Ep. 168: Rewriting The Story of Your Life

In this episode of the Maybe I Can Podcast, I talk about something that quietly shapes our lives — the stories we tell ourselves.

For many years, I believed the thoughts running through my mind were simply facts. I told myself things like “this is just the way my life is” and never stopped to question them.

But the truth is, many of the beliefs that keep us stuck aren’t facts at all. They’re stories we’ve been repeating for years — sometimes since childhood.

In this episode, I share:

• How limiting stories become self-fulfilling prophecies
• The powerful concept of E + R = O (Event + Response = Outcome)
• How past experiences and comments from others can shape the way we see ourselves
• A simple way to start questioning the beliefs that may be holding you back

The moment we question the story, we create space for a new one.

And sometimes that’s where real change begins.

If you’ve ever felt like it’s too late, you missed your chance, or life “just is the way it is,” this conversation is for you.

Transcript

Naming The Stories We Believe

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Maybe I Can podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Weiss, and thank you so much for joining me today. Today, I want to talk about the story or stories that you're telling yourself that are keeping you stuck. And if you're like me, maybe you don't think that you're doing this, don't even recognize it. Because for the majority of my life, that's where I was. Let me give you some examples of what I'm talking about. Have you ever said to yourself, I'm too old to start this? Or I missed my chance, that opportunity passed me by, or I'm just not disciplined. My favorite and my go-to was this is just the way my life is. For the longest time, I thought that if this is the story I was telling myself, I didn't realize it was a story. If it went through my mind, I believed that it was fact. I just never stopped to question all of the things that were going through my brain. And so many times we're living inside a story that we didn't even realize that we wrote in the first place. It's really crazy when you start to break this down and examine it. And the thing is, you have to be honest with yourself. You could be listening and say, okay, that might have applied to her, but not me. I'm stuck because of X, Y, and Z. Whatever that reason is, when you tell yourself, whatever your story is, I'm not good with money, I'm not confident, nothing ever works out for me, what happens? When that's the loop that is playing in your brain, it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nothing ever works out for me. If you believe that nothing ever works out for you, what happens? You stop trying. Why try? Because, hey, fact is nothing ever works out for me. And so these thoughts reinforce your action. And then what happens? Yeah, that becomes the truth, right? Nothing ever works out for me. It happens quietly and we don't realize it. If you've been listening from the beginning, you could be familiar with my story, but I think that it bears repeating here because this topic resonates with me because this was me the majority of my life. I got to age 50 and kind of thought, this is just the way it is. There is nothing that I can do about it. I started caregiving for my father when I was 17, and then my oldest son when he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum and gained other diagnoses, and then later on my husband, and I had to take care of everyone, and I had to take care of my team at work and my customers and all the things. And this is just my lot in life. My lot in life is I'm here to help everyone else. So why even explore anything else? Because this is just the way it is. And when I started to examine maybe it's not the way it is, but could it be possible? I'm 50. It's too late. What am I supposed to do at this point? Nothing. That's what I told myself. And I stopped imagining that my life could be anything different. I didn't believe that reinvention at that late stage, what I was telling myself, was a late stage in life. I thought it's not even possible. And I don't even know what that reinvention looks like. This is it. The moment that I realized that it was a story I was telling myself. Who says this is just the way it is? Don't I have some level of control? I didn't believe I did. I just thought that look, life happens. Life happens to all of us, and each of us have different events and different circumstances at different times, right? And these are my circumstances, and so it is what it is. But I brought this up on this podcast, but I want to say it again because it is something that has really worked for me, and so maybe it'll work for you. And it's this idea of E plus R equals O, meaning E is the event, R is our response, and O is the outcome. So an event happens, you respond in a certain way, and together those two things determine the outcome. And for the majority of my life, I thought, not until I started examining it, I thought that the formula was Equals O. An event happens. Let's just say my husband died. And the outcome is horrible. Who wants to become a widow? I didn't want to become a widow. So that must mean that the rest of my life I don't have a choice but to be unhappy. Now, I am not saying that I should turn around and be happy that I became a widow. Most of these events that happen in our lives, they're really difficult and they're really challenging. And we have to go through them and we have to feel the feels. But my response to that event, my response to becoming a widow, equals the outcome. Just because I became a widow doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad outcome. Again, not the story I would write for myself, but this is what happened. And so what happens in this case, let's just say a very difficult event. Some people, and I'm not talking about right after it happens, but down the road, some people just can't move forward. And that's their outcome. Because they tell themselves, how am I supposed to move forward without my partner? I never expected this to happen. I can't, and I'm thinking of myself, I don't know how to cook. Only he knows how to cook. What am I supposed to do? I don't know how to do and what I need to do as far as maintenance around my house, the outcome is just terrible. Right? It's terrible. But instead, if my response is, again, after some time has passed, okay, I've got a few choices here, right? I can wallow in the fact that I'm alone, that I don't know how to cook, that my water heater is leaking and I don't know who to call or what to do or how to use the shop back. But you know what? It's not true. I might not know how to cook, that is true. But now, how am I going to respond to that? That, along with the event, determines the outcome. And in the end, if I'm not happy with the outcome, a lot of times I have the opportunity to go back and change the way I'm responding. It is all a story. It's subtle, it feels logical when you're telling yourself this story because look, you have all of the proof. I've got to only go with my own life. Look, yeah, what am I supposed to do? I've got to take care of everyone. There's no time. I'm already 50. This is the life that I was destined to live. And the things that were happening in my life, they were reinforcing that belief. I just never realized that I need to question myself. I need to question these stories. These are not facts. Your life isn't just shaped by the choices you make, but the meaning that you attach to things that have happened. So again, widow, terrible outcome. Not the event that I want to happen, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the outcome is terrible. So where do these stories come from? I think they come from things that happened in your childhood, things that someone told you. It's funny, I got to go back to this podcast because it's on my brain. And they asked me a question that I don't usually talk about this. In one of my books, I wrote about this story, but here's a perfect example. When I was in elementary school, I believed that I was not athletic because I had this gym teacher who played this chicken fat song. I don't know. I'd love to hear. If anybody knows what I'm talking about, please make sure to DM me or send me an email because this chicken fat song, oh, I couldn't stand it. And I couldn't stand that the word was fat because I've always had a weight problem. And there I was, a chubby girl. And every time in gym class, we would play this chicken fat song for the warm-up. And it would go, you chicken fat, go away. And I just felt like everyone was staring at me because I had a lot of fat on me. I couldn't run fast like the hare in the story. There was a hare and a tortoise. I was the tortoise. And this gym teacher made me believe that because of my weight, because I wasn't a fast runner, that meant that I couldn't excel at sports. Even though deep down, I felt I'm not so bad at softball or volleyball or whatever it was that we were playing at the time. And then in sixth grade, we got a new gym teacher. And she believed in me. She told me, Debbie, you can do this. You have such a great arm in softball. You catch everything. She just empowered me. She changed the story. It was a person who put one story in my head and then another person who rewrote that. How many times does someone say something? I also write in my book about when I was five years old and I was in a dance class and I loved it and I was good at it. And they gave me the lead. Back then, they had like specific costumes. I was the lead, and one of the moms came at me with a tape measure and measured whatever around my waist, and she said, Well, she's too big for the costume. Five years old I was. I ran out of there crying and never looked back. I allowed that woman to literally change the trajectory of my life. Now, I'm not saying I would have been a professional dancer, but gosh, I love dancing so much. And for so long, I didn't do it. Just because of what someone said to me when I was five years old. Think about times where you might have failed at something and you decide, oh, I'm just not good at this. Or you go on a diet and you quote unquote blow it and you get angry at yourself and you just tell yourself, I have no discipline. This is never gonna work. When we never question all these stories, they literally become the limits of our life. They determine what we try, what we avoid, how we see ourselves, and eventually we stop asking. Wait a second, is this really true? And if that gym teacher in sixth grade didn't I got this new gym teacher, if she didn't come in and question, help me question the old story that I was telling myself, I never would have played softball, played tennis, played the sports that I enjoyed. That story basically becomes our limits, our ceiling. If you're listening and you're not driving and you have access to a pen and paper, or later on when you do, I want you to write this down. The reason I can't blank is because blank. So the reason I can't change careers is because I'm too old. The reason I can't get healthy is because I have no discipline. The reason I can't start something new is because I'm not confident. Then ask, is this a fact or is it a story? That awareness changes everything. You have to start questioning these stories that you're telling yourself. Let's go with I'm too old. You gotta ask yourself three questions. One, is this absolutely true? Two, what evidence do I have that actually contradicts this? And three, what would be a more accurate story? And you gotta be honest with yourself. You have to. So here's an example. Your story is I'm too old to start over. But your new story could be, I may be later than I expected, but I still have time to build something meaningful. You're just choosing a more powerful interpretation, and when you do that, when you change that story, everything starts to shift. Your behavior changes, right? It might be later than I expected, but I do still have time to build something meaningful. So maybe I can take a step in that direction. Where before you told yourself it was too late. There was no step. Why try? It's too late. So you change your behavior, and then that happens. You take that one little step and you feel good about it. So your confidence begins to grow. And all of a sudden, the possibilities are endless. They start to expand. You start to realize that you are capable of so much more than you're giving yourself credit. And the funny thing is, it's like nothing in your past changes. These things happen, people say things, you failed at something. It's all still there. But you are no longer assigning that meaning to it, saying it is the absolute truth. And when you do that, that changes what you do next. So, what story have you been telling yourself for years that might not actually be true? I want you to really think about it. It is time to write a new story. Because the truth is, most of us are carrying around stories about ourselves that we picked up years ago, sometimes from something that happened, sometimes from something someone said, and sometimes from a moment when we were feeling hurt or discouraged. And over time, these stories start to feel like facts. But they're not facts, they're just interpretations. And maybe the most important question you can ask yourself isn't what do I need to do? Maybe it is what story have I been telling myself about this? Because the moment you question the story is the moment your life can start to change. Believe me, I am living proof. I continually have to change the stories that I'm telling myself. And now looking back, thinking about where I was with that old story, telling myself it is what it is, compared to where I am now, I'm a completely different person. And it all started with taking responsibility and telling myself a new story. Okay, that's what I've got for you for today. Please message me on Instagram debi.r.wiss, send me an email, Debbie at DebbieRwiss.com. I'd love to hear from you. And until next time, it's not maybe I can, it's I know you can. Make it a great week, everyone.