Share Your Stories To Create New Ones
Last time, we talked about stories that drive you in different situations. When those situations stress us, we respond with fight, flight, or a number of other responses which appear automatic. Yet all these reactions come back to those stories we tell ourselves in the milliseconds between our exposure to something surprising and our instant reaction.
But why talk about this now?
Because the pace of change increases daily and our brains struggle to make sense of every new surprise in:
technology (hello agentic AI),
politics (nope, not going there),
family (They do “what” at school now?), or
work (Are we seriously discussing a 996 culture?)
We need that safe space to slow down and examine our reaction to these stressful situations.
Come Up To The Lab
Previously, I mentioned setting up a Stress Examination Lab. It’s a quiet space where you can be undisturbed in thinking through these reactions. Also, the sooner you do this the better because your brain is already wiring up new stories to justify what happened. Within one to three days works well. You want to capture what happened, what specifically stressed you, what emotions came up, and what story you told yourself that produced those emotions and then suggested a reaction.
Some people find success in journaling or meditation. That never worked well for me. I need to tell the story to someone so I think carefully about the details I need to explain. How do I step them through what happened? What I felt? How I reacted? And, most importantly, carefully explain the story I told myself to justify my reaction.
Find a Lab Partner You Trust
Essentially, I need a lab partner to dissect the situation carefully and examine all the components. That partner can use open, non-judgmental questions to help you take the situation apart carefully. Some examples:
What were you feeling when this happened? (Slowing down the situation to look for the story)
Where does that feeling come from? (What was the origin story?)
What might you be protecting? (Where did the story come from?)
When you hear these types of questions, you realize it can be difficult to ask them of yourself. You can’t be the scientist and the study subject at the same time. This is why you want a lab partner to ask the questions. It can be a friend, a family member or someone at work you trust to keep the conversation confidential and nonjudgmental.
But you want to do more than dissect the scenario. You want to understand the story you tell yourself so you can write a new story for better outcomes in similar stressful situations.
Mix a New Reaction
Open questions also help us mix up new stories so we find different ways to react in stressful situations. Examples would include:
What would you prefer to happen?
What could be another outcome?
What would you like to change?
These types of questions help us focus on new possibilities that can produce better outcomes and help us reduce the stress in the situation.
Ready to give it a try?
Your Next Experiment
This approach requires vulnerability. You're asking someone to help you examine your automatic reactions and the stories behind them. That can feel exposed.
But here's what I've discovered: most people are honored when you trust them enough to be your lab partner. They often want to try this for their own stress situations too.
So who comes to mind as your potential lab partner? Someone who listens well and asks good questions without trying to fix you?
Give it a try with one stressful situation from this past week. See what stories you uncover together.
I'd love to hear what you discover.
Stay human my friends,
Mark
Footnotes:
Miss the last article? You can read it at: What Stories Drive You? And I created a short companion video here.
Want to hear some stories on the future of agile? Join me this Thursday, August 28, for Grit and Gratitude: The Rich Legacy of Agile in Product