Our Story of Ourself

A couple of coaching meetings recently have reminded me how valuable it can be to reflect on our stories about ourself. Often we have several versions: perhaps one (a) that is subtle and sophisticated, one (b) that is more of a shorthand version and maybe one (c) that is either more optimistic or more pessimistic than (a) and (b) - depending whether those incline to optimism
or pessimism, and in contrast to them.

When we are very busy, tired or stressed, it is easy to rely on (b) as an heuristic (see box) to save cognitive load.  However there are risks of over-reliance on (b), not least because it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

For example, part of my (b) story is that I am shy and not good at casual social interaction. That is true to some extent, though an (a) version would be more sophisticated and recognise that when I make an effort, I can get by just fine in unstructured social encounters.  

But over-reliance on (b) tempts me to avoid such situations, which over time erodes my (already limited) skills in that context. Furthermore, that can be reinforced by a number of factors.  

One is Confirmation Bias: that tendency to notice and attribute meaning to things that confirm what we already think. That will incline me to notice as significant every occasion on which I don’t engage well socially, and to treat as abnormal (or even not to notice at all) those occasions on which I engage well.

Moreover, when I am acting out of my (b) story, by being a bit more withdrawn, that may well make others less inclined to engage with me, creating an elegant self-fulfilling prophecy.

To counter those risks, it is useful to raise our awareness, by reflection, and possibly by disclosure to others and inviting their feedback. 

If we wish to weaken our (b) story and strengthen our (a) story (or even an optimistic (c) story), one useful strategy is to collect and mentally curate exceptions: those times when things didn’t go the way the (b) story might have predicted. 

We can then choose to attend to our more positive story more of the time and try to live out of it, thus recruiting confirmation bias that the likelihood of a self-fulfilling prophecy to support who we are trying to become, rather than who we worry that we might be seen as.