The Power of Story

by Jim Loehr

  You become so preoccupied with the project you’re working on that you forget to eat lunch. By 3:30 in the afternoon, your attitude has turned decidedly negative. You display less patience with others and a greater sense of pessimism. Beyond the reach of your awareness is this simple fact: Your blood sugar level has dropped significantly because you haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.

  No matter how often you hear others describe you as defensive and aloof, you’re unable to counter the criticism. Your colleagues all agree that you’re among the brightest, most talented contributors in the division, but your guarded, suspicious style with people has caused your bosses repeatedly to block your advancement in the firm. After working with an executive coach for nearly a year, you finally unearth what appears to be the source of your defensiveness: utter rejection by your father for the first seven years of your life. At age seven, your parents divorced and you never heard from him again. According to your mother, your father was convinced that you were not his child. His two modes of interaction with you—ignoring or being openly contemptuous—left a deep scar. From the time you were seven until now, age thirty-seven, you buried the painful memories. Because you’ve worked hard, you can now connect your past trauma with your trademark style with people—wary, closed. Your propensity for aloofness and defensiveness is a story that’s beginning to make some sense.

  As we go down deeper into the iceberg, it gets murkier, and it’s more challenging for us to bring into consciousness the often mystical forces of the subconscious world. Residing here is most of the hidden matter that influences our stories—all the instinctual urges coded in genes (governing autonomic responses like fight-or-flight, for example), all the conditioning that took place during childhood, all the indoctrination that has occurred since the first day of life, all the trauma and conflicts festering beneath the surface, waging a constant battle between our wants and needs. It is this subconscious material that’s hardest to retrieve and bring to the surface, to full awareness. Yet it’s the mortar that goes a very long way in determining who we are and the shape our life story has taken.

  Many people find it hard to accept that our lives are ruled by habits and routines and ossified memories, rather than moment-to-moment acts of conscious intent. They don’t want to acknowledge that our stories might actually be so profoundly influenced by factors outside our normal state of awareness. After all, once we acknowledge the extent to which our behavior is governed by subconscious forces, how daunting—how futile!—is it to exercise full responsibility (whatever that means) for our life when but a paltry 5% of that life is really under our control?

  Rather than being troubled by the percentages, and the perception they may give rise to, I see them as a glorious challenge. Forget that so much, percentage-wise, of what we do is out of control. The part that matters—the part that makes the real difference—is the part we control. It’s this capacity that separates us from all other life forms. This evolutionary masterpiece is the only hope we have for making course corrections in our life story.

  My experience in working with clients all over the world, and all over the map psychologically, long ago convinced me that our single greatest human asset is awareness, particularly self-awareness. This capacity to be reflective, to be conscious, is our most sacred capacity. (I don’t suggest I’m alone or paradigm-busting in this; I believe René “Cogito ergo sum” Descartes would back me up.) The evolution of the species has, despite frequent missteps, moved progressively towards greater self-awareness; the more self-aware we are—that is, the greater our capacity for conscious, deliberate thought, for creating new stories—the better able we are to change directions, to adapt, to survive and thrive. While consciousness may represent a mere 5% of our complete mind, the influence this fraction exercises over the vector and tone of our life is far profounder than that. This precious one-twentieth resides in the cerebral cortex, and it might be likened to the steering wheel or the gas and brake pedals in a car—only a slight but very intentioned touch to each significantly redirects the several-tonned vehicle, turns it 10 degrees or 90 degrees or makes possible a complete U-turn, speeds it up or slows it down, starts or stops it altogether. While one might be able to make a decent guess at the parameters of our future by taking a snapshot of our subconscious 95% (were such a thing possible), it is our conscious 5% that allows us to make course corrections to that future, especially when the 95% has taken us off a desirable course. The conscious 5% is unquestionably the most important portion inside us. It is, in fact, what truly separates us from all other species. It is what creates the possibility for self-directed change.

  Let’s get back to the iceberg, the deepest part. Stored here is all the nonconscious material that clearly affects our beliefs, our attitudes, our view of the world, our story. Stored here are subconscious forces (wants, needs) that may be in direct conflict with conscious aspirations, intentions, values. Stored here are our most frightening and potentially destructive memories, such as severe childhood trauma. Suppose this trauma, to take one example, involved abuse: physical, emotional, mental, or sexual. Such abuse creates toxic memories that the individual, acting in survival mode, defends furiously from gaining consciousness; to allow such material to surface is perceived (subconsciously) to be overwhelming, maybe even deadly. The depth and concealment of this material, of these memories, does nothing to diminish their potential influence on our stories; indeed, there’s likely to be a strong link between the stories we tell and the vast content stored below the waterline of our iceberg mind.

  In devoting tremendous energy to keeping these traumatic events from being accessible, the individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and stories get distorted. In fact, the ongoing power of these forces to distort might best be portrayed as having a boomerang effect: The individual’s very defense against these “hidden stories”—a lifelong expression of extreme defensiveness, aggression, irrational anger, distrust, fear, rage—in turn betrays the existence of unresolved conflicts stored deep in the subconscious; indeed, don’t we find people who “doth protest too much” most likely to be hiding something? Despite one’s best, most public intentions to live a productive story, the hidden story may undermine any real chance for it. To any careful observer—and, one hopes, to the individual in question—great tension exists between the conscious and hidden stories.

  Oh, no, you’re saying. Please. I’m not getting on the couch. I don’t have the time; that’s not the way I work. Can’t we just leave our hidden material alone? Must every effort be made to make what is unconscious conscious, what is unresolved resolved?

  Well, no…and yes.

  Fortunately, it is not a prerequisite of meaningful personal change that one connect one’s current dysfunctional story with something specific from the past; even if that were possible, it’s hardly a lock that one could undo the damage easily, if at all. Very often we can move forward and make positive changes with little or no clue as to how or why our convoluted story got formed that way.

  Unfortunately, though, when a conflict exists between our conscious and subconscious worlds, the advantage clearly goes to the subconscious, precisely because the influencing factor is beyond our conscious knowledge of its being there. We often have no clue that there’s distortion going on. However, when current dysfunctional stories can be linked to past dysfunctional stories and the accompanying faulty assumptions that arise from them—feelings of inadequacy, resentment, the injustice of it all—the insight can be liberating and invaluable. And can better equip us to create new stories that work.

  For this reason we must recognize and appreciate how our current stories are formed and molded from much more than the material that is simply percolating at the surface. While not everyone experiences severe childhood trauma (most do not), we all experience various forms of indoctrination in our lives, we all possess instinctual urges, we all experience conflicts between wants and needs, we all struggle with misguided stories from our past. The more aware we are
of hidden needs, conflicts, and past traumas, the better chance we have of crafting stories that meet the three criteria for storytelling (purpose, truth, hope-filled action). Once a memory of an important event or happening can be brought into consciousness, you can start to explore how that past material might be affecting your current story. To what extent, for example, is your current lack of confidence in math linked to the story you told yourself when you failed high school algebra? While simply making the connection between the two stories will not immediately elevate your confidence in math, this may well be the point where a successful change begins.

  DEEP DIVING

  So how do we prevent these “hidden stories” from contaminating our current stories? We become courageous subconscious explorers. We learn to be skilled awareness divers. (If it seems I’m taking the iceberg metaphor a little far, we use it in our workshops to great effect.) To get our current stories right, we must be willing to dive into the world of our subconscious and explore the terrain. Every dive we make holds perceived risk and uncertainty. The deeper we go, the greater our fear that we won’t return safely to the surface.

  And yet every dive we make increases our confidence—confidence that we can explore and better understand this mysterious, uncharted world that plays such a powerful role in our storytelling and, thus, in our destiny. Each dive increases our confidence that we can do it safely. To map this vast cerebral space (known in neuroscience as neuronal space, site of frantic activity in some regions and inactivity in others) will likely necessitate countless dives throughout our lifetime.

  Exercise: Think back to a time when you did something or became involved in something that you now deeply regret. As you contemplate the event or series of events, perhaps you feel disgust, shame, even shock that you ever allowed yourself to veer so far off course. Try to reconstruct the thinking and logic (or lack of it) that allowed you, ultimately, to do what you did. What or who were the greatest influencing factors? What was the story you told yourself that opened the door for this to happen? By looking closely at your personal history in this way, you may gain valuable insight into the faulty dynamics of your storytelling, dynamics which, based on your history and if left unexamined, could have tragic consequences for your future.

  Living fully conscious lives, which is the essence of full engagement, requires a genuine understanding of what lies beneath the surface. Full engagement in life requires a healthy co-existence between our conscious and subconscious worlds, one characterized by openness, frequent travel, accessibility, and courage.

  Some questions to help you with future sub-surface probing:

  What hidden influences might be behind some of your faulty thinking and beliefs that helped to create your current story?

  Do you get very defensive about your faulty story? If you do, then what are you protecting? Specifically, in what parts of this story are you most fragile and vulnerable? What are you most afraid of here? If you follow the fear, where does it take you?

  The story you currently tell yourself clearly hasn’t inspired you to make a change. What’s the logic and rationale you’ve used to keep this faulty story alive in your life for so long?

  Is this really your story you’re telling or someone else’s? Whose voice is it?

  FROM SUBCONSCIOUS TO CONSCIOUS AND BACK AGAIN

  Connecting to the past may be helpful but it’s neither necessary nor sufficient for effecting real change. What is necessary?

  First: We must consciously face the truth that something in our story isn’t working properly—our sleep habits, our lack of exercise, our lack of joy when we’re with family and friends, our carelessness with money, our lack of engagement when we’re with our aged parents. Then we must consciously identify any faulty assumptions, distortions, hidden conflicts, and prior indoctrinations. Getting these insights to surface may require a number of deep dives. To bring the story to full consciousness, it needs to be written down. This is what the Old Story is about.

  Second: Once the manifestations and subconscious influences in our dysfunctional story are made conscious, in black and white, we can begin to craft a story no longer contaminated by the forces of hidden persuasion, one now more obviously aligned with our ultimate purpose. This is what the New Story is about.

  Good. Fine. This is all positive effort and tough to do, very tough. One is to be commended for doing it.

  But we can’t stop there. There’s another thing still to be done.

  To gain real power in our lives, our new story must become re-embedded into the world of the subconscious. After all, we’re creatures controlled by habit and routine, right? It’s in that 95% force in our lives—automatic, instinctive, not conscious—where our new, functional story must find its permanent home, allowing us to keep the 5% conscious part uncluttered.

  EMBEDDING

  NEXT STEP: Embed your new story into your life by indoctrination.

  How do you indoctrinate yourself? By investing energy repeatedly and for as long as it takes until the new story becomes “embedded”—that is, becomes instinctual and irreversible. For most people, ninety days appears to be the point-of-no-return, though significant momentum occurs in as little as three weeks.

  The most effective way to embed a new story is by:

  writing it and rewriting it—including keeping a journal, even for just one day, to document all the energy investments you make—physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually

  re-reading it (for example, reviewing it every morning before leaving for work)

  thinking about it

  visualizing it

  talking about it, both publicly to others and privately to yourself (listening to others tell your story, and listening to your own voice telling it on tape, are two unusually persuasive methods, though some people are uncomfortable with them), and finally

  deliberately acting it out by your new behavior

  I realize that the process I recommend here represents a significant departure from the belief, heralded by analytical psychologists, that real change cannot happen without an understanding of why and how one’s dysfunctional stories and their underlying unconscious conflicts were formed in the first place. I disagree. I believe that, given how our brains work, the more we repeatedly go back to our old, dysfunctional stories, and the more energy we invest in them, the more we strengthen them. Unless we give them the opportunity to die or wither, they won’t.

  When we invest energy in new and constructive things, we give those things strength and life. New pathways open up. Energy flows through them, with increasing fluidity. New stories are given life. New perceptions occur, new meanings take hold, new behaviors become possible. For example, if your objective is to become more compassionate, then doing things like lowering your voice, listening more attentively, trying to mirror the expression of the person with whom you are conversing will all help to activate the “chemistry” behind compassion, and you actually start to experience how greater compassion feels; keep doing it, and it will feel more and more natural. Commit to putting continued energy into doing something new and right and it soon becomes part of your subconscious, that big, “beyond-our-reach” 95%.

  The final act, then, involves fashioning highly specific rituals. Asking the waitress, each time you go to a restaurant, to remove the breadbasket as soon as it hits the table. Never turning on the TV without giving yourself the specific time by which it will be shut off. Turning off your cell phone at dinner so you’re more engaged with your family. Exercising from 5:30 to 6:15 AM four days a week. Complimenting your direct reports at least once a week for something they did well. Repeat; create new pathways for energy; see them become habitual and eventually invisible to you. The gesture becomes “ritualized.” Soon, many of your most familiar experiences become “embedded”—that is, automatic, instinctive, becoming so well-traveled that they require less, maybe even zero, conscious energy. Experts say that within thirty days, usually, you’ll go from having to push yourself to do
it to feeling pulled to do it; after sixty to ninety days, this pull becomes increasingly pronounced. The energy that went pointlessly and maddeningly to finding your once-again-misplaced house keys—which you can easily teach yourself never to misplace again—is now freed up and available for engaging in other, more important experiences. Your life energy is not being eaten up by the acts that belong in the subconscious 95%.

  By courageously diving into the subconscious, we go from a conscious, but vague, awareness that something isn’t right in our lives to facing the truth of it and linking it to our greater purpose in life. Only by creating and embedding a new story about what you can do—at work, on the golf course, as a parent, as a potential leader, as a spouse—will the trajectory of your life change in that area.

  Now let’s determine what it is, specifically, that we want to embed, and move to action.

  Ten

  TURNING STORY INTO ACTION: TRAINING MISSION AND RITUALS

  If your Ultimate Mission is your life’s Mission Statement, your Executive Summary, your View From 30,000 Feet, then your Training Mission is an important component of your overall reorganizational plan. And your Rituals—the actions you take to fulfill the aims set forth in your Training Mission—are your concrete measurables, evidence that you are correcting that component, so that you can correct the overall plan.

  Inevitably, there are many changes you wish to make to turn your life into the story you want it to tell. It would be nice to think that all these changes could be made in one enthusiastic burst of self-transformation. But that doesn’t happen. Pick a few changes and just make sure that each is

  important enough to you