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Storytelling can be used as a tool for visualising a better future. You can write a letter to your future self and describe what you see happening for you at that moment, how it feels, and how the day looks in the perfect future that you are actually creating.
In this case you’re using storytelling as a positive thinking tool to reinforce your motivation and boost your self-esteem so that you can work better on your long-term vision.
However there is one instance where positive thinking doesn’t work. Research has found that positive self-statements can be ineffective and even harmful if you don’t believe them.
An experiment found that people with low self-esteem who were asked to repeat the statement “I’m a lovable person” felt worse afterwards than those with high self-esteem doing the same exercise.
There is just one reason for this: messages that are closer to our worldviews are more believable than those that contradict them.
We are wired to align ourselves with our core values and beliefs.
Saying something you don’t believe many times over might make it seem true to your audience, but it won’t make it true to yourself.
What we believe, we are.