We look at our life story as a timeline, stretching back to our births and forward to our deaths.

We see it as an historic fact, and our story up until now has made us what we are.

And it has.

But there is more than one story … always.

In this case, there is the story of what happened – real fact.

Then there is the story we tell ourselves – about what happened and about who we are because of that.

…

What we tell ourselves, though, is not always pure fact.

Memory is not always accurate.

We see our story through the lens of belief and experience and through other people’s lenses, their interpretations.

…

And we tell that story to ourselves,

the one that has been adapted by memory, beliefs, experiences and other people’s lenses.

…

Then we grow and our beliefs and understandings change and we meet other people with different lenses.

And we tell THAT story to ourselves – the one that fits with those changed beliefs and understandings and lenses.

And we believe it.

And we see the timeline differently,

probably aware at some level that is is distorted, but generally seeing it as how things really did happen, and who we have become because of it.

And the timeline changes, the history, the now.

And who we think we are changes.

And that is what we take into the future, the timeline into the future changes – how we see and how it becomes in fact.

…

The direction changes.

And the future changes.

Just like that.

Just because we believe we are on a path, then that is the path we will take.

………..

What if we told another story?

One not so much based on whatever we thought/believed came before and therefore determined what happened in the future,

but one based on values and hope and dreams and goals that we determine.

What a fabulous opportunity then, to redesign our story, to redesign our future, based on a story we tell ourselves!