What's the story here?
"I don't want to waste your precious time." I went from a gut reaction of "Excuse me?" to "Oh, that's nice of her" in a nanosecond. Here's what happened:
A woman messaged me about a free 15 minute copy consult I offer. She had a list of copy she wanted help with (most entrepreneurs do!) so I reminded her that 15 minutes would go by quickly and asked where she wanted to focus.
That's when she said, "I don't want to waste your precious time." I'm not kidding y'all, in a split second I went from "Oh no you didn't!" to genuinely feeling that it was nice of this woman to not want to waste my time.
Something about the word "precious" triggered me into thinking she was getting snarky. The thing is, I don't actually know what her intention was. I was making up a story about what was happening because my brain (and your brain too!) loves to create meaning out of things, it's how we're wired.
I've trained myself to notice when I'm making up a story so in this case I was immediately able to say to myself, "You know what? She could really think my time is precious and not want to waste it."
How amazing would that story be?
Less time wasted = more things I enjoy. Which is awesome because I love editing copy! And I like having time for free consults because most people don't know how a copyeditor can help them until they've seen it in action. So, if my brain wants to write a story about a situation, isn't better to try and be objective?
I think so.
And the thing is, we do this all the time. Someone cuts you off in traffic - man that guy's a jerk! Is he really? You don't know that. Maybe he just didn't see you.
You didn't get much done today. Healing is going slower than you thought. What's the story you tell yourself? Are you saying you're a failure? Or can you look at the situation objectively and notice how well you're doing during this challenge?
I'll never know if that woman was being sarcastic or not but, I can say that being more objective in how I interpreted the situation left me feeling more peaceful.
You have the power to impact how you feel every single day! Tell me, what's a story you can change?