You can’t own your story, your narrative agency, until you understand the forces shaping it.
Last week’s Unassemble & Reassemble urged you to dismantle the fragments of your story and rebuild with intention.
Today, we add another layer: your frame.
The frame is represented by the conditions and constraints within which your story sits: misinterpret either, and your narrative slips.
Name them, and you gain mastery.
Design them, and you become the architect of your story.
NOW: Burnout Is a Frame You Didn’t Build
Most leaders aren’t just “overworked”; they’re structurally strained.
71% of global leaders report significantly higher stress levels since stepping into their roles, according to DDI’s 2025 Global Leadership Forecast.
56% of leaders experienced burnout in 2024, while 43% of companies lost half their leadership teams due to turnover.
82% of workers are now at risk of burnout, marking the highest levels on record.
These are not just personal crises; they signal structural conditions we’ve normalized.
Many see these conditions as constraints, but often they’re conditions we can influence.
Recognizing the difference is the first step in reclaiming agency.
Ask Yourself:
~ Which rules am I honoring because I believe they’re unchangeable?
~ What stresses are actually self-imposed systems?
~ Are you an architect or a victim of your own narrative frame?
NEW: Constraints as Creative Catalysts
Contrary to intuition, constraints don’t inhibit; instead, they catalyze creativity.
> In 2025, studies continue to show that limitations sharpen creativity, reducing cognitive overload and focusing energy.
> A recent 2025 study observed how small constraints improved team-generated melodic creativity in collaborative settings, demonstrating that well-placed limits enhance outcome quality and aesthetic appeal.
Constraint isn’t your enemy.
It’s your sculptor.
Take Genesis, who stripped excess out of early demo tracks, birthing textures bigger than the sum of parts.
Or Toyota’s lean manufacturing, born out of resource scarcity, yet now synonymous with operational excellence.
Ask Yourself:
~ What boundaries make me more creative, not constrained?
~ What freedoms are breeding complacency or noise?
~ Where can constraints be reframed as design tools?
NEXT: Design the Frame Behind Your Fragments
Your ShiftStory isn’t just about the fragments you carry; it’s about the frame in which you place them.
This isn’t about adding more to your life.
It’s about reframing what’s already there, with intention.
In the 2025 distributed workplace era:
> 58% of leaders admit they’re only “somewhat effective” in leading remotely (per i4cp), yet streamlining conditions could improve performance by 6x.
This shows that narrative agency isn’t about more leadership programs; it’s about redefining the environment in which leadership operates.
In the year ahead:
Consider redesigning your standard conditions: tweak your habits, your routines, your environment.
Consider reframing your extreme constraints: treat them as collaboratives, not cages.
And consider crafting your agency by choosing which frame your “next story” inhabits.
THE PAYOFF: Frame or Be Framed
In the Now, call out your conditions and constraints.
In the New, distinguish Standard from Extreme and take ownership.
In the Next, deliberately build the frame your own narrative deserves.
Because if you don’t define your frame, others will define it for you.
So here’s your challenge:
Over the next year, inventory your conditions and constraints.
Map them into Standard (changeable) and Extreme (unpredictable).
Use this grid as a design tool to reassemble not just your fragments, but the very space in which your story unfolds.
Because the future doesn’t belong to those who know the most.
It belongs to those who can frame the fragments they already have into a story that works for the world ahead.
“Systems evolve when old constraints are removed, and new ways of coordinating emerge. Once a constraint disappears, systems built around it tend to break apart into their core components - they unbundle. When a new coordination method takes hold, those components are reassembled in new ways - they rebundle”.
~ Sangeet Paul Choudary, Reshuffle - Who wins when AI restacks the knowledge economy.
Your Call to Action
The act of framing your conditions and constraints requires:
A mirror.
And a map.
ShiftStory™ is both.
If you’re ready to stop editing yourself into old containers,
And start composing your story like the mosaic it is.
Not to reinvent. But to reassemble.
Learn more about the ShiftStory Pilgrimage and sign up here: https://shiftstory.co/
Given the intimate nature of this work, I will only be accepting four (4) new clients for the remainder of 2025. I am in the “unscaling” part of the journey and want to get things right before scaling the business.
I’m Tobin Trevarthen. I am a Narratologist. I am a fusion of coach, mentor, and practitioner. My purpose is to enable you to shift your story from who you are to who you are becoming. Welcome to ShiftStory™.
ShiftStory™ is my evolved idea for building narrative agency in a rapidly changing world, where yesterday’s containers and approaches are no longer valid. I fundamentally believe we are entering a new Renaissance, and owning your story will become more paramount than ever before.
My ShiftStory™ is an intentional evolution: I am building a company and a life where relationships are consciously cultivated through reciprocity. Every connection is formed with purpose, and every decision is guided by mutual support and shared value.
My narrative is not just for those I serve; it is the story I am choosing to live, moving away from the pursuit of scale and toward a future defined by meaningful, reciprocal relationships.
Follow me on LinkedIn. DM at tobin@spatialshift.com or sign up for the ShiftStory™ here: https://shiftstory.co/
Love this Toby!
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live”
Joan Didion