We have experiences in life and then often the little wheels in our head spin and we make up a story. This story then impacts our behaviors and our outcomes. We don’t do this consciously or intentionally. It just happens.

For example – a couple of months ago, my daughter and I had a rather unpleasant experience at a place that we go to regularly. She used to ask me regularly, “When can we go there again?”

Since the unpleasant experience, she has not asked me once to go there. Her behavior changed because now she has a lousy story associated with that place. And, none of this happened on a conscious level.

I see this sort of thing regularly with my clients where something changed for the worse with their productivity, effectiveness, success levels, finances, or motivation. We can always trace it back to something that happened and the story they created about it (unintentionally). This story created a change in behaviors and/or outcomes that is often puzzling and frustrating and seemingly inexplicable.

The antidote is to uncover the lousy story that got created and upgrade it to a useful story.