Choose Your Own Adventure and Be Flexible

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20 Ways to Change Your Story

15. Choose Your Own Adventure and Be Flexible

 

Copyright: halfpoint / 123RF Stock PhotoMy daughter used to love those Choose Your Own Adventure books when she was little.

Every few pages, the protagonist faces a choice point and the reader gets to choose what the protagonist does next. That choice sends the story off in one of several possible directions, by sending the reader to a specific next page. After a few more pages, a new choice point is reached, and the reader again shapes the direction the story will take by choosing for the protagonist.

Each book has multiple possible endings, at least some of which may be reached through multiple paths. The ending you reach depends on the choices you make along the way.

What a brilliant story structure and clever mirror of the way life works!

Here’s how I think it relates to the idea of story changing.

On page one, you, the protagonist, decide to change your story. You set a new intention or goal, or decide to change something about yourself or your beliefs. You take a few steps in a new direction.

Then on page four, life throws something unexpected at you and you’re faced with choices. Some choices will take you deeper into your new story, and some will keep you locked in the old story. You don’t always know which choice is the best one, but you make a choice and you keep on moving.

The key is to keep your focus on the WHAT (the desired ending) while remaining super flexible about the HOW (which pages of the book will get you there).

Copyright: halfpoint / 123RF Stock PhotoIf you get locked into which specific pages you need to land on to get to the ending you want, you might miss meeting a great supportive character or enjoying an exciting subplot.

If you can stay flexible about how the pages of the story unfold, while making resourceful choices along the way, you can enjoy the journey of choosing your own adventure and reach your happily ever after.

~~~~~

This is the 16th post in a 21-post series sparked by Chapter 9 of Fallen, The Adventures of a Deep Water Leaf, in which Lizard suggests that Alora change her story.

#20WaysIn20Days, #ChangeYourStory, #Fallen

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The What If Game

The What If Game

20 Ways to Change Your Story

14. The “What If” Game

doubt-1160744_1920I’m going to be honest here – sometimes I get stuck in “I don’t know.” Maybe you do, too . . .

I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what matters. And a big one:

I don’t know why this is happening to me!

All those “I don’t knows” can stop me dead in my tracks. It feels like there’s only one right answer, and I don’t have it, and if I take action from the space of the WRONG answer, things will just get worse. So, I don’t act. And then I’m even more stuck. And then I shake my head, sigh and say, “I don’t know.”

But, what if I DID know?

This is a great game to play. It can trigger fresh brainstorming. Fresh heartstorming, too. It can shake things up and open me to new possibilities.

What if . . .

What if I did know? What might the answer be? I can do some journaling with this question, or I can incubate a dream by writing the question down before I go to sleep and asking my dreams to answer.

What if my Higher Self knows? I can do some Visioning® or dialoguing to find out.

What if my Soul chose this for me? What might some reasons be?

What if there were gifts in this? What might those gifts be?

What if this is moving me in a new direction? What might that direction be?

What if I could choose to do ANYTHING I want about this? What would I do?

What if I knew someone who had the answers I need? Can I seek them out for a heart to heart?

What if I knew what I DIDN’T want? Would that shed some light on what I do want?

What if money, time, age, or any other perceived restrictions were no issue? What would I choose then?

The point of “what if” is you don’t have to know anything or believe anything. You can simply suspend disbelief, like you do when you go to a movie or read fiction. You don’t have to come up with answers that make sense or feel doable. You can just dream your way into magical, pie-in-the-sky, no limits answers.

And maybe within those answers you’ll find some new awareness and inspiration for small steps that can move you forward.

I don’t know. But what if I did?

~~~~~

This is the 15th post in a 21-post series sparked by Chapter 9 of Fallen, The Adventures of a Deep Water Leaf, in which Lizard suggests that Alora change her story.

#20WaysIn20Days, #ChangeYourStory, #Fallen