So how do you and I start Living A Better Story? Isn’t that what you and I want? We’ve heard all of the concepts and to-do lists. We’re read everybody else’s story, which is often written AFTER they are on the other side and it is all pretty. Well, that’s not me, and that’s not my story. I suspect that is not you story either. Personally, I’m into more sensible things I can start in the here and now to get me going.
The first sensible place, and I would argue the best place, to start is to begin your very own “Say YES!” campaign. Not just getting up and starting a new day with another resolution and disciplining yourself with another behavior that usually doesn’t end up lasting. Rather it is about investing in a profound change of your heart, one that starts in your head with a clear decision, and drifts to your heart.
For instance it is not “I’m not going to call him today” or “I’m not going to think about what is happening or going on right now.” Okay, okay….maybe it is “I’m going to pray, go to church, go to counseling, etc.” These resolutions are all really good things to consider, and will even contribute to living a better story for awhile.
However, this campaign is more real and realistic as a first step if you DECIDE, before there is enough proof, to decide to:
1) Say YES! to Hope Again
2) Say YES! to Seeing Your Life with New Glasses
3) Say YES! to Changing the Conversation You Are Having with Yourself
4) Say YES! to Surrendering All of the Endings of Your Stories and Be Intentional About It.
These four decisions will serve as a premise, something that helps support a conclusion, and is considered to be true for the expressed purpose of experiencing a better story. This part is particularly hard for the thinking women out there who want something more practical to do!
This “Say Yes” campaign can help you change your very thinking one decision at a time to find hope when you feel hopeless. It can give you new lenses from which to view your life when the same scene appears. It can change the devastatingly negative, insecure conversation you have with yourself on a daily basis, and if you are anything like me I bet you have lots of conversations going on.
“Say Yes!” campaigns have the potential, if you let it, to end the madness of watching the same movie of life over and over with the same characters replaced with different faces and story lines.
Have you even seen Groundhog Day, the movie? It’s hilarious! Bill Murray, a reporter, gets up to film Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog, let the world know when winter is over and spring is here. He’s got a mad crush on Andie McDowell, his producer. Once he figures out the same maddening story is happening day after day, he finally chooses to change his mind and go about his day to affect a different outcome. What’s even crazier it is an entire 2-hour movie!
What am I saying? I am asking you to think about a heart change. We don’t get a chance to do our lives over each day like Bill Murray, but we do have a choice today. Will you begin your “Say YES” campaign today or continue to be stuck in the same scene tomorrow?
Next time ~ The Everyday Opportunities to “Say YES!”