93. The Stories That Keep Us Stuck

We spent a week this summer at a lake house in Colorado with my husband's family and mine. By the end of the trip I noticed I was still enjoying it in a way that would have been out of reach for me a decade ago, and the difference had quite a bit to do with a skill I've been building through the work I teach.

That skill is at the center of today's episode.

It comes down to noticing a thought as it shows up, rather than becoming it. It's the same skill that keeps founders from being ruled by the three most common stories I hear:

"I'm not doing enough"

"I don't know what to do"

"I don't have enough time"

Each one sounds like an explanation and produces the opposite of the result we say we want. I walk through where each story comes from and the specific move that helps you loosen its grip on your day.

If you're a founder trying to break through the next revenue ceiling, or a leader whose day has been getting spent by a story you didn't consciously choose, this episode gives you a framework for noticing the story before it makes the decision for you.

Key Takeaways

Steven Hayes' concept of cognitive fusion explains why "I don't have enough time" stops registering as a thought and starts feeling like reality. Creating a small linguistic distance from the thought is the first move out of the loop.

The story "I'm not doing enough" survives because "enough" stays blurry. When you define what "enough" looks like today, the shame spiral turns into an action plan.

Confusion is usually the brain negotiating for a guarantee that no consequential decision can offer. The way out is to commit to a choice for a defined period so you can evaluate what it produced, rather than what it might produce.