Sometimes it takes seeing our own story through a different lens to recognise just how far we have come.
When I was invited to contribute a chapter to a forthcoming book, I felt a mixture of excitement, pride and perhaps a little apprehension. What an opportunity! The chance to share some of my experiences, the things I have learned along the way and, hopefully, something that might help or inspire somebody else.
I have spent years encouraging other people to reflect on their experiences, recognise their strengths and appreciate how far they have come. Writing about my own journey, however, turned out to be rather different from helping somebody else explore theirs.
Something quite unexpected happened when I eventually sat down and read my completed chapter and biography. I found myself becoming emotional. Not because I was discovering anything I did not already know, but because I was seeing so much of my life brought together on the page.
It is a strange feeling, reading about yourself. All those experiences, decisions, challenges and achievements that have simply been part of everyday life suddenly become a story. Your story. Somehow, when they are written down and viewed together, they can look rather different from how they felt when you were actually living them.
Seeing the bigger picture
Like most people, I tend to think about my life in chapters. There have been things I am proud of, things I have struggled with, decisions that have taken me in unexpected directions and plenty of occasions when I have wondered what on earth I was doing!
My weight-loss journey, the work I have done supporting others, my studies, my growing interest in behaviour change and coaching, and the new directions I continue to explore have all felt like separate parts of my life. Each has developed gradually, often alongside everything else that was happening.
Reading them together made me realise how connected they actually are. The challenges have influenced the choices, the experiences have shaped the learning, and the learning has helped me discover new possibilities. What seemed like a collection of different experiences suddenly had a thread running through it.
I think that was what caught me by surprise.
Why was I feeling emotional?
I have never been particularly comfortable with the idea of celebrating myself. I can recognise an achievement, feel pleased about something I have accomplished and then quite happily move on to whatever needs doing next. There is always another task, another idea or another challenge waiting around the corner.
Yet reading my story made me stop for a moment. I found myself thinking about the person who had lived through those experiences, rather than simply remembering the events themselves. I could see the effort that had gone into some of the changes I had made, the courage that certain decisions had required and the determination that had carried me through periods when things were not particularly easy. I could also recognise how much I had learned along the way. Perhaps most importantly, I found myself looking at that person with a little more kindness than I might ordinarily offer myself.
That was the emotional part. I was not discovering a different life. I was discovering a different way of looking at the one I had lived.
The stories we tell ourselves
This experience has made me think about something that comes up regularly in my coaching work. We all have stories about ourselves, and we repeat them so often that they can begin to feel like unquestionable facts. Perhaps we tell ourselves that we are not particularly confident, that we are hopeless at sticking to things, that we always give up or that we are simply not the sort of person who could achieve something we would really love to do. Those stories can become so familiar that we forget to question whether they are still true, or whether they were ever the whole truth in the first place.
When we look at our lives from a different perspective, we may notice things that our usual internal commentary has overlooked. We might recognise resilience where we previously saw struggle, courage where we remembered uncertainty, or progress where we had been concentrating on everything still left to achieve. It does not mean rewriting history or pretending the difficult parts did not happen. It means allowing ourselves to see the fuller picture.
Looking at ourselves with fresh eyes
One of the things I love about coaching is the opportunity it creates for people to explore their own thinking. Not to be told who they are or what they need to become, but to have the space to reflect, question assumptions and perhaps discover something about themselves that they had not previously recognised.
I often encourage people to notice what is already working, what they have learned from past experiences and what strengths they may be overlooking. It is remarkably easy to recognise those qualities in somebody else while being rather less generous when looking at ourselves. My experience of reading my own story has reminded me that I am no exception.
I spend a great deal of time encouraging other people to acknowledge their progress, recognise their achievements and appreciate the effort behind the changes they make. Perhaps I needed a little reminder to do the same.
Still writing the next chapter
There is something rather lovely about realising that, even at this stage of life, the story is far from finished. I am still learning, still exploring new opportunities and still discovering things that interest and challenge me. Writing a chapter for a book was another new experience, and I had not anticipated quite how much the process would make me reflect on my own journey. I thought I was contributing something that might be useful to other people. I had not expected to learn quite so much about how I see myself.
Perhaps you have known me for years. You might know me through Slimming World, through my coaching work, through business or simply through the things I share online. You may feel you know my story quite well already. Perhaps you do, but there might be a few things that surprise you. My chapter, The Greatest Investment You'll Ever Make Is in Yourself, brings together some of the experiences that have shaped me, the lessons I have learned and the thinking behind the work I do today. More importantly, I hope that somewhere within those pages you might recognise a little of yourself. Perhaps a challenge you have faced, a belief that has held you back or an ambition you have quietly put to one side. Sometimes reading somebody else's story can help us look at our own with fresh eyes.
I am genuinely excited, and perhaps a little nervous, about sharing this part of myself. There is something quite different about telling your story when you know other people will be reading it! If you would like to read my chapter when the book is published, I would love to share the details with you. You can register your interest below, and I will let you know when it becomes available, including how you can purchase a copy.
In the meantime, perhaps I can leave you with the question that this whole experience has prompted me to ask myself.
If you were to read your own story today, would you recognise just how far you have come?
Sarah Lawrence
Mindset, Behaviour Change & Personal Development Coach
Interested in reading my chapter?
I would love to hear from you! Just pop over to my contact page, mention the book in your message, and I will keep you updated on its publication and how to get your copy.
