You watch people on the street and in restaurants and think that their conversations and broad smiles are evidence that they live a life much better than yours.

You assume that they are happier than you, smarter than you, and worth more than you. All around you is evidence that this is true: your meager bank account, your junky car, your store clothes.

You sit in your apartment and try to imagine what it would be like to be someone else. You wonder what it would be like to be someone who could afford to go to the movies and go out to eat.

Someone who bought new clothes and shoes, or someone who had a good job. Even imagining this seems too hard. You feel as if life is against you.

You have always been a dreamer with big ideas and ridiculous plans, but you were unable to make those plans a reality because the story you tell yourself is that you are not enough.

As long as you continue to tell yourself that story, you will continue to be not enough.

The current state of your life is a direct result of the stories you tell yourself, and what you really believe is possible – not what you say is possible, but what you believe deep down in your core.

Your story about not being good enough shows itself in every aspect of your life – your job, your family, your social life.

Until you are able to open your eyes and change your story, these aspects of your life will not get better. You will always receive what you are telling your subconscious mind you deserve.

You are telling your mind that you are not good enough and that is what you see all around you. If you change the limiting stories you tell yourself, you will be able to change your life.

You have a new story about your life, you are able to see opportunities in places you have never noticed them before. You have the courage to try things that you never did before.

You start challenging yourself. You start making a conscious effort to speak up in social situations and to express your opinion. You start assert your needs more. You are able to see things for a more positive perspective.

People who tell more positive stories and stories with more elements of redemption (that time you lost your job, but ended up switching career into something you enjoy much more) enjoy greater wellbeing in terms of more life satisfaction and better mental health.

So do people whose stories express a greater sense of being a protagonist in the events of their life and having more meaningful communion with others.

The world is what you make of it.