Focus On Facts: How To Take Control Of Your Narrative
Sep 13, 2022
A simple look can give us the wrong impression. A simple comment can make us see others and ourselves differently. And sometimes, if not often, we take things the wrong way. In this episode, Yanet Borrego talks about how our minds can run away with us and make us perceive things and situations even before we get the facts together. She shares tips on how to be empowered and control the narrative of everything going on in your life. Tune in and learn how you can avoid making assumptions and see things more in a positive light.
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Focus On Facts: How To Take Control Of Your Narrative
When I moved from Puerto Rico to Texas for my full-time job in the oil and gas industry, I have many insecurities. If you would have met me at that time, maybe you wouldn't think that, but I did. Many insecurities were around my accent, “I don't speak perfect English. I have an accent. I don't belong. Am I enough to be here?” I had graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Puerto Rico, and thankfully we had a couple of us from Puerto Rico there. I was with people from MIT, Georgia Tech, and I had all these insecurities going on my head.
I remember earlier on, I used to take everything personally. I remember this day where I was in my office and I had this manager. I had sent him an email probably two days ago, and he hadn't responded. I'm like, “Why has he not responded?” I would see him walking back and forth in front of my office. He had a neutral facial expression, so you would never know if he's happy or sad. One of those people that you're like, “I'm trying to interpret, but I don't know what that means.” He would be walking back and forth and in my mind, “He's there but he hasn't replied to any of my emails.”
I quickly started to make a story out of it. I was like, ”That's probably because I've done something wrong. I’ve probably said something that he's mad at me, and that's why he's walking in front of the office with that face.” I started to make a lot of stories out of a situation, and none of those stories had anything to do with whatever was happening. That has happened to you, I'm sure, where something happens and you start getting a meaning out of it, but that meaning is just towards the outcome. That meaning is not even objective. It's not true.
I remember talking to him and telling him, “I sent you this email, was that okay? I haven't heard from you.” He said something that even though it was very direct, straightforward and raw, it gave me a huge lesson, to be honest with you. He was like, “Yanet, the world doesn't revolve around you.” I'm like, “It is true.” I behaved like that. I thought that whatever everyone is doing is because of me. It gave me such a huge understanding and lesson at that done moment that everything that was happening, I was taking it personally and not in a good sense.
The world doesn't revolve around you. Don’t take everything personally.
I was projecting many undesired outcomes based on my own insecurities, based on my own limiting beliefs, that I wasn't enough, that I didn't belong. I was making up all these nightmares in my head that honestly, they were not the reality and they never happened. I'm telling you this because we go through life making a meaning out of everything. We have this narrative in our head that we keep repeating. “This person didn't respond to my texts because they clearly don't care about me. They don't love me.” Naturally, that's how the mind is wired. We want to understand why people are behaving the way they do. To be honest with you, we don't have the answer to those.
It is important to avoid making assumptions. Something that I work with most of my one-on-one coaching clients is separating the narrative, the meaning that you're giving to that situation from the facts on that situation. If I do that with the example I gave you, it looks like this. My manager didn't respond to my email. He was walking back and forth in front of my office. That's it. Those are the facts. I was creating many meanings and many stories out of those two simple facts that didn't mean anything.
It is helpful to create a narrative when you're empowering yourself to move towards that desired situation. To be honest with you, most of the time we are imagining the desired outcome. Most of the time, we are focusing on what we don't want, and therefore we start seeing that. We start experiencing that in front of our eyes. As I always say, the mind is a mega computer. Whatever you tell your mind to do is going to do, and it’s going to find the data as the evidence to prove that whatever you believe is true, even though it may not be true.
Reality is very subjective. As I've mentioned before, we are projecting all of the time, our beliefs, values, past experiences into the outside world, into the situations, into the people. Whatever we perceive, we are projecting. Here's the cool thing about showing up empowered. We can always control the narrative that we're telling ourselves.
I would like you to follow these steps. They are simple. I believe complexity is the enemy of execution, so we keep it simple. I am sure that you'll be able to follow through. Whenever you see yourself creating a meaning out of the situation, even though you know that the situation doesn't necessarily mean that, I want you to do step number one, which is separate the facts from the meaning or the narrative that you're assigning to that story.
Step number two, decide to not make any assumptions at the moment. Step number three, if you have any questions, ask the person. Even if it's uncomfortable to you, ask the person. Why are we trying to come up with answers all the time when we can simply communicate and ask the person? Just like I should have done with my manager at the moment, “I noticed you haven't responded to my email two days ago. Is there anything else you need? Did you see it?” Ask the question. You are making a meaning out of the situation.
Even when you make a meaning, you show up in front of that person or you show up in that meaning believing your story and you show up differently. Your energy is going to be off because you're believing the story that you're telling yourself that you know is not a reality. That's step number three. The fourth step, if you're going to create a story out of the situation, if you're going to create a narrative, why not make it empowering? I could have said, “He hasn't replied to my two emails. He's busy. I'm sure he will.” Simple as that. Or I could have said, “It doesn't matter. Maybe he's going through personal things. I have no idea, but I'm sure he'll follow up with me. If not, I'll ask.”
Many times, we are visualizing the undesired outcome. Many times, we are visualizing and focusing on what we don't want. Why not do the opposite? I love the story from one of my spiritual teachers. He's the one that I take all my NLP and Huna trainings. Huna is the ancient Hawaiian way of perceiving energy and reprogramming your spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional mind. It's a Neuro-Linguistic Programming but with energy, which is super cool. I love it. Those two modalities are very interrelated.
The cool thing about showing up empowered is that we can always control the narrative we're telling ourselves.
He's a master of reframing. By the way, reframing is assigning empowering meanings to the situations. When COVID hit, his business model in terms of training is in-person training. Even when COVID hit, he continued doing in-person training. That's one of his values. They need to be present. He started to do online training. He's also becoming flexible on that regard.
When COVID hit, they were struggling with people attending the training. Naturally, a lot of people were scared. This was something new. There was a lot of fear. His team was worried, of course, because the company wasn't generating as much. He used these reframing that made an impression on me. He told his team, “A lot of people may not be showing up, but those people are going to be the best students we have ever gotten, because even though there is a lot of craziness going on in the world, they are showing up. Because they're going to show up, they're going to bring more money into a company because they're going to take the next training. These are the most committed students we ever have.”
Even though attendance was lower during that time, the students were so committed that they were purchasing more training and they were referring more people. The quality was so much higher during COVID because they were more committed. He could have focused on the total opposite. He could have focused on, “Our business is going to fail because of COVID. We cannot make it. People aren't going to come.” He could have imagined the total opposite, the tragic side of this equation, but instead he decided to reframe it while focusing on what he wanted.
No kidding, they came out stronger than ever during and after COVID. They started focusing on the possibilities rather than the limitations. That's step number four. If you are going to create a narrative out of a situation, why not focus on the possibilities? Instead of focusing on what you don't want on your desired outcome, start focusing on what you want.
To summarize, how you can control the narrative of everything going on in your life and show up more empowered and more in control is by following these steps. Step number one, separate the facts from the meaning that you're assigning to that story or that situation or whatever is going on. Step number two, do not make assumptions. That's also what you do by separating the facts from the meaning. Drop the meaning and do not make assumptions. Realize that whatever is happening doesn't mean whatever you were assigning the narrative to be.
Step number three, if you need an answer or if you need to follow up with the person, ask the question. We struggle so much with asking for the question, asking for what we need. Just ask it. It is going to save you so much suffering and so much wasted time that you are in your mind imagining the worst nightmares. By the way, they'll never happen most of the time.
Step number four, if you're going to assign a meaning to the situation, focus on what you want. Focus on the positive side of the coin, rather than visualizing the worst undesired outcome ever. I hope this formula and this technique and these steps were super helpful. I want you to remember that every single day, you're waking up and you're going through your days. There are many things happening in your life. Naturally and automatically, you're assigning meaning to those things. You're assigning a story to those things.
One of the coaches that I used to work when I was in corporate, he and his company would call it background conversations. All these conversations we have in the back that are assigning a meaning to a story, most of the time they are negative. I want you to separate those things. Decide to take responsibility for the meaning you're assigning to it, and also decide to be in control. Realizing that we are not the big team of whatever is happening, that we can always control the narrative and control what we can think and do about it. I hope this episode was super helpful. If it was helpful and useful to you, please share with your friends and family. I really appreciate you. I'll see you on the next episode.
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