Coaching Yourself to Success: Rewriting Our Stories
The reason I find coaching so powerful is that it has the ability to change your life by facilitating a deep understanding of where you have been and where you want to go. When I get new clients, I often receive questions about how we will work together on the topics that are most pressing to them. While my techniques are unique to each person, I believe there are some aspects of the work that are universal and that everyone can do to better understand themselves. Whether the challenges you are facing are health-related, mental health-related, career-growth-oriented, or you are a founder in a specific business niche, everything often stems from our mindset, and even deeper than that, our stories.
Coach Yourself to Success by Changing Your Story
In the realm of personal development and coaching, there exists a profound understanding: the stories we tell ourselves shape our reality. Essentially, everything you are currently experiencing is based on narratives woven from our experiences, beliefs, and interpretations of the past, which not only reflect who we are but also determine who we can become. These stories were built to help us survive and protect us from experiencing pain, but they often block us from realizing our full potential. Hence, in the coaching process, one of the most transformative acts is rewriting these narratives. It's about digging deep, often into our childhood memories or experiences, and excavating the old scripts that no longer serve us. By identifying these stories, we actively become the creators of our lives and begin to develop strategies for releasing them. Releasing them allows us to make room for new stories that we create, visualize, and begin to enjoy experiencing. Crafting these new stories gives us back our power, allowing us to align them with our deepest desires and aspirations. My mother, Yeugenia Kazantseva, who is an amazing and inspiring transformational coach, helped me reprogram my own limiting beliefs and stories for the first time, and after that, on most subsequent occasions, I was able to reprogram my own stories through meditation. It truly changed my life to do this, and I believe it can change yours too.
Unveiling Limiting Beliefs
Central to the coaching process is uncovering and dismantling limiting beliefs. These are the stories we've internalized about ourselves and the world—often acquired from childhood or past experiences—that hold us back from realizing our full potential. Whether it's the belief that we're not worthy, that success can only be achieved through suffering, or a fear of failure, these narratives become self-fulfilling prophecies if left unchallenged and unchanged. Through coaching, I learned to recognize these narratives in myself for what they are—stories, not truths—and gained the tools to rewrite them. While we may be able to uncover some of these beliefs ourselves, rewriting the stories is not something everyone can do on their own. Some may need a more practical approach, while others can access their unwanted beliefs through meditation or affirmations. Each of us is unique; however, just the process of uncovering these limiting beliefs can be extremely painful and uncomfortable and can be made easier with a coach. When we understand, accept, and release judgment on ourselves and our stories, and acknowledge them for what they are and were—survival tactics—we can release them in a healthy and conscious way.
Empowering Self-Identity
Our personal stories shape our sense of identity. These stories, which reside in the subconscious and have permeated our body and essence, define who we believe ourselves to be and what we're capable of achieving. However, our identities are not fixed; they are fluid and malleable. By changing our personal narratives and becoming comfortable with the person we want to become, we can redefine ourselves and our capabilities. Why is comfort important, you may ask? Because our bodies are equally geared to protect us from discomfort as they are from danger. If our bodies cannot predict a scenario, it becomes uncomfortable, prompting it to create assumptions and prevent us from making any potentially harmful moves. Thus, often our bodies keep us stuck in a place of unpleasant stability just to avoid experiencing unpredictable change. To change your story, I believe it's very important to shift your perspective. For example, a story of resilience can transform a perceived failure into a stepping stone towards success. A narrative of growth can turn challenges into opportunities for learning and development. Coaching provides a supportive environment for individuals to explore, experiment, and ultimately redefine their self-identities in alignment with their goals and values by shifting their mindset and transforming their perspectives.
Cultivating Agency and Ownership
One of the most empowering aspects of changing our personal stories is the sense of agency and power it cultivates over our own lives. Instead of feeling like passive participants in our own lives, we become active authors, consciously shaping our narratives and directing the course of our days, weeks, and journeys. This sense of agency is essential for personal growth and fulfillment. It allows each of us as individuals to shed our victim mentality and take ownership of our experiences, choices, and outcomes, rather than attributing them to external forces or circumstances beyond our control. While this may seem easier said than done, acknowledging that we all have a sense of victim mentality around certain things and accepting it without judgment will allow us to move through it more easily. Through coaching, individuals learn to reclaim their power and authorship, becoming the architects of their destinies and letting go of their previous sense of limitation. I believe this sense of empowerment is crucial to living from a place of joy because with each step forward, you know that it is the result of hard work, pushing past limitations, and demanding what you know you can achieve and who you can become.
Facilitating Transformation
Ultimately, the importance of changing our personal stories in coaching lies in its capacity to facilitate transformation. By reframing our experiences, beliefs, and interpretations, we can change the way we perceive ourselves, others, and the world around us. This shift in perspective opens up new possibilities and pathways for growth and self-actualization. What once seemed like insurmountable obstacles become manageable challenges. What once felt like unattainable dreams become achievable goals. Through the process of rewriting our narratives, we not only transform ourselves but also the reality we create and inhabit. In my own journey, overwriting my old programs of abandonment, unworthiness, fear of failure, fear of being seen, and fear of change individually changed the trajectory of my life. I do not think I would be doing what I am doing today—helping others overcome themselves and see their full potential—had I not empowered myself to rewrite so many aspects of my career, my programs, my unhealthy patterns, and more.
In the journey of personal development and coaching, changing our personal stories is not merely an exercise in rewriting the past; it's a profound act of self-creation. It's about shedding the old skins of limitation and stepping into the potential of our true selves. As coaches and individuals alike, I empower you to embrace the power of curiosity to understand your narratives, which becomes the first step in rewriting our current reality or whatever does not suit us in it. Because in doing so, we unlock the keys to our own transformation and liberation.
