The Lone Wolf Myth
Question your narratives.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a video of life coach Cathy Council talking about friendship. She began by drawing a couple of stick figures: one to represent me and one to represent another person. She then began drawing and explaining the friendship equation which went something like this:
A connection happens when you meet someone and you have positive thoughts about them AND you have positive thoughts about how they are thinking about you and they are also having positive thoughts about you and having positive thoughts about how you are thinking about them. If any part of that equation is missing, a connection will not be made.
🚺 + 🚺
My thoughts about them
+
My thoughts about what I think they think of me
+
Their thoughts about me
+
Their thoughts about what I think of them
=
Friendship connection
My jaw hit the floor when Cathy finished her diagram. I was never completing the friendship equation. I meet plenty of people that I think are interesting and fun. But I also always have the thought that they probably think I am boring. Or awkward. Or weird. Or fill in the blank with anything negative. Thinking that, I wouldn’t reach out to them to follow up or build a connection. If they reached out to me, I wouldn’t respond. I was the missing link in the friendship equation over and over again. The result being that I meet a lot of amazing people that I like and have an initial great conversation with. Then I essentially ghost them and then blame my ghosting action on them by assuming that they didn’t like me anyways.
The thing is, I had a whole lone wolf backstory of why I didn’t really make friends. I believed I was just one of those people who prefers being alone and who does things better in solitary. I believed that I didn’t really fit in and I was too different to really connect with people. I believed this story so long without questioning it. I had accepted this narrative about myself as fact without ever taking a critical look at it. I had this narrative about myself for so long that it was like a second skin at this point.
Cathy’s diagram blew it all apart.
I could clearly see how my story wasn’t true. The only thing that was true is that I was not thinking in a way that promoted connection with people. I was thinking in a way that promoted disconnection. If I wanted to make connections with people, I would have to change my way of thinking. I would have to change the narrative I had about myself.
A clear example of this happened (pre-pandemic) when I went to a meetup at a local bar. I met a couple of girls and really hit it off with one of them in particular. We had such a fun time that night. My cheeks hurt so bad from all of the laughing. We exchanged numbers and said we should meet up again. We texted briefly the next day. At some point I had the thought that I should invite her to go to brunch on the weekend. Then my lone wolf persona kicked in and I thought that she wouldn’t want to do that. She wouldn’t want to spend all that time with me. She would feel so awkward. There has to be lots of other people around so that I am not awkward so I can’t invite her to just go do something. Then I stopped talking to her.
This pattern had been repeating for years. I could look back and see all of the people who must have been wondering why I suddenly went cold.
Now I could see that it was me the whole time. I was the one creating this result. Not anyone else.
The moral of this story is that it pays to question the narratives we have about ourselves. Sometimes we can believe something about ourselves that might not be true. It might just be a persona that we put on for so long that we forgot that we can take that persona off.
It is especially important to look at negative beliefs that we have about ourselves. Ask yourself how it might not be true.
Question it. Poke holes in it. Try on a new persona.
The way we think influences how we show up in the world. In my case, how I was thinking was directly influencing the way I showed up in making connections with others. By changing my thinking, I can change the result I am getting. I can begin to complete the friendship equation. It will still take two to tango. The other person would still have to complete their portion of the equation. But now I can guarantee that I am completing my portion. I am no longer the reason for a lack of connection. I can begin to create a new result in my life.
This is true for any result in our lives. It pays to examine how our thinking is contributing to our results. Can you change your thinking to help you get a different result?
Our thoughts are so powerful. We create our own realities with our thoughts. The actions we take are driven by how we are thinking. Choose your thoughts wisely and on purpose and you can create the results you want.
I will be choosing from now on to think that I am a fun and interesting person to know. Every time I feel the lone wolf persona creeping back in, I will be reminding myself that I no longer believe that and I will redirect to my new belief that I am a person capable of connecting with others.
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