Her One Thing

3. Owning Your Story

Episode Summary

Our personal life story is one of the most valuable assets we will ever have. In episode 3, Kristin Zeier explores the topic of shifting from being a passive bystander to an active creator in the story of your life. Even though we cannot control every outcome, we can control the narrative of the story we create and what it means for our overall lives.

Episode Notes

Episode 3 of the Her One Thing podcast is all about learning how to take ownership over your own life story. Host Kristin Zeier reveals that how you approach your life story is a spectrum. At one end, you have being a passive bystander in your life story. At the other end of the spectrum, you have being an active creator. 

Like many things in life, how you connect to your life story is not black and white. It's not one or the other. You can fall anywhere on that life story participant spectrum. 

When a person is a passive bystander in her life story, she watches the world unfold around her. Examples of what being a passive bystander could look like include:

• Watching the events in your life unfold around you and being in reactive mode
• Not creating an intentional plan & following a path to get there
• Feeling like a victim to the things that are happening around you
• Feeling like you have no control over the future
• Feeling like the universe is conspiring against you
• Shifting blame to others
• Thinking, "Why Me?"
• Thinking thoughts like, "Having an amazing life would be great but it's just not in the cards for me"
• It could be as simple as complacency

Conversely, when someone is at the other end and is an active creator of their own life story, she is proactive. Below are some examples of what being an active creator might look like:

• Owning the fact that you cannot always control the circumstances around you but you can control how you react
• Taking accountability
• Taking inventory of your strengths and weaknesses and owning them
• Being open to "failure"
• Consistently developing yourself and being in a growth mindset
• Investing in yourself and your future
• Becoming self-aware of your thoughts and learning how to choose your thoughts to compliment the life you are creating

It's important to note that you cannot predict the future or possible know how events will always unfold in the future. Accepting that is part of being an active creator. When you changes your perspective and you start to view things from this creator lens, you take ownership for the story you create around those events and circumstances. You take back the power by choosing the narrative.

One of the biggest takeaways of this episode is that you always get to choose the narrative of your own life story. This goes for the past, present and future. The choice is always yours. 

Your life story is one of the biggest assets you will ever have. It's what makes you unique and no one else can ever compete with your own life story. 

Lastly, Kristin shares an exercise that you can do to flip the narrative on your own life story. 

Visit https://itsthatonething.com for full show notes.