27 Dec What is your story?

If I were to pose the question above to you, what would your response be? Would you reply that you don’t have a story to tell because you have no desire to pen a book? Or would it be something else?  I believe that we all have a story to tell and depending on how we tell it will determine how our lives pan out. Let me explain my thinking.

Say for instance that you had suffered some sort of personal tragedy and this left you wheelchair bound for the rest of your life. The fact that you’re now in a wheelchair can become your story – but it doesn’t have to. What I mean by thisis that you can use the fact that you no longer have the use of your legs to allow yourself an excuse not to do anything – just to sit in a heap and get people to feel sorry for you.

Alternatively, you can say that you’ve lost the use of your legs – that it’s something that has happened in your life but you don’t let this situation define who you are or who you will become.

Take acclaimed motivational business speaker, Martin Brown. A little over 15 years ago Martin broke his neck. Instead of letting his disability define him, and let it limit his aspirations, what he did was to develop three very successful businesses based on the needs that he identified among people with challenges that were the same as his.

You can’t always control what happens to you in the external environment.  However you can control how you react to it and how you ultimately deal with it. Do as John Heywood advises:

“If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.”