Why You’re Struggling to Achieve More

Ep: 238

Ever feel like the same story continues to play out in your life? 

There’s a reason for that. Until you learn to understand how your brain works, the outcome will always be the same.

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment®, Blake explains how our brain patterns search for past experiences in order to determine future outcomes. To achieve real growth in your life and career, you have to change your patterns.

In this episode, you’ll learn why our brain defaults to existing patterns and how that keeps us replaying the same stories. You’ll understand why asking questions can feel so challenging at times, and how you can overcome those fears. You’ll learn how assumptions often lead us in the wrong direction, and how you can start approaching situations with curiosity to experience real growth.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How pattern matching in the brain keeps us stuck (1:24)
  • Why it’s important to be curious rather than make assumptions (3:17)
  • The challenge of asking questions (4:18)
  • What changes when you approach the world with more curiosity (5:41)

 Favorite Quotes:

  1. There’s huge benefits to the fact that our brains do pattern match. But one of the places that it really keeps us stuck is when we try to grow or change because inadvertently, we think we know how the outcome is going to look. And then we actually create that reality.
  2. Allow yourself to understand that there might be many outcomes that could happen that you are completely unaware of.
  3. When we change, our ability to create different outcomes changes.
  4. When you can remove the need to be right, life can get infinitely better.

Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Transcript

Blake Schofield 0:05
Hi, I’m Blake Schofield founder and CEO of The Bridge to Fulfillment®. Mom to three, USA Today Top 10 Professional Coach and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand perspectives to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment®.

Blake Schofield 0:39
Want to know one of the biggest factors that keeps people that really want to grow and achieve more in their life from doing so? Well, it’s actually not understanding how their brain works, and then playing out and creating the same story. You see, our brains pattern match. What does that mean? Well, what that means is it looks for something that’s happened in the past. And then it pattern matches to tell us what’s going to happen in the future. Now, this is great, say if you, you know, you go off to college, and instead of the big old refrigerator you have in your house, you have this tiny little fridge, where your brain pattern matches and understands it’s a refrigerator.

Blake Schofield 1:24
There’s huge benefits to the fact that our brains do pattern match. But one of the places that it really keeps us stuck is when we try to grow or change. Because inadvertently, we think we know how the outcome is going to look. And then we actually create that reality. Well, now, if you put yourself in a shoes where maybe you’ve done a lot of personal work, or you’re in a new circumstance, and you’re really wanting to create something different for your life, the first thing you need to do is to allow yourself to understand that there might be many outcomes that could happen that you are completely unaware of. And recognize that you are going to try and tell yourself, it’s going to go one way. And that that isn’t necessarily the truth.

Blake Schofield 2:13
You see when we change, our ability to create different outcomes changes. And we have to be aware that the way that we view the world isn’t the only way. You know, when I first started my entrepreneurial journey in 2017, and I left corporate, I was such a high factfinder type A planner, I did all of the research, I was confident that I could triangulate every answer. And that is actually what kept me stuck. Because I didn’t really realize that the information or knowledge that we have, based on our experiences, and what’s happened to us in life are but a grain of sand and the ocean, right, of the world. That there are so many different outcomes and opportunities that we could never even perceive of because we’ve haven’t experienced them.

Blake Schofield 3:05
I was talking to some of my private clients, I launched a amazing group program called The Path to Alignment. And we were talking about teaching smart people how to learn. You see, often those who have more education are most handicapped, because we don’t doubt our assumptions. And we pattern match a lot. And as a result, we constantly create the same outcome or we miss the opportunities in front of us. And one of the ways to begin to change that is to start to look at circumstances with curiosity and start questioning everything. If you run into somebody and they seem angry, rather than assume they’re angry, and it must be about me, maybe you could question what was going on with that person. Wonder what they have going on during their day, you could ask them, Hey, how are you what’s going on?

Blake Schofield 4:02
You could gather information to begin to understand if the way that you perceive thing was accurate or not. It seems so simple. And yet almost no one does it. It’s incredibly powerful. The challenge is we often don’t feel safe to ask the questions we need to ask. And yet that’s what it takes to begin to understand. Sometimes the very pattern matching problems that we have, you know, I was having a phone call earlier today. And the person I was speaking with said to me, Well, I’m sure you must feel this way. And these must be your assumptions. And it was quite interesting because exactly what he said was completely inaccurate. Absolutely nothing he said was accurate and how I felt at all.

Blake Schofield 4:50
And I realized how blessed that I have been and I have friends who I have been able to have those conversations with, share what my fear errors or doubts or concerns are, and have them reflect back to me and share with me whether that’s true, or it’s an assumption that I made. And what it began to do was helped me begin to see all of the places where I had kept myself small, where I’d assumed things and shut myself off from people or opportunities. And where I had been playing out patterns that were creating friction, stress, or unhappiness for me that didn’t need to be there.

Blake Schofield 5:28
It also followed me into my business, in terms of learning to ask more questions about the context of what people were experiencing, what they needed, what they felt the problem or opportunity was. And I began to see, wow, the way I assumed or looked at that was entirely different than what they did. Wow, what they need for me as far different or far less than what I expected. And what it began to do was help show me how limited my perspective had been. How much opportunity there truly was. How through learning to question our brains open and have real dialogue. Seek more answers instead of certainty. How you can create so much greater of an impact, so much happier of a life, so much better relationships, and so much incremental success, with far less effort. So I challenge you today to think about this in your life. How can you go apply this for a week or two, see what assumptions you made versus reality from someone else’s perspective. And begin to realize that when you can remove the need to be right, life can get infinitely better. Thanks again for joining me today. Until next time, have a great week.