The Story You Tell Yourself Shapes the Decisions You Make

How Hidden Narratives Influence Leadership, Confidence, and Self-Trust

Sometimes what changes your life isn't what happened. It's the meaning you gave it.

• A colleague doesn't respond to your email.

• A friend seems distant.

• Your manager asks to speak with you tomorrow.

• Someone you care about becomes quiet.

None of those moments tell a complete story. Yet within seconds, most of us have already written one.

• Maybe they're upset with me.

• Maybe I said something wrong.

• Maybe I'm not good enough.

• Maybe this opportunity is disappearing.

• Maybe I should pull away before they do.

The human mind dislikes uncertainty. When information is incomplete, it fills in the blanks with stories that feel believable. The problem is that those stories often become the foundation for our decisions, even when they aren't based on facts.

As women, especially high-achieving women, we're often praised for being intuitive. We notice subtle changes in people. We read between the lines. We anticipate problems before they happen. Those abilities can be tremendous strengths, but they can also become liabilities when we stop distinguishing between what we know and what we assume.

Psychological Leadership™ begins with one simple distinction: There is the story that happened, and there is the story you told yourself about what happened.

Learning the difference can transform the way you lead, communicate, and trust yourself.

Your Brain Was Designed to Create Meaning

The brain is constantly trying to answer one question: What does this mean?

Meaning helps us make sense of the world. It allows us to predict outcomes.

It helps us avoid danger and it creates coherence in moments of uncertainty.

Psychologically, this is incredibly useful. Emotionally, it can become incredibly misleading.

Imagine receiving constructive feedback from your manager. The feedback itself may be neutral, but your interpretation might sound like this:

• "I'm failing."

• "They're disappointed in me."

• "I'm not leadership material."

The event didn't create those conclusions. Your interpretation did.

Our minds naturally use past experiences to explain present circumstances. If you've experienced rejection, criticism, inconsistency, or disappointment, your brain often assumes those patterns will continue.

It isn't trying to sabotage you. It's trying to protect you.

The challenge is that protection and truth are not always the same thing.

High-Achieving Women Often Mistake Interpretation for Reality

Many successful women have spent years learning how to anticipate disappointment before it arrives. They become exceptionally skilled at reading emotional cues and noticing subtle shifts in tone. Silence feels significant. Delayed responses feel personal.

Constructive feedback feels like evidence that they're falling behind.

They begin reacting not to reality, but to the meaning they've assigned to reality.

Eventually, assumptions begin leading decisions. They hesitate before sharing ideas because they assume people won't agree. They avoid difficult conversations because they assume conflict will damage the relationship. They overwork because they assume rest will be mistaken for laziness. They say yes because they assume boundaries will disappoint people.

The assumptions feel true. That doesn't make them true. One of the greatest psychological leadership skills is learning to separate evidence from interpretation.

There Are Always Two Stories

This is one of the most important ideas I teach through Psychological Leadership™.

There are always two stories. The story that happened, and the story your mind created about what happened.

For example: Story that happened: Your manager says,"Can we talk tomorrow?"

Story your mind creates: "I'm in trouble."

Or...

Story that happened: Someone hasn't texted you back.

Story your mind creates: "They're pulling away."

Or...

Story that happened: A client asks several questions.

Story your mind creates: "They don't trust me."

Notice something important? The emotional reaction doesn't come from the event.

It comes from the interpretation. That's why two people can experience the exact same situation and respond completely differently.

Their stories are different, and those stories quietly shape their leadership.

The Leadership Cost of Unexamined Stories

Every leader tells themselves stories. The question isn't whether you have them. The question is whether you're aware of them.

I've worked with women who believed:

• "If I ask for help, people will think I'm incapable."

• "If I don't handle everything myself, I'm letting everyone down."

• "If someone is disappointed in me, I must have made the wrong decision."

• "If I slow down, I'll lose everything I've worked for."

None of these are facts. They're interpretations, yet they influence communication, confidence, delegation, boundaries, relationships, and decision-making every single day.

This is why Psychological Leadership™ doesn't begin with behavior. It begins with awareness.

• Before strategy comes psychology.

• Before performance comes understanding.

When you understand the story that's leading your decisions, you finally have the opportunity to choose a different one.

Not Every Thought Deserves Your Trust

One of the biggest misconceptions about self-awareness is believing that every thought deserves equal attention.

It doesn't.

Thoughts are data. They are not always evidence. Just because your mind creates a story doesn't mean your leadership should follow it. Self-awareness isn't about believing every thought. It's about becoming curious enough to question it.

Ask yourself:

• What actually happened?

• What story am I telling myself about what happened?

• Are those the same thing?

That pause creates something incredibly valuable.

Choice.

And choice is where Psychological Leadership™ begins. The RISE Method™ Helps You Rewrite the Narrative Most people think The RISE Method™ is about changing behavior.

It isn't.

Behavior is the result. The work begins much earlier. It begins with noticing the stories that have quietly been leading your life.

This chapter reflects each stage of The RISE Method™ in a powerful way.

Recognize

The first step is recognizing the difference between reality and interpretation.

Ask yourself: What actually happened?

Then ask: What did I decide it meant?

Those are rarely the same thing.

• Perhaps your manager simply asked for a meeting.

• Perhaps your partner had a difficult day.

• Perhaps your client needed more information before making a decision.

The facts are often much simpler than the stories we create around them. Recognizing this isn't about dismissing your feelings. It's about becoming aware that your feelings may be responding to a story rather than to reality itself.

Awareness always comes before transformation.

Interrupt

Once you've recognized the story, create space before acting on it.

This is where Psychological Leadership™ becomes practical.

Instead of immediately reacting, become curious.

Ask yourself:

• What evidence do I actually have?

• What assumptions am I making?

• Is this fear coming from the present or from an earlier experience?

• What else could be true?

• Am I responding to this person, or to someone from my past?

These questions don't invalidate your intuition. They strengthen it, because true intuition isn't fear, it's wisdom informed by awareness rather than driven by anxiety.

Self-Lead

Self-leadership means refusing to let an unexamined story make your decisions. It means choosing:

• Clarity over assumption.

• Curiosity over certainty.

• Presence over prediction.

It means asking the difficult question: "If I didn't believe this story, what decision would I make?"

Sometimes the answer surprises you.

• You would have the conversation.

• You would apply for the position.

• You would set the boundary.

• You would trust the relationship.

• You would stop apologizing.

• You would finally speak honestly.

Self-leadership doesn't require certainty. It requires enough self-awareness to recognize that your first interpretation isn't always the full truth.

Evolve

Over time, something remarkable begins to happen. You stop reacting to every story your mind creates, because you've learned not to confuse every thought with reality.

You become less reactive, more grounded, and more emotionally flexible. You begin responding to evidence instead of expectation.

• To the present instead of the past.

• To your values instead of your fears.

That is psychological maturity and it is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself as a leader.

Reflection Questions

As you think about your own leadership and relationships, consider:

• What story have I been telling myself lately?

• What actually happened, and what meaning did I assign to it?

• Where might my past be filling in the blanks for my present?

• Which assumptions quietly influence the way I communicate or make decisions?

• How often do I react to my interpretation rather than to the facts?

• What story no longer deserves to lead my life?

• What would change if I became curious before becoming certain?

These questions aren't designed to give you immediate answers. They're designed to help you notice the invisible narratives shaping your leadership because awareness always comes before meaningful change.

Psychological Leadership™ Begins When You Question the Story

One of the greatest misconceptions about leadership is believing that better decisions come from having better answers. Often, they come from asking better questions.

• Every leader has an inner narrative.

• Every leader carries assumptions shaped by past experiences.

• Every leader tells themselves stories about success, failure, belonging, rejection, conflict, confidence, and worth.

Those stories aren't signs that something is wrong with you. They're signs that you're human.

The goal isn't to eliminate every assumption. The goal is to become aware of the ones that are quietly making decisions on your behalf.

Psychological Leadership™ isn't about distrusting yourself. It's about learning to distinguish between your experience and your interpretation of that experience.

Once you can separate the two, you reclaim something incredibly powerful.

Choice.

The greatest transformation doesn't happen when your circumstances change. It happens when the stories you've been carrying no longer determine the decisions you make.

That's where Psychological Leadership™ begins.

Biana Lerman Your Growth Leader

FAQs

Why do we create stories about situations?

Your brain is designed to make sense of uncertainty. When information is incomplete, it naturally fills in the gaps using past experiences, expectations, and beliefs. While this helps you navigate the world, it can also lead you to mistake assumptions for facts.

How do the stories we tell ourselves affect leadership?

The stories you believe influence how you communicate, make decisions, set boundaries, receive feedback, and build relationships. Leaders who react to assumptions instead of evidence often experience unnecessary stress, self-doubt, and overthinking.

What is Psychological Leadership™?

Psychological Leadership™ is the practice of understanding the beliefs, patterns, expectations, and conditioning influencing how you lead so your decisions reflect your authentic identity rather than unconscious survival habits.

How can I stop believing every thought I have?

The goal isn't to stop thinking. It's to become curious. Ask yourself what actually happened, what you're assuming, and whether another explanation is possible. This creates space between your thoughts and your decisions.

How does The RISE Method™ help?

The RISE Method™ helps you Recognize the stories influencing your behavior, Interrupt automatic assumptions, Self-Lead from your values instead of fear, and Evolve into a leader whose decisions are grounded in awareness rather than unconscious patterns.

Ready to Lead from Who You Are?

If this article resonated with you, it may be a sign that your next level of leadership isn't about thinking differently.

It may be about questioning the stories that have quietly been shaping the way you think.

At Your Growth Leader, we help women leaders strengthen their identity, build emotional resilience, and lead from a place of authenticity through coaching, workshops, keynote speaking, and The RISE Method™.

Your next level doesn't begin with having all the answers.

It begins with becoming curious enough to question the stories that have been answering for you.

Before your leadership changes, your identity has to.

Explore YOUR RISE Method™ Experience or schedule a RISE Reflection Session to begin your journey.