What If What You Believe Isn’t True?

Ep: 274

What if the story you’ve been telling yourself is THE THING that’s holding you back?

Our brains create narratives to make sense of experiences, but often, these stories are inaccurate. By accepting our internal stories as absolute truth, we remain stuck, surrounded by the same perspectives that will only continue to hold us back.

When we start to challenge these assumptions, it helps us begin to break free from limiting beliefs and uncover new possibilities that help foster a deeper understanding of ourselves and clear the path toward personal transformation.

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment®, Blake challenges you to examine your beliefs and question whether the stories you tell yourself are the truth. By challenging assumptions and embracing self-awareness, you can break free from limiting beliefs, see new opportunities, and rewrite the stories that define you.

In this episode, you’ll learn about the impact that personal narratives have on our lives and the importance of questioning their truth. You’ll learn how personal growth strategies like expanding your circle can help provide new perspectives, build deeper connections, and foster compassion. You’ll learn how to start questioning your narrative and understand the powerful effect this mindset shift can have on your life, relationships, and career.

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • The lies our brain tells us (1:03)
  • How to stimulate personal growth (3:08)
  • Why we can feel like the world is a challenging place (5:56)
  • How to determine if your brain is telling you the truth (8:11)
  • The powerful ripple effect of challenging your beliefs (9:58)

 

Favorite Quotes:

  1. “One of the biggest risks in our lives are the stories that we believe are true, that just aren’t.” –Blake
  2. “When we grow up in families that focus on achievements or what other people think, ultimately, we end up looking externally for the answers.” –Blake
  3. “We aren’t alone, we aren’t broken, and nothing is wrong with us. We have an opportunity to truly become the people that we feel called to be.” –Blake
  4. “I’ve really come to learn and understand how fantastic our brain is at coming up with stories, and how often those stories are wrong.” –Blake

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.

Your lived experience versus the broader reality.

Today, I’m going to share with you a really important concept that most of us don’t understand—one that is actually keeping us from living the fulfilling, meaningful, and authentic careers, lives, and relationships that we really want.

I’ve shared this before, but I’m going to share it again. One of the biggest risks in our lives is the stories we believe to be true—that just aren’t.

You know, our brain is amazing at looking at circumstances and creating a story so that we can feel safe, so that we can believe we understand why something happened, and then do things to prevent it from happening again. This is especially true when we go through challenging circumstances—things we don’t understand. We often ponder, think about, and ruminate on those things, then decide that the way we see it must be accurate. “The way this person is acting must be because of this reason, and this is why that’s happening.”

What I’ve really come to learn and understand is how fantastic our brain is at coming up with stories—and how often those stories are wrong.

Blake Schofield 1:53
One of the biggest barriers to personal growth—to being able to transform and reach the next level in your career, your life, your relationships—is often your environment.

And what do I mean by that?

Well, let’s imagine that you grew up in a fishbowl, but you have no idea it’s a fishbowl because that’s been your whole existence. Every single person you interact with—every single fish in that fishbowl—is a goldfish. So you believe the entire world is just made of goldfish.

Now, if you happen to be an angelfish, and everyone around you is a goldfish, you struggle. You believe something is wrong with you. You wonder why you don’t fit in. You wonder why you feel different.

I think many of us who are high achievers feel like that angelfish in a fishbowl full of other fish. And we spend a lot of time talking to those other fish about our perspectives and what we’re struggling with—only to be met with well-meaning advice that keeps us stuck. Because we’re asking the wrong people—or, in this case, we’re asking the wrong fish.

One of the biggest ways you can grow is to expand your circle. Get out of the normal circle of people you would talk to and put yourself in circumstances with people who have achieved things you haven’t. That allows you to move from, say, a fishbowl into an aquarium, where you might see 50 different types of fish and begin to realize that the world isn’t just goldfish.

Over time, the more you do this work, eventually, hopefully, you get to jump into the ocean—and truly experience the power of what’s possible.

Blake Schofield 3:47
I share this scenario about a fishbowl, an aquarium, and an ocean because I see it in my own life—and I’ve seen it over and over again in my clients’ lives.

I felt like that fish that didn’t fit in. And when I wasn’t fulfilled and would ask for advice, I was often told that I should just be grateful and happy for what I had.

“Why can’t you just accept X, Y, Z?”
“Why can’t you just find a hobby?”

The people I was asking didn’t mean harm, but because they hadn’t experienced anything different—because they didn’t understand where I was coming from and didn’t have the skills to help me—they kept me stuck in the same cycle. And because everyone around me looked the same and said the same things, I believed that was just how the world was.

I thought something must be broken or wrong with me.
I thought what I wanted wasn’t possible.

It was only when I really began expanding my network—finding people who had done what I wanted to do—that I realized that wasn’t true. I had just been asking the wrong people. I needed to expand in so many ways.

Blake Schofield 4:55
So why is this a challenge—this idea of story and what you believe to be true?

When we grow up in homes with secrets, where we don’t feel safe to fail, or where we get yelled at for our mistakes…
When we have parents who either don’t have the skills or are unwilling to help us process our emotions and trust our intuition…
When we grow up in families that focus on achievements or what other people think…

We end up looking externally for the answers.

And when we look externally for answers—while in an environment of people who haven’t accomplished or don’t want to accomplish what we want—we get stuck.

Over and over again.

We start believing we’re the problem. That what we want isn’t possible. And that’s not true.

But then we start telling ourselves more stories… and we get more stuck.

Through that process, we lose the ability to be curious.
We lose the ability to challenge our assumptions.
We stop asking for help.
We become afraid to be vulnerable—to ask if what we are feeling or seeing is true or if we’re misperceiving it.

Because challenging the stories we tell ourselves takes self-awareness. It takes vulnerability. And yet, consistently, over and over again, I see the same pattern.

What is your lived experience? What are the things you just believe to be true about the world—versus the broader reality?

Blake Schofield 7:12
What I know to be true is that it’s the stories we tell ourselves—reinforced by childhood experiences—that shape our lives.

If we don’t expand beyond them…
If we don’t seek out people who have done what we want to do…
If we don’t realize our brain doesn’t always tell us the truth…

We stay stuck.

In fact, a lot of the time, our brain completely lies to us.

But when we start understanding our belief systems, recognizing past traumas, and working through our conditioning, we can start feeling safe enough to see the truth:

We aren’t alone.
We aren’t broken.
Nothing is wrong with us.

We can become the people we feel called to be.

Blake Schofield 8:43
So, if this is resonating with you—if you’re thinking, Okay, I get it, Blake. My brain might be telling me stories that aren’t true. I need to expand my circle. I see how my past experiences have shaped me.

What do you do with that?

Practically, here’s what I suggest:

  1. Start with a small experiment. Next time you tell yourself a story about why something didn’t go your way, why a relationship didn’t work, or why you feel stress or anxiety—stop. Ask yourself:

    Can I be 100% certain that this is the only truth?

  2. Consider what else might be true. Brainstorm other possibilities:

    • What else might I be missing?
    • Why else might this have happened?
    • What else might that person have felt?
  3. Have a conversation. Ask the person involved:

    “When this happened, I’d love to understand—how were you feeling? What were you thinking? Because the story I’ve been telling myself is X. Is that true?”

Opening up this kind of dialogue allows you to challenge your perspective.

Blake Schofield 9:40
This work is powerful.

The more you do it, the more it transforms your mind and your life.

I’ve seen it build deeper, more authentic connections…
Heal decades-old family wounds…
Teach compassion…

I’m excited for you to implement this and see how it shifts your perspective.