Right vs. Wrong

When writing a story, authors very deliberately make lots of “wrong” or “bad” things happen to their main characters and often have their character make lots of horrible decisions along the way. Why? Because we want the reader to feel something—to root for the MC, to want the enemy defeated, to prevail against injustice, etc. The character arc of a story measures how the main character changes throughout the story because of all the things that happen to him (what happens is the plot). When things are “good” or “right,” characters are not very motivated to change (and readers don’t feel much except for maybe boredom). Authors heap all kinds of trouble onto our protagonists but we don’t call all that trouble bad; we call it good writing. Let’s take out the good and call it writing that sells books that people want to read.


Do you need more tension in the story that is your life?


Doubt it. For most of us, we either have tension or we create it. Either way, that tension manifests as negative thoughts—worry about the future, sadness about the past, conjecture about what others may be thinking about us, and on and on and on.


One of the most annoying thing I can say to a coaching client facing hardship is to describe the ordeal as an AFGO—Another F*ing Growth Opportunity. Annoying but true. And transformative. If you think about your role as the author of your life, imagine that some higher version of yourself created this situation as an invitation for you to experience something, to grow, to make a different choice. As yourself, “what growth opportunities are presenting themselves to me as the main character of my own story? How could I approach this situation so that it shows up on my own character arc?” The answers may surprise you. Ironically, once we learn and grow from an experience and accept it for what it is, the AFGO tends to resolve itself or fails to bother us in the same way. Then we move on to a different AFGO… A new chapter or a new volume of our life.


So how can you cause character growth? The first step is to eliminate the words good, bad, right and wrong from your vocabulary as much as possible. What’s considered bad or wrong can’t be that at all because it already is. That’s esoterical and circular but, well, it is what it is. The best choice is to simply accept what is, even embrace it if you can. It’s amazingly powerful how accepting something as is moves you from the realm of reaction to creation. When you can accept something as is, you can think more broadly and more creatively about the situation and, most importantly, you are then in charge of your own experience. You are once again the creator, the author, of your own story.You decide what the experience means for you and, most importantly, how you choose to feel about the experience. Because in life, as in stories, creating a feeling about a set of circumstances is always the end goal.


Think about this: why do you want the new car, boyfriend, girlfriend, house, watch, new job? Because of how you imagine you will feel when you have it.


So let’s cut out the middle man (or woman): own the experience, own the feeling.


Have you known or heard about someone who has recovered from cancer say that getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her? It wasn’t the cancer itself that was fantastic but the way that having to face death caused her to feel differently about living life.


So live your life by accept what is, choosing better feelings with more positive thoughts, and take control of the only thing you really can control: your thoughts, feelings and actions. You get to write the story of your life. Make it epic.