It is pretty common to hear inspirational speeches in the personal development space about you living your life as if it is your story. You have the power to decide the narrative of your story.

Who do you want to be?

This is a great question to reflect on.

It is a great question to have daily, like in your habits when you don’t feel like working out. Who do you want to be?

It is a great question to think about when you are yelling to your children as they leave the house a mess. Who do you want to be?

It is a great question when you have a job offer in a different country and you need to move with your family. Who do you want to be?

This gives a sense of control. The feeling you have the power to choose your actions against the situations you are facing.

Every day of your life you are writing a page of a chapter of the book called your LIFE.

And one day when that book is finished, how do you want your story to look like?

It looks like a very fatalistic way of thinking, but I can tell you it is a great exercise to adopt in our day to day life.

It has to be aligned with your values and beliefs, and also to your purpose.

And the power of this exercise, if you identify in your life who is looking at you as a role model, like your children, your team, your followers, your parents, you will feel a higher commitment.

 

An example of me. I am always thinking about my children. How are they describing their mom? How do they see me? And this is very important to me to raise them and make myself their role model.

So the values and rules of our family need to be very clear, so they can see clearly from me what that looks like.

BUT, sometimes I get so mad about some situations!

When my teenage son doesn’t make his bed and his bedroom is a mess with his dirty laundry all over… You can imagine! Even after telling him about 20 times a day that his bedroom is part of his responsibilities in the house.

Okay, what do I normally do? I yell at him!

What does he say to me? “Why are you yelling at me?”

What do I do next? I yell even more!

Ok, you can see the pattern!

 

Until the day I overheard him telling his friend, “My mom is yelling at me all the time. She is always freaking out with everything I do!”

Whoooooo! WHAT?

Here starts the process. Who do I want to be?

Well, I want him to have the responsibility for his chores in the house. Everybody has their part of responsibilities.

So when he doesn’t do his chores, instead of yelling like crazy and sometimes even cleaning up after his mess WHILE still yelling, I now want to be the mom who taught him some habits, responsibilities, and ethics.

And that mom, is not the one who is yelling and doing things herself.

 

Now the mom that I want to be may not avoid yelling over all, but she has learned that instead of saying things like “You don’t have responsibilities”, “You are lazy”, or “You are always the same”, she is saying “You’re not following your responsibilities”, “I believe you think you have something else more important to do, like your TikTok, but I need to teach you how to live life, my son! Give me your phone for the next 24 hours, and please do your chores!”

 

It has been working!

I want to be the mom who teaches him the right ethics and responsibility.

Not to be the yelling crazy mom!

 

And I know it’s hard to be a parent, especially to a teenager, but sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do for them to grow up independent and responsible.

 

Who do you want to be?

 

I learned with my coach that there are 3 characters in a story:

 

  • Victim – too much energy for no results. They don’t move very fast.
  • Villain – negative energy, they stay in the experience of pain, and no human deep connections.
  • Hero – they transform from being afraid and eloquent to facing challenges, being courageous. They are inclusive and have good energy. They get good results faster because they take people with them.

 

So a hero doesn’t know everything, it is not the one who is stronger, faster, or fearless. It is the one who has the courage to decide, aligned with their values, what to do.

I remember the speech of Luisao, a soccer player of my loved Benfica team (in Portugal) by the end of his career.

Luisao is originally from Brazil, and he was the captain of the Benfica team for 15 years. He was a leader and a great soccer player.

He said when he moved to Portugal and when he became a part of the Benfica team, he was stressed and he couldn’t cope with the emotional pressure. He even said once that after the end of the practice he wanted to leave and come back home to Brazil.

He was determined to communicate to the team, but before he had this talk with the team psychologist who asked him:

“I understand, you want to leave, it is a lot of pressure on you. You are a great player, and the expectations are high.

Just let me ask you this question:

Who do you want to be when you come back home?

A victorious or a defeat?”

Luisao chose the Victorious, and turned out 15 years of a very successful career in my beloved team Benfica!

As you can see, the exercise of “Be the HERO of your story” can be an easy practice of your day today.

Normally it is called a perspective exercise as you need to follow the 3 steps:

1- Identify the situation and emotions

2- Visualize the outcome as if you were the victim and a hero (both situations)

3- Decide and write your actions moving forward. And be the hero of your story.

To support you with this exercise, I created a free workbook for you to download so you can always come back to this exercise anytime you want.

I hope this helps you take control of your life.

And remember: You are the owner of your story!

Take care always,

AnnaJo

Now it’s your turn to answer this question: Who do you want to be? Share your answers with the AnnaJoTalks Community in the comments below!

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