There are times in which we notice, that we don’t correspond to our own expectations. We live with stories we tell ourselves. Some of these stories describe our assumptions of what we should be able to do, what should be easy for us or what we’ll never do.

Until the day, where things are different.

In a recent conversation, a friend shared that she felt like a fraud. What she stands for, is to help leaders develop innovative leadership and lead their teams into change. And here she was learning how change was difficult to her in a specific situation.

How could she find herself challenged by change, when her work is about helping others to change?

Her expectations had been playing a trick on her. Instead of being able to see this as a situation she had not experienced before, she only saw that something she was inviting others to do was challenging to herself. Leading to the conclusion “I’m a fraud”.

What she couldn’t see at that moment, was the generalization she was using. She missed seeing how the generalization “I have to always be able to do what I ask others to do” made if impossible for her to see her situation as an unknown one.

Beliefs and self-judgments are often faster than our ability to see reality.

The reason is simple: the security of knowing something often feels preferable to having to learn something new and not knowing where this leads us to.