Think of your personal narrative as a jigsaw puzzle!
You may not give your story much thought, yet it is precisely this one-of-a- kind tale that defines and impacts your life. It includes every scar, every laugh, every success, every failure, and every skill you pick up along the trek of your personal timeline. You may never stop to consider that every part of that story measures and impacts growth, dreams and visions, and your abilities to lead your life either with faith and belief or with fear. It impacts your ability to accept and welcome in change and renewal.
How do you lead with belief? How do you tell your best story?
One piece at a time.
As a wise storyteller pointed out to me recently, change and growth depends less on rewriting our story and more on tweaking, editing, and curating it! When you think about the ability to rewrite your legacy, you may be implying that you would like to have a do-over. Suggesting that somehow you can magically erase what “didn’t work” in your life in favor of being able to somehow insert what did, can be problematic. Without the downhill part of the ride, it is hard to have and acknowledge your uphill successes. The “warts” are less to be hidden and more to be celebrated because they represent all the bits and pieces of life that got you to today. The easiest way to begin to create the legacy and the life you most want is simply to take ownership of your story! Warts and all!
One piece at a time.
In a word. Legacy. Your unique story is your legacy. Legacy is not only what you leave behind for the next generation. Legacy is something that you have the ability and the choice to carve out each and every day…beginning today! What greater time than 2017 to decide just what you most want that legacy to be?
One piece at a time.
What if you chose a different ending to your story? The words you use to set your destination can literally make the difference between moving ahead or staying parked in the driveway. Think about it…pressing the gas and the brake in our cars at the same time would leave us standing still. The same is true in life. You may get stuck in the gap between what you want and the fear that you may not get exactly that. Our own over thinking comes at a high cost.
When authentic and truthful about your fears, your successes, your wins and losses, you free yourself to celebrate growth. When you celebrate growth, you care less about the end result and more about the process of becoming. It is that process that creates our legacy. You are forever creating because change demands that of us.
Our story keeps unfolding.
One piece at a time.
Like the pebbles in a river washed by the flow of water, the various elements of who you have been, who you are today, and who you will be tomorrow shift and flow. You cannot control the river or it’s impact, but you can control how you experience it. With that you can create legacy…one story at a time.
One piece at a time.
Ready to turn a new page? Ready for what’s next?
Be a jigsaw puzzle!
All the thousands of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle represent all of the aspects of our lives. Together, these pieces equal a whole picture. Unconnected they do not. In order for that puzzle to be whole and complete, it must contain both small pieces and larger pieces, end pieces and middle pieces. No aspect of any piece is more important than the other. A jigsaw puzzle has a hole in it until every piece of the puzzle; every part of that picture is entwined. Only then is it authentic, and only then do all the parts become one whole story.
One story. Connected. One piece at a time. Exquisite. A work-in-progress.
Originally published at medium.com