3 Reasons Why Being a Good Storyteller Can Work Against You | VictorSchueller.com

About a year ago, my older daughter, Brianna, approached me outside as I was doing some yard work.

“Dad?” she asked.  “How tall are you?”

I said, “I’m five foot eleven.  Five one one.”

“Okay,” Brianna said, as she retreated back into the house.

A couple of minutes later, she came back out.

“How much do you weigh?” she asked.

“One hundred seventy-five pounds.  One seven five,” I answered.

“Okay,” she said again, and as before, she went back in the house.

Once again, she came out of the house, and she handed me a piece of paper.  It was a Fathers’ Day gift:

It all looked good, until the part where she described that when I was younger I used to “pretend to be a woman.”

Never, ever let a child see a picture of you dressed as a woman for Halloween.  No doubt it burns itself into their memory.

Now you also know that I “yell” when I am angry.

Stories are so powerful.  They have the ability to capture our attention.  They take us somewhere we’ve never been.  They turn a dull presentation into an exciting adventure, where time flies and our hearts and souls sing.

If you’re a great storyteller, it can really be to your benefit in building relationships and talking with other people.

On the other hand, your strength in telling stories can be holding you back.

How so?

One of the great things about stories is that they can be told by one, and then repeated by others, fairly accurately, time and time again.  It’s how many of the great books we have come to know have been written.  However, this can work against us as well.

We all tell ourselves and other people our stories.  I’m not talking about stories like the one I told you above.  I’m talking about the “stories” we have come to believe about ourselves, our talents, our abilities, our limitations, and our shortcomings.

For example, one of my stories was always, “I’m not good at math.”

Another one was “I’m a horrible salesperson.”

I’ve heard other people say that they’re not creative, or that they are not smart, or even, “It’s just the way it is.  I can’t change it.”

They’re all stories.  But, they get in our way.

Here are three reasons why our stories can work against us:

1. Some of our stories are simply the reflections of what others have told us and we’ve accepted as true.

This is why we must be so careful of what we say to other people.  If you tell your child, for example, that “mom and dad aren’t very good athletes,” and that the child “probably won’t be very good at sports either,” you’re feeding your child a story about how they probably won’t be good at sports.

The problem with this is that whatever your child consciously hears, and then chooses to accept as true, it will become a “program” for your body to execute as instructed.

With children, this is especially powerful, because why would a child ever question whether what their parents say is true?  Parents tell their children to look both ways before crossing the street.  They tell their children not to talk to strangers.  They tell their children all sorts of things to help keep them safe, and they continue to teach them so much about everything!

The next thing the child knows, they’re playing soccer with their friends, and they clumsily dribble the ball just as any other learning soccer player would.  What do they say to themselves when they see other children who appear to be better dribblers?

“I’m just not good at sports, just like my parents.  My parents were right.”

Years go by, and the story continues…”I’ve never been good at sports.”

2. The stories we tell ourselves continue to shape our perceptions of truth

Just like above, the new (or old) stories we have come to tell ourselves as we continue throughout our lives shape our perceptions of what “is.”  If we tell ourselves that we can’t or never have been able to do something, and we accept it as true, our bodies follow the “program” and perpetuate it.

And then we also wonder why we can’t grow or accomplish new things…

3. Having a “convenient” story to tell gets us “off the hook.”

Our stories then become our excuses.  “I can’t paint the walls in my house because I’ve never been good at the ‘small details.'”

“I can’t be successful in business because I would have to sell things and I’m not a good salesperson.”

“I can’t be financially successful because whenever something goes well in my life something else comes along and I end up losing my job.  I’ll always mess things up and I’ll always be poor.”

“I can’t change things because it’s always been done this way.”

Stories are great for teaching lessons, entertaining others, or connecting authentically with someone else.  On the other hand, our stories can really set up obstacles that stand between us and the changes we would like to see take place in our lives.  Sometimes our stories keep us safe and give us an excuse to stand pat and not make any changes.  Sometimes our stories stop us before we even get started.

Do you have a story that you tell that you feel may be holding you back?  Do you have examples of stories you used to tell yourself and others that you’ve stopped telling?

I’d love to hear about it.  Please scroll down and leave a comment below!  I promise to respond.