AiCoach

📖 The Stories We Tell Ourselves About the Past

LIP #266
Jan 15, 2026

We all carry stories from our past that shape how we see the world today. The tricky part is our brains label past experiences as either totally great or totally terrible, when reality was somewhere in the middle.

The problem with simplified labels:

  • That amazing trip? It probably had frustrating moments too
  • That disaster project? It likely had some wins in it
  • These labels fire off automatically, many times a day

What to do instead:

Before judging whether a memory is accurate, get curious about what you truly remember in detail. A lot of our memories are fuzzy, yet we make big decisions based on them.

Ask: 'What do I actually remember clearly versus what am I just assuming?'

This awareness alone can loosen the grip those old stories have on your decisions today.

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Leadership In Practice #280 Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 11:00 AM EST