JERRY’S SHORT: 3 Easy Steps to Crush Your Negative Narratives

With these three easy steps you can crush your negative narratives that arise from stress stories.

We learned from Stephen Moegling in episode 379 these three easy steps to crush your negative narratives in stressful situations.

Picture this: You’re booked for a flight, and while waiting in the airport it gets canceled. Quick as a gunshot, you tell yourself, “Everything is going wrong today.” That, my friend, is a stress story.

The unfortunate thing is that these stress stories often form so quickly possibly due to our human propensity for storytelling kicked into overdrive by factors like fear or anxiety. Instead of serving us as useful tools in dealing with challenges, they derail us, causing us to predict a negative future or feel stuck in a rut.

The good news is, we can learn to navigate them. Stephen Moegling shared insights into how our brains engage in this activity and the negative impact it makes.

Table of Contents

STEP 1: Separate Fact from Fiction

Separating fact from fiction is the first step to crushing your negative narratives that arise from stress. The stories our minds create may not align with reality. That is the double-edged sword of perspective.

Our stories are the product of our emotions, biases, and past experiences to name a few influences.

The next time you’re faced with a stressful scenario, take a moment to pause and objectively assess the situation. Look for concrete evidence or verifiable information. Determine if that evidence supports or contradicts the story you’re telling yourself. By focusing on facts, you can begin to separate them from the fictional elements of your narrative.

Ultimately, separating fact from fiction requires a willingness to question your own assumptions, seek objective evidence, and challenge the narratives that may be holding you back. By doing so, you can gain a clearer perspective on reality and make more informed decisions in your life.

STEP 2: Recognize Unhelpful Stories and Break Free from the Grip of Stress

We all have unhelpful stress stories that rumble about in our minds. Sometimes it feels like they’ve staked out a permanent residence, and it seems nearly impossible to evict them.

Let’s take a breath and keep in mind that recognizing and challenging the validity of these stress stories is the key to breaking free from their grip. Oh, and by the way, it’s worth reaffirming here that stress stories are rarely, if ever, helpful. They generally lead to heightened stress levels and restricted thinking.

The idea is that by asking ourselves if the story we’re telling ourselves is actually helpful, we start the process of unknotting the noose of stress stories. He suggests focusing on the reality of the situation, examining the facts, and extricating them from the overarching narrative. It’s in this process of recalibrating, Stephen nods, that we find our way out of the labyrinth of stress.

STEP 3: Cast a Vision to Create a Path Forward

Stress stories may blur our sight and make us lose our way. But if we cast a vision, map out our goals, and keep them in our line of sight, we find our path forward.

You’d be surprised how much clarity, direction, and resilience you can gain just from this process. Clear objectives and goals help in dissolving stress. It isn’t daydreaming about rainbows and unicorns. It’s much more concrete – vividly picturing your destination and laying out a well-thought-out path. Keep the nasty stress beast at bay by repeating this process daily to remind yourself of the future you are creating.

Create and cast your vision through the lens of the Five F’s with this free tool, BeyondTheRut.com/goals.

The journey to finding clarity and overcoming stress stories is a deeply personal one, but it’s a journey that you don’t have to embark on alone. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can gain the tools and strategies you need to navigate the challenges that come your way.

Each step is designed to empower you and help you develop a deeper understanding of yourself and your triggers. So keep pushing forward, even when it feels difficult, and remember that you have the strength within you to overcome any obstacle. Embrace the process, trust yourself, and never forget that clarity and peace are waiting for you on the other side.

Have you tried these tactics and strategies? Let me know what worked and what didn’t for you.

Chapters

00:01:46 Separating Fact from Fiction

00:02:47 Are Your Stories Working for You?

00:03:45 Cast a Vision for a Positive and Productive Future

Resources

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Transcript

Hey, let’s go out on Red Nation. This is your host of Beyond the Rut, Jerry Dugan. And this is another installment of Jerry’s short. These are the shorter episodes I released later in the week to carry you through the weekend into a brand new week on Monday. So in this short segment, I want to chat a little bit about one of the key points of the interview I had with Stephen Mogle uh in the most recent episode of Beyond the Beyond the rut episode 379 where we talk about overcoming your stress, stories and the negative narratives that come out of that. So under stress, we tend to call ourselves names.

We tend to let impostors, uh impostor syndrome kick in and we find ourselves talking ourselves out of the things we can do when that’s the thing to do, not to talk ourselves out of it, but to go do the thing. So what do you do to combat or crush that negative narrative that seeped into your mind over the years? And there was a three step process that Stephen shared with us. And I want to share that with you. So the three steps are separating fact from fiction.

That’s the first one. The second one is asking yourself if the stories you’re asking yourself are helpful. And the third one is casting your vision for the future. You want to have not the one you’re telling yourself through these stories that are not helping. So that’s essentially it. So again, the first step separating fact from fiction and one of the great examples I like to share is if you’re trapped at an airport, you know, you’re scheduled for a flight, you’re at the airport, you’re checked in, you’re at the gate and then all of a sudden because of a lightning storm or a flight being delayed to pick you up, your flight gets canceled.

Now, the type of stress stories that could seep in are things like, oh, here we go. Again. This airline is always chewed up or man, this always happens to me. Me, me, I knew this was gonna happen. I bet they lost my luggage too. Those are stories. These are all predictions of a future, a negative future that has not even happened yet.

You don’t even know why the situation is what it is. And so what are the facts? The facts are, you’re in an airport? The facts are you’re still trying to get somewhere to a destination by a certain date and time.

The fact is you can talk to a ticket agent and see what your options are. And if you haven’t done that yet, get in line and find out what your options are. If you’re doing your travel through an app, get on the app and find out what your options are. Get on the phone, use the customer service line and get your options in front of you. So those are the facts you can go seek options. There are options to be had some way somehow. So go get more information and then from there you can decide.

Oh, things are not as bad as I thought I can pick up another flight in the next 3 to 4 hours. Yeah, it’s a delay. However, I’m still getting to where I need to go and getting there on time. Those are facts. Everything else is the story you’re telling yourself. Now the second step is are the stories you’re telling yourself helping you. You know, sometimes you’re like, you know what?

This is a little more frustrating. This is not how I like to do business. Uh Maybe next time I schedule my flights earlier and I I pick an earlier flight in the day. So I’m not arriving the night before my event, I’m arriving the morning before. Ok, that that that’s fine. So that story led you to a different solution.

Now again, if you’re just doing the woe is me, I’ve got no options. This is always the universe trying to get a hold of me and beat me down is that working for you? Chances are, it’s not. And once you identify that and you’re able to get past it, you can now start to create a vision and cast a vision for the future you do want. So what is again in our scenario? What is the future you want?

You still want to arrive at your destination at a reasonably good time, at a reasonable time, maybe on time, preferably. So what’s the best option to get you there? What are the facts available to you that will help you get to that reality? What are the steps you can take to make that reality? So there you have it. What are the ways to crush the negative narratives in your mind when stress hits again?

Number one, separate the facts from fiction. Number two are the stories you’re telling yourself working for you and then what stories do help. And then number three, what is the vision you want to cast for the outcome you desire? So that’s been another Jerry short. And if you want to find more information, just go to the, the website Jerry, not Jerry uh beyond the rut dot com slash Js 020, you’ll find some more information about what we just talked about here as well as a link to Beyond the rut episode 379 with Stephen Mogle. Great conversation. This is just one taste of all the things we talked about in that conversation. So go check that out. Now, I’m glad you joined me for this episode in this segment of Jerry Short. I look forward to joining you again next week in the next episode of Beyond The rut. Until then go live life beyond the rut. Take care.

beyondtherut

STEP 1: Separate Fact from Fiction

STEP 2: Recognize Unhelpful Stories and Break Free from the Grip of Stress

STEP 3: Cast a Vision to Create a Path Forward

Chapters

Resources

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Transcript