Espresso Shot 31: YOUR STORY, YOUR ENDING

Hey, IT IS YOUR LIFE BY DESIGN! Nicoa emphasizes the importance of self-authorship in reframing your life story.  Learn to reflect on their current narrative, identify areas for improvement, and rewrite your story daily! By taking an active response to life's challenges, YOU can transform and create a LIFE BY DESIGN, the kind of life you don't need a vacation from!

SOME LBD JOURNALING PROMPTS:
Write TWO stories: one with facts, one with meaning and judgment. See the difference? You did that! You gave it meaning!

Transcript

Nicoa Coach: 0:02

Sometimes don't you just need a quick moment of inspiration, or maybe you just need a moment of caffeinated contemplation to reflect on life. That's the idea behind my weekly Coffee with nicoa espresso shots. I'll be sharing short jolts of inspiration in each clip, in addition to my longer Coffee with nicoa interview episodes. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an espresso shot or a full length Coffee with nicoa interview created just for you. Hey everybody, it's nicoa. This is your weekly espresso shot. And let's talk about how to write your life by design, how to write your story you've already written one. Take a look. I want you to really reflect today on what story you have written to date. What is your story? An exercise that I really enjoyed when I was going through my coach training was to sit down and write two stories. One is every fact that ever occurred to you, from the day you were born all the way until today. And it doesn't have to be every single detail. It's just a, you know, I was born in this state, with these parents, with these siblings. I went to this school, I did this, I did that, I, you know, I broke my leg. I went to college. I was a football player, you know. List your story. I graduated, I got the job, I got fired, I got a new job, I got married, I got divorced, and then period the end, here I am today. All right, well, that's a story. What's interesting about that exercise is that that story has no judgment, right? There's no judgment. It's just facts, just the facts. Ma'am. I always say that to my clients.

Unknown: 1:39

So then the next stage of the exercise is to write the same story, but then with all of that meaning, with all of that judgment that you give it, with all of that and then, oh my god, I got fired. And then, oh, and then I got married. It was so exciting. Oh, and then I had three kids. Whatever your story is, you're making each fact mean something, right? And we learn how to make it mean something by the way we're raised in the culture we live in, and just all of the way in which we're influenced by marketing and society and our next door neighbor and that one history teacher and and that really mean, you know, mean girl that was a bully. All of those things create the meaning that you give your life experiences, especially when you're reflecting back on the past. Interesting, right? What's powerful, though, is that when you write your life by design story, you can start rewriting it every day. I always try to imagine that I wake up in the morning and I have a clean sheet of paper. Oh, it's tricky, because sometimes I've erased a lot from the day before on that piece of paper in my mind's eye, and it's hard not to still see what I had written the day before. But if I can really get back to that clean sheet, that clean sheet of paper, here's what I invite myself to do each day, and I invite you to do it right now too, when you've got that clean sheet of paper, I want you to remember that this story is yours, and it doesn't have to end the way it ended yesterday. It can end differently. You can make new decisions. You can make new choices. You can make changes. You can decide to make something mean, something different. You can say, Well, okay, that was a lesson learned. Now I know better or All right, yeah, so all that happened to me. Nobody gives a about my past. They want to know what I'm going to do now. What are you going to do now? Okay, here's my clean sheet of paper. Well, the best way to attract that life by design that you crave is to begin writing down all of the things that make you feel good, and there are ways in which you can begin to influence those things that make you feel good, by the people you surround yourself with, by the actual social media intake, by the books that you read, by the thoughts that you create. So write down the thoughts that are going to make you feel good, make you feel hopeful, make you feel faithful, make you feel excited, start thinking about today and how today will create tomorrow, which is that is the new story that you're about to live and experience and tell surround yourself with different types of people, if The people you've been surrounding yourself with in the past no longer serve you, surround yourself with human beings who are also creating their lives by design. Surround yourself with people who know how to change and adapt. And here's an important thing, surround yourself with people that don't complain all the time, who aren't whinging and whining, right? People who actually want to start their day fresh with a clean sheet of paper, who are able to look at their world with possibility, with excitement, fulfillment, contentment, and finding that contentment, they have an eagerness to go out and find. Find it they're willing to sit with themselves and reflect. I want you to really think about creating your life more than you think about experiencing the impact of a past decision. So what do I mean by that? Start thinking about what is possible and what can I create differently moving forward versus how am I currently experiencing what I've had been exposed to in the past? So either you're going to sit around being a victim to it and being disappointed by it, and I'm not telling you not to emote. Once you get over your reaction, it's time to create the response. So this is called active living. This is designing, right? We can't design it if we don't define it. So let's actively take response ability and design what we want next. Write it down. Live actively, if you will, instead of passively accepting life as it is again. This is your life, your life by design, your story, your meaning, your story doesn't have to end this way. You can create a new ending and start hanging out with the people and listening to the people and the other human beings who are role modeling this way of being for you, people chasing down their potential. I heard someone say once who's chasing down their potential, you have unlimited potential, unlimited possibilities, and the only thing getting in the way are your thoughts and the amount of energy you're spending still reacting to what's already happened instead of consciously responding and CO creating with the world, with those new people or with the people that you already are associated with, co creating A life by design. And as I like to say, it's the kind of life you don't need a vacation from happy journaling. I know this is your journaling prompt for the week. Go write it down, my friends and thank you for listening. Life by design. I love mine, and you should love yours too. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an espresso shot or a full length Coffee with nicoa interview created just for you the were a firecracker burning against the sky.