Coaching practices for The Story Im Telling Myself
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Story Im Telling Myself, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- There’s a story I tell about my past
- I’m so convinced I’m "the one who always falls apart" that I can’t see anything else
- I’ve told my own story so many times it’s become this smooth, inevitable arc with no doubt in it
- I’ve spotted a few moments where I was braver than my usual story says, but they feel like isolated flukes
- Someone does one small thing and within seconds I’ve built a whole story about what it means
Practices that may help
- Revise your life narrative when it limits you
Identify and reauthor the story you tell about your past that constrains what you believe is possible.
The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self - Finding Unique Outcomes (Exceptions to the Problem Story)
Surface moments when the problem did NOT dominate — these are the seeds of an alternative story.
Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You - Share the messy version, not the edited highlight reel
The over-polished version of your story creates distance; the real version creates connection.
The Pratfall Effect, Made Practical - Re-Authoring the Alternative Story
Build a preferred story of identity by thickening the exceptions into a narrative with a plot.
Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You - Master your stories
Separate the facts from the story you’re telling about them before you react.
Crucial Conversations, Made Practical - Rumble with the story you’re telling yourself
Name the conspiracy your mind invents in a hard moment, then check it against the facts.
Daring Greatly, Made Practical - Narrative Identity, Made Practical
Dan McAdams’ narrative identity theory holds that identity itself is a personal myth — an internalized, evolving story that integrates your past, present, and imagined future into a coherent sense of self. The structure and tone of that story (whether it moves toward redemption or contamination, agency or communion) predicts psychological well-being, and the story can be deliberately revised. Evidence is primarily observational but robustly consistent. - Identify what the narrative leaves out
After hearing or constructing a causal story, deliberately list the facts it doesn’t explain.
The Narrative Fallacy: Why We Can’t Stop Making Stories - Write a brief narrative of your season to make it coherent
People who can tell a coherent story about their life stage navigate it more effectively than those who cannot.
Seasons of Life - Definitional Ceremonies and Outsider Witnesses
Invite meaningful others to witness and retell the new story — being known differently by others consolidates the new identity.
Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
Related concerns
- Narrative Identity At Work
Dan McAdams’ narrative identity theory holds that identity itself is a personal myth — an internalized, evolving story that integrates your past, present, and imagined future into a coherent sense of self. The structure and tone of that story (whether it moves toward redemption or contamination, agency or communion) predicts psychological well-being, and the story can be deliberately revised. Evidence is primarily observational but robustly consistent.
- Narrative Identity When Burned Out
Identify the parts of your self-narrative that are contradictory or no longer true.
Test your story for coherence and credibility
- Stories We Tell Ourselves Communication
Separate the facts from the story you’re telling about them before you react.
Master your stories
- When Calibration Training Use Reference Class To Anchor Confidence
Start your confidence estimate from the historical hit rate for this type of prediction, not from how confident you feel.
Anchor your confidence level on base rates, not gut feel
- Coherent Narrative Resilience
Tell the story of the difficult event in a way that makes sense — coherence reduces distress even when the event itself cannot be undone.
Build a coherent narrative of what happened
- How Founder Storytelling Shapes Identity
Identify and reauthor the story you tell about your past that constrains what you believe is possible.
Revise your life narrative when it limits you
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