You could be a best-selling author.
Think about your life as a page-turner, the most delicious novel you’ve ever read. It’s got all the good stuff: drama, joy, comedy, conflict and resolution, themes, villains, and most importantly, a hero. You are the hero. If you want to be.
We always have a choice. One choice is to be brave, accept our challenges, face our fears, and be victorious. Victory is in our control. It might be something epic or it might just be survival.
But we don’t always decide to be the hero, do we? I’ve woken up in the morning before and chosen hopeless instead of victorious. It usually happens after I’ve broken a promise to myself one too many times which then leads me to decide that I am no hero. This then becomes a victim’s story or a villain’s story. Or both.
But that’s the worst book ever. Ugh. So depressing. Nobody wants to read the story of the main character giving up and succumbing to darkness chapter after chapter until the end.
Consider the lowest points of your life. It is your choice to see those as chapter endings or beginnings. If you are hopeless and you’ve given up, that is the end of the chapter. The hero is defeated. If you are at rock bottom but are planning to deliver the most victorious chapter of your life, you are at the beginning of a great adventure.
When you think the chapter ahead has the potential to be the absolute best part of your story, you can be kind of grateful about where you are. For this to be the most amazing victory ever, you have to be standing in front of the highest mountain, the most formidable foe, the hugest challenge you’ve ever faced. The struggle, the problem, the fight… those are pretty important elements of the story. What if the main character never had a challenge to face or a fear to conquer? Most boring book ever.
Take control of the narrative.
So what does it take to be the hero? I think there are two requirements: hope and courage. Hope comes from an underlying belief that victory is attainable. Courage results from knowing there will be difficult and scary things along the journey that you will boldly tackle.
Courageous isn’t always the easy choice. Frankly, I think it’s WAY easier to be the victim. And sometimes our life circumstances are incredibly difficult. Where you are right now might downright suck. But isn’t it also a little bit great? YOU get to choose to stay or move forward, to lie down and give up or make this the beginning of a grand victory. Isn’t that wonderful? We can find gratitude for the lows because the hero needs a worthy challenge.
It’s okay if it’s scary. The best heroes are the ones who are afraid and still go for it. Even the smallest victories count.
Now share your story.
And that takes me back to your story. If we are willing to be the hero most of the time, our life story will be filled with victorious chapters. The sum total of our highs and lows will be nothing less than inspiring. But are we willing to tell it? I think every story matters. Whether it is told in a book or just shared with the people in your life, it is important. But I’m talking about the whole story. The challenge is important. The fear you conquer is important. Who wants to hear the story of “And then, I prevailed!” without all of the details and the emotion? The real magic comes from being vulnerable enough to really tell all the highs and lows. Tell us about your fear. Tell us about your struggle. Tell us about your hope.
I hope you will consider sharing your story and I hope even more that you will be able to tell most of it as the hero.
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