that you're telling about your story? Right? Yeah.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:01:56

And so that's kind of what, what we're talking about is how you

Kelly Hatfield: 00:02:00

choose to interpret the events of your life. And how that

Kelly Hatfield: 00:02:05

informs like your subconscious, and the actions that you're

Kelly Hatfield: 00:02:09

taking today, based on kind of that narrative that you have

Kelly Hatfield: 00:02:13

around your story.

John Mitchell: 00:02:15

Right, right. You know, it's I think this is a

John Mitchell: 00:02:18

great topic, because I see that, that, yes, things have happened

John Mitchell: 00:02:25

in your life, and you gotta define just actually what

John Mitchell: 00:02:29

happened, not, uh, not giving meaning to it, just what

John Mitchell: 00:02:34

actually happened. And, you know, I was working with a

John Mitchell: 00:02:38

client last week that was talking about the mistakes that

John Mitchell: 00:02:44

he had made in his life, you know? And I'm like, why were

John Mitchell: 00:02:49

they mistakes? You, you, you did what you thought was best at the

John Mitchell: 00:02:53

time based on all the information you you had, but he

John Mitchell: 00:02:57

perceives that he made mistakes. And I suspect you're like I am,

John Mitchell: 00:03:03

where I'm like, you know, I've never really made a mistake, as

John Mitchell: 00:03:07

is, you know, I did what I thought was best. And now I can

John Mitchell: 00:03:10

look back and realize that that was not maybe the best course of

John Mitchell: 00:03:14

action. But it doesn't really feel like a mistake. Now. I'm

John Mitchell: 00:03:18

more experienced not to not to do the same thing. But what do

John Mitchell: 00:03:22

you think about that?

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:23

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's goes

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:25

back to that framing, right? It's this idea of is life

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:28

happening to you? Or is life happening for you? Because the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:34

one put is in that victim space, like all of these bad things

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:37

have happened for me, to me, therefore, I life has been

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:41

really hard for me, or it's hard for me to overcome this or why

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:44

me? And then there's the other mindset, that is like, okay, all

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:50

of these things have happened. What am I supposed to have

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:54

learned? What was I supposed to have learned as a result of

Kelly Hatfield: 00:03:56

going through that? You know, you know, so it's, it's just

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:00

again, what is the narrative? You're telling about your story?

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:05

You know, so there's been many times, you know, where things

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:09

haven't been going well, in business, I think I've talked

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:12

about like, the first two years of being in business for me, my

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:17

first two years back in Oh, wait, and no, oh, nine, we're in

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:21

the depths of a recession. And my first business had to do with

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:24

hiring, you know, and so it literally was, okay. You know,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:32

questioning yourself. You know, am I doing the right thing,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:36

there were lots of tears, right? You know, and it's like, no,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:42

okay, this path. If I if I can make it through this, I can make

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:46

it through anything. You know, and like, these different things

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:50

that I've gone through in the past have prepared me for this.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:53

You know, like you're okay, you can make it through everything.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:04:56

Anything. You've done this, but you've done hard stuff before.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:00

For and needed out the other side. And that was kind of the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:04

story I was telling myself versus it would have been really

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:08

easy to go well, you know, timing was terrible, you know,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:13

I, this stuff always happens, you know, and to thrown up my

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:17

hands and and, and given up and give it and used it as an excuse

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:22

to not move forward. But it was like, No, I've done hard stuff

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:25

before. All right, it's not going to be the picture of what

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:28

I wanted it to be. I'm gonna have to pivot and do some stuff,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:32

some offer some services I didn't want to offer, but I need

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:36

to make any money. So it was, you know, I think the different

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:41

framing can either put you into solution mode, or it can put you

Kelly Hatfield: 00:05:45

into that victim and kind of feeling paralyzed mode.

John Mitchell: 00:05:49

Right. You know, let's think about this idea. The

John Mitchell: 00:05:51

story should tell her yourself. You know, I think most of the

John Mitchell: 00:05:56

stories are, are not verbalized, to other people, at least not

John Mitchell: 00:06:04

verbalized very often. Do you think that's true?

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:08

Um, I think that's true. I think a lot of

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:13

what's happening is happening in our internal dialogue. Yeah,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:17

subconsciously, under the, you know, like, like, we've talked

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:20

about where it's kind of running behind the scenes. Yeah. So

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:26

yeah, I mean, some people are better at it than others, you

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:29

know, about sharing their stories. And, but I think a lot

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:33

of exactly what you're saying a lot of those stories happen

Kelly Hatfield: 00:06:35

internally,

John Mitchell: 00:06:36

you know, I, this idea of this internal dialogue,

John Mitchell: 00:06:41

I completely agree with you, but I see how fundamentally weak,

John Mitchell: 00:06:48

the, the internal dialogue that we have with ourselves is

John Mitchell: 00:06:52

because it's very fluid. It's not, you're not necessarily

John Mitchell: 00:06:59

saying to yourself specific words, it's just sort of a

John Mitchell: 00:07:02

feeling semi feelings, semi words, dialogue, and it is so

John Mitchell: 00:07:10

easy to fix that, you know, through through our methodology.

John Mitchell: 00:07:14

When when you say, Okay, wait a minute, I'm fixing the stories

John Mitchell: 00:07:20

that I'm telling myself, because I'm now in my visualization, you

John Mitchell: 00:07:25

can articulate precisely with words, what happened? What was

John Mitchell: 00:07:30

the takeaway from it? What did I learn? And I'm gonna articulate

John Mitchell: 00:07:34

those words to myself every day to now change how I am,

John Mitchell: 00:07:40

subconsciously, as well as emotionally. Does that make

John Mitchell: 00:07:43

sense?

Kelly Hatfield: 00:07:44

Yep, absolutely. And I think one other technique

Kelly Hatfield: 00:07:47

in terms of that, so the visualization a number one,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:07:51

that's a great way to do exactly, reprogram that

Kelly Hatfield: 00:07:55

subconscious. The other thing that I find very useful, is if

Kelly Hatfield: 00:07:59

part of the thinking time, and we've talked about this in

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:02

earlier episodes, where I will literally like so if I feel like

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:06

I am in a place of worry, that's one of my behaviors, one a

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:13

behavior that I have in my visualization, but one of the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:16

techniques that I use is inside my thinking time. I'm like,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:19

Okay, what is the so whatever the challenge is, what is the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:23

story? I'm telling myself about this? Okay, write that down.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:28

What's, what are the facts? Yeah, now, let's go over what

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:31

the facts are, you know, and then is that true? You know, is

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:36

it absolutely true? You know, so like, I'll go through an

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:39

exercise in that thinking time, that helps me completely reframe

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:43

it, where I'm like, Okay, I'm breaking that bad, you know, or

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:47

I won't label it bad, good or otherwise, but I'm breaking that

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:50

behavior that doesn't serve me by being very intentional about

Kelly Hatfield: 00:08:55

how I'm going to process this. Does that make sense?

John Mitchell: 00:09:00

Absolutely. You know, Kelly, I'm really glad you

John Mitchell: 00:09:03

brought that that up. And and for the audience that doesn't

John Mitchell: 00:09:06

know exactly what she's talking about, you know, we have a

John Mitchell: 00:09:09

technique of setting aside time two times a week to just think,

John Mitchell: 00:09:15

to what we call deep think and, and, you know, think about this,

John Mitchell: 00:09:19

this is something I've thought about lately a lot about our

John Mitchell: 00:09:23

methodology is, is the thinking is goes hand in hand with the

John Mitchell: 00:09:31

visualization where you're feeding the succinct

John Mitchell: 00:09:33

articulation of your life. Well, the thinking is where you do you

John Mitchell: 00:09:39

look at those stories, you shape those stories, you reframe those

John Mitchell: 00:09:43

stories, you give new meaning to the stories. And so that's sort

John Mitchell: 00:09:48

of the guiding part of your life and then when you think it

John Mitchell: 00:09:53

through, then you put it on your visualization to impact your

John Mitchell: 00:09:57

subconscious mind and your daily action. And so the combination

John Mitchell: 00:10:01

of those two together is what makes our methodology so

John Mitchell: 00:10:06

powerful, don't you think?

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:08

Oh, 100%, you know, so I would want an action

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:12

item for those that are tuned in and listening right now is start

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:16

to identify, you know, what are some of those stories that

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:20

you're telling yourself that are holding you back? You know, and

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:24

you can look at some of the different areas in your life to

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:26

see where maybe you're, you've been stuck, or aren't making

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:29

progress, that might be the first place to start? And just

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:32

ask yourself, like, Okay, what's the what is the narrative? For

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:36

you around? You know, why this hasn't progressed? Or, you know,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:40

that's a really great way to kind of get started with

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:43

thinking about, you know, what are some of those obstacles? Or

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:48

things you're having a challenge moving, past or achieving? Or?

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:52

Because a lot of the time it has to do with that subconscious?

Kelly Hatfield: 00:10:57

You know, again, 95% of our thoughts are at the subconscious

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:01

level, and they're comprised of those stories. So what's your

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:06

narrative? You know, is your narrative going to serve your

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:09

subconscious? Or is it going to do the opposite? You know, so

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:14

for me, I look at all of the experiences that I've had, you

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:18

know, so we'll speak specifically about, like, some

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:21

of the things that haven't gone well, or challenges I've had to

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:25

overcome, or maybe some horrible things that I've experienced,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:29

I'm I wouldn't change, as as terrible as a couple of them

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:33

were, I wouldn't change anything, because they're part

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:37

of this path. They're part of what made me I've learned so

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:41

much, and become a better human being as a result of those

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:45

experiences, and have been able to serve at a different level at

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:50

because I've had those experiences. And so again,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:54

that's how I've chosen to frame that rather than that being in

Kelly Hatfield: 00:11:58

that place where, you know, that victim hood has such a negative

Kelly Hatfield: 00:12:03

connotation, and but it's easy to go there, because that's what

Kelly Hatfield: 00:12:06

we're designed to do, you know, what I mean, we talked about

Kelly Hatfield: 00:12:08

human fallacies, you know, the other day, in a previous

Kelly Hatfield: 00:12:12

episode, and that's what you're designed to do is to, you know,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:12:16

go to the negative So, right, again, just how you frame your,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:12:20

your narrative.

John Mitchell: 00:12:21

Yeah, I, you know, I, I think, you know,

John Mitchell: 00:12:24

based on our methodology, the way you you do life is is to

John Mitchell: 00:12:30

have the exceptional life is yes, you start by thinking two

John Mitchell: 00:12:34

times a week, and, and thinking through your life and figuring

John Mitchell: 00:12:38

out your life and discovering whatever the challenges are, and

John Mitchell: 00:12:42

thinking through it. Any problem in your life is ultimately

John Mitchell: 00:12:46

solved, either from thinking through it, or getting the

John Mitchell: 00:12:49

outset side input of somebody else. So that thinking time two

John Mitchell: 00:12:54

times week is step one. And then step two, is now we got to turn

John Mitchell: 00:12:59

that thinking into being showing up with a proper actions

John Mitchell: 00:13:04

happening automatically. And that's where having the succinct

John Mitchell: 00:13:08

articulation of your life and feeding it to yourself 12

John Mitchell: 00:13:12

minutes a day, boom, that, in fact, that affects your your

John Mitchell: 00:13:17

daily actions and your mindset, and gives you this immense sense

John Mitchell: 00:13:21

of control over your life. But the two are so intertwined

John Mitchell: 00:13:25

together, that together, they're powerful.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:28

Well, it's funny, John, I remember when we

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:30

first met years ago, and part of the process of building your

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:35

visualization is filling out this questionnaire. And this

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:41

goes to the point of thinking time, and those two things going

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:44

hand in hand, because I hadn't sat down, and like really

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:49

thought deeply about anything. I was running as fast as I could

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:54

and had been for years, you know, and just really, in that

Kelly Hatfield: 00:13:58

kind of reactive mode, and, yeah, there was planning, there

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:02

was a business plan, you know, that had dust on it, you know, I

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:05

hadn't looked at developed it, you know, but in terms of

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:09

thinking deeply about my life, and my business, and some of the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:15

it was a hard practice, and I remember so much of what I did

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:18

was at the surface, you know, and then you're like, nope, try

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:22

again. Right? And then going deeper and deeper. My point

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:28

being, this can be a challenge at first because you're if you

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:34

aren't doing this and setting aside time to think regularly,

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:39

and to think deeply and to just be with yourself and Write your

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:43

thoughts down and this can feel intimidating. It can. What's the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:49

word I'm looking for? And you can feel inadequate, you can

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:55

because you're just it's something you have to train

Kelly Hatfield: 00:14:58

yourself to do is my point. And so for those of you that are

Kelly Hatfield: 00:15:01

like, Well, geez, what do I even think about when I, you know, or

Kelly Hatfield: 00:15:05

what do I write down during this thinking time? You know, we have

Kelly Hatfield: 00:15:09

a whole video on this, right? We can put the link to the, to the

Kelly Hatfield: 00:15:16

thinking time video for people to watch and learn more about

Kelly Hatfield: 00:15:20

how to do this because it is an art. And it does take some

Kelly Hatfield: 00:15:23

practice.

John Mitchell: 00:15:24

Right, right. Yeah, it's a it's a simple

John Mitchell: 00:15:27

process. I mean, but But yes, in fact, if you if you want it,

John Mitchell: 00:15:32

send an email to John at think it'd be a.com. And, and I'll

John Mitchell: 00:15:36

give it to you. And you know, one other thing that's

John Mitchell: 00:15:39

interesting, that's, that's sort of related to this. I have seen

John Mitchell: 00:15:45

and this This changed in my visualization. Maybe a year ago,

John Mitchell: 00:15:50

where I saw the and I got this from Jordan Peterson said that

John Mitchell: 00:15:57

there's power in being what he calls an articulate creature.

John Mitchell: 00:16:02

And so I now explain, think it be it to people that come to me

John Mitchell: 00:16:09

very succinctly and clearly. And I've, and I've written that out,

John Mitchell: 00:16:15

what do I do? When somebody says, What do you do? I have

John Mitchell: 00:16:19

what what I tell them? I do, and I have seen the power from

John Mitchell: 00:16:25

feeding that to myself each day. That now, I mean, when somebody

John Mitchell: 00:16:31

asked me, boy, I am right on point I can I can drive it home,

John Mitchell: 00:16:37

from their perspective of not knowing anything, about 20 times

John Mitchell: 00:16:42

more effective than I could three years ago, because I just,

John Mitchell: 00:16:47

you know, train my subconscious mind to know exactly what to

John Mitchell: 00:16:51

say, relative to the viewpoint of the listener. And that's been

John Mitchell: 00:16:58

a powerful lesson. But to ramp this up, again, is this idea of

John Mitchell: 00:17:05

the stories we tell ourselves, drive our behaviors, there's a

John Mitchell: 00:17:09

way for you to change your interpretation of the stories.

John Mitchell: 00:17:14

And from that, through the methodology we have, you can

John Mitchell: 00:17:18

change behaviors and those change behaviors can recreate

John Mitchell: 00:17:23

your life. So, with that as a summary, until next time, we'll

John Mitchell: 00:17:28

see ya.

Kelly Hatfield: 00:17:32

Thanks for listening today. If you've had

Kelly Hatfield: 00:17:35

your own aha moment from today's episode, send me or John an

Kelly Hatfield: 00:17:40

email. We'd love to share your epiphany with our audience. So

Kelly Hatfield: 00:17:45

email us at Kelly@thinkitbeit.com or

Kelly Hatfield: 00:17:48

John@thinkitbeit.com. In the meantime, live the exceptional life