The Story You Tell Is Why Nothing Changes

How many times have you told that story? You know the one about what your ex did to you, how your boss screwed you over, that one time you got betrayed by someone you trusted.

And every time you tell it, people nod and agree, telling you it wasn't fair, that you got screwed, that you deserved better.

And man, it feels good to be understood, to be right, to have people acknowledge that what happened to you was wrong, but being right about it hasn't moved your life forward one inch.

Look at your life right now, honestly, without the flinch. All that sympathy you've been collecting, all those people who agreed with you, all that validation that you were the victim, has any of it actually fixed your situation? Has it put money in your bank account? Has it fixed your marriage? Has it helped you lose the weight? Has it gotten you unstuck in your life? The answer is no.

What you're collecting is agreement, and agreement is not the same currency as progress, no matter how similar they feel in the moment.

And that's the part most guys never separate out, because agreement feels like movement. Someone confirms your pain and your nervous system relaxes a little and you get the sensation of having handled something, when all you did was file a complaint with someone who has no authority to act on it.

I've owned my coaching business for about six years now. And I would make the estimate that I've spoken to about 10,000 men for why their lives aren't working.

Different jobs, different marriages, different bank accounts, and almost always the same story with the names swapped out. Same sympathy, same loop, same place five years later.

Here's the mechanic underneath it, the part that makes the loop self-sustaining rather than just sad. Every time you tell that story about what they did to you, you're literally handing them more power over your life, and it isn't happening in some abstract, spiritual way where the damage is only symbolic. It works on you mechanically, in the actual structure of your days.

When you say, my ex-wife destroyed me financially, you just gave her control of your bank account, even though she's nowhere near your life or your house anymore. And she is still setting your income ceiling because you've named her as the cause and she is not available for editing.

When you say, my boss holds me back, or Jerry's the reason why I didn't get that big promotion, you just handed them ownership over your career. Jerry's at home with his feet up watching football and he's running your next decade.

When you say, I'm overweight because of genetics or it runs in my family, you're admitting that you have less control over your health and your fitness and your habits than your circumstances do. You just told yourself your DNA has a bigger vote than your groceries.

And when you say, my parents screwed me up, you're 35 years old, brother, and your mom is still running your life from 20 years ago.

You've written yourself as the main character in a story where every other character holds the power and you hold only the narration, and no matter how good the narration is, a narrator can't rewrite the plot he's describing.

No wonder nothing changes when you made yourself powerless in your own life and then wondered why you feel powerless.

I want to tell you a little bit about my father, who died a few years back after a life that left almost nothing behind. You know what he left me? The bill for his funeral, that's it.

Everything he owned in this world fit in a jail evidence locker. His whole life reduced to a plastic bag of personal items. And when I had to write his eulogy, I found myself apologizing on his behalf to everyone he loved, to everyone he failed, and to everyone that he let down.

My father spent his entire life explaining why things weren't his fault, who screwed him over, why he couldn't catch a break, and here's the part people miss when I tell this story: he wasn't making any of it up. Life dealt him some genuinely bad cards and people did in fact screw him over and every grievance he held had a real event behind it.

Being right about all of it changed nothing.

The man standing between him and who he was supposed to be was him, and he could never get out of his own way long enough to see it. He died broke, alone, incarcerated, with his son apologizing to a room for the life he lived.

That's where a lifetime of excuses leads.

That's the destination when you never take ownership.

For years I walked that same road myself, and because of my parents I told my own victim stories, about how nobody taught me to be a man, about how I had to figure out everything on my own, about the trauma they passed down to me.

People agreed with me and validated my pain, assuring me over and over that none of it was my fault.

But you know what? By the age of 27, I was still 50 pounds overweight, struggling financially, failing in all of my relationships, and still passing that same trauma on to my daughters.

The validation felt good and my life stayed exactly the same, or actually, that's not quite true. It got worse, because while I was busy blaming my parents and my circumstances and my past, I was quietly becoming them, and that's a cost nobody ever warns you about. The story doesn't just leave you frozen where you stand. It points you at the person you're complaining about and walks you toward him, one excuse at a time.

Then I understood the piece that changed everything.

Every excuse I made, every story I told about who was at fault, was blocking my own growth. While you're busy blaming, you can't learn the lesson. There's no room for a lesson in a story where you didn't do anything.

And life, or God, or the universe, whatever you want to call it, keeps serving you the same problem in different forms until you figure out what it's trying to teach you.

That difficult, pain in the ass boss is the same as your difficult ex, who was the same as your difficult parent, just wearing a different face on top of an identical pattern.

The pattern keeps repeating because nothing ever actually got learned from it. You were too busy being right about being wronged to see what you were supposed to take from it.

A victim story cannot coexist with growth, because if it's not your fault, there's nothing to learn, nothing to change, nothing to take ownership of. The story seals itself shut from the inside, and that's exactly the problem, because sealed shut means nothing gets in and nothing gets out.

Ask yourself something plainly: are you an at all costs type of guy or are you a good enough guy?

In week one of my Fireteam's coaching program we do something that reveals exactly who you are. And as an example, Wednesday's workout starts with 300 air squats. Not after the session, not sprinkled through it, before you even touch a weight.

Every single time, the group splits into two types of men.

The first type gets to 150, maybe 200, and says, that's good enough, I tried my best.

The second type might take all fucking day. They might be breaking it into sets of five by the end. They might be walking funny for three days, but they finish all 300 at all costs.

That same week, we program 10 workouts in seven days, cold showers every morning, no alcohol, no excuses, no shortcuts.

And after running hundreds of men through this, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the guys who finish those squats at all costs are the same guys who take ownership of their lives at all costs.

The guys who stop at good enough have good enough marriages, good enough bodies, good enough careers, good enough relationships with their kids. Good enough is a character trait, not a workout decision, and it shows up everywhere the moment things get uncomfortable.

Good enough is exactly what brought you here, reading this, trying to figure out why nothing in your life ever changes.

Ownership means becoming an at all costs man in everything, and especially in the areas that genuinely are not your fault.

Because fault and responsibility are two different accounts, and men keep paying out of the wrong one.

Fault belongs to your parents if they messed you up, sure, but fixing what they left behind belongs entirely to you.