Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. - Change the Story!

Here is another older article that has been hanging around in my tabs for a while - this one looks at role theory and the narrative we construct about who we are as people.
The way you define your life affects your circumstance.


I am a huge Seth Godin fan, and recently he penned a blog post titled, The facts. He wrote:

"The story wins the day every time… Your position on just about everything, including, yes, your salary, your stock options, your credit card debt and your mortgage are almost certainly based on the story you tell yourself, not some universal fact from the universal fact database. ---Not just you, everybody."


Godin is correct. All day we are in unceasing conversations with ourselves. We tell ourselves who we are, what we should do, how we should respond and what our mission is. This intrapersonal communication governs our lives to a huge extent and affects our overall well-being. When things are good and especially when they are great the internal dialogue is most likely positive and helps move us forward. But what about when things aren't going according to plan?

What happens when we look into the mirror that is our lives and we are wholly unsatisfied? It is in these times that we need to re-evaluate the internal conversations and monitor what we are saying.

In a recent article I discussed Role Theory, which is one of my favorite topics. Role Theory asserts that there are a multitude of 'characters' that exist in our world. Some of these roles we are born into (e.g., family relationships) and others we willingly accept (marriage, jobs, friendships). Others are foisted upon us, such as stereotypes, or we are pressured into, such as competing with neighbors (commonly referred to as "Keeping up with the Joneses/Kardashians"). Regardless of the type, social norms often dictate that we accept these roles and conform to certain standards of behavior that define them.


This is great when you're 'Winning!' However, what do you do when your thought process and roles are crushing your well being?

Read the whole article.

No comments: