'The Story I Tell Myself: How Self-Narratives Define Our Identity, Hold Us Back and How We Can Change Them' by Peter Ash is a self-help book written as a sort of memoir.

Author Peter Ash talks about his journey to change the self-narrative in his life. He felt weighed down and like his life could have been more. He reviewed the things that happened to him as a child and the kind of story he was living his life by. Then he worked on slowly changing that story and changing his life.

It's a personal journey and because of that, more hopeful for people (like me) who struggle with this kind of thing. Rather than some lofty "expert" here is someone who struggled like us and found a way out. It's well written and I enjoyed reading it.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Kobo Writing Life and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

It is a good book, at least for a beginner. It is kind of repetitive and some precise examples would have been useful, but I understood the main ideas. Congrats for making the step.

For me, this was a decent read. I have come to realise this concept over years of self-reflection. This book can be a good introduction if you want to explore the concept further. I don't think this is something which can be done over a cuppa of tea. This requires weeks and months of constant effort and vigilance. Overall a decent read.

3.5/5

Interesting concept, but failed to go deep. Although, for someone who wants to turn a new leaf and has no idea where to start, this book could be the introduction sort of thing.
Quite short and easy to read. I think I'd benefit more from the exercise, maybe having a separate chapter for exercise in identifying the false belief, etc.

This short book just shouldn’t work. It’s by a blogger who spent the last five years in therapy who just wants to share his insight into the process. He doesn’t have a degree or expertise, the limited research he shares is very basic. But ... his honest reflection on his experiences and his layman’s explanation of the big picture process of therapy DOES work. The length of the book is part of its success. Here’s what you may want to work on, here’s how to go about it and here’s where you can end up. No hokey, artificial exercises, just “here’s what worked for me, I hope it works for you”.

This was an interesting short read. However, the danger with personal experiences is that it's just that and you cannot rate it, but by reading it, you can be either moved or unmoved by it. I was moved by the author's personal experiences and how open he was about his journey into self-awareness and changing the narrative he told himself.
This book goes to show that the little things we tell ourselves, build up and have the potential to influence our actions, ambition and relationship with others. Thank you Netgalley for the eARC.