The Real You Is Waiting
There I was, mid-conversation, saying something I’d said a hundred times before, when I realized it was a lie.
I didn’t even notice at first. I’d told that story about myself so many times it felt automatic.
“That’s not true,” I blurted out, awkwardly interrupting myself.
“I don’t know why I just said that.”
(Which, in retrospect, might have been another lie.)
What I realized in that moment was this: I wasn’t lying on purpose.
I was repeating an old story about myself. A familiar, well-worn, unexamined identity that once made sense, but didn’t anymore.
And even spoken clumsily, the truth felt lighter than the lie.
Most of us aren’t telling the truth about who we are, and we don’t even realize it. We’re telling stories based on the meaning we made from past experiences and what helped us feel safe.
We’re the achiever.
We’re the good girl.
We’re the caretaker.
We’re the one who keeps the peace.
We’re the one who holds it all together.
That identity may have helped you succeed. It may have protected you. It may have made you admired, appreciated, or needed.
But here’s the thing most people never see:
We live inside painful stories for so long they start to feel like facts.
We repeat them to others.
We act them out unconsciously.
And eventually, we live the consequences of stories we never meant to write.
Those stories generate fear and self-doubt, which then drive our behavior. And as we act from that place, we keep telling the same story—creating an identity loop that reinforces itself.
It’s painful. And it’s not permanent.
But here’s what most people don’t see, and why they stay stuck:
They’re waiting for circumstances to change.
For other people to change.
For something outside of them to finally make life feel different.
Meanwhile, the same story about who they are keeps running in the background.
The fear makes sense. The self-doubt feels justified. And the loop continues.
And until that story is interrupted, nothing actually changes.
Not because they’re failing, but because they’re living from an identity they’ve never questioned.
And that is something we can change.
And the way you do that isn’t by trying harder or “fixing” yourself.
It’s by recognizing the story you’ve been telling, interrupting it, and changing who you believe yourself to be.
Awareness is the opening.
Earlier today, I watched this happen with a client. When I asked her what she wanted, she hesitated. All she knew was that she was tired of surviving and wanted to trust herself.
As we stayed with the question, something clicked.
What she really wanted wasn’t a different job or a better plan.
She wanted to be the woman who trusts herself.
That was an identity shift.
She was already there.
She’d just been buried under years of self-doubt and over-reliance on other people’s opinions.
So instead of asking, What should I do?
We asked a different question:
Who do I want to be?
From there, everything changed.
Because when identity shifts, behavior follows.
You stop trying to prove.
You stop over-explaining.
You start acting from a different internal authority.
As a coach, I help people interrupt the loop, notice the identity they’re living from, question whether it’s true, and choose a truer one.
Let’s do this together right now.
Pay attention to anything you say about yourself that feels small, limited, or not-enough, even if it feels true (in the beginning, it often feels true).
Just notice.
Then ask:
- How long have I been telling myself this story?
- Who would I be if this story weren’t true?
- How would I act if I were already living as that version of myself?
Sometimes the first step in rewriting your life isn’t adding anything new.
It’s recognizing the painful story you’ve been living inside, and choosing to write a new one.
Notice the story you’re telling.
Who do you want to be in your new story?
Write one line of that story now.
Something simple, like: I’m the person who trusts the intelligence of my body.
Then take one small action that aligns with that truth.
Stand up. Take a walk. Breathe more slowly.
Every new story starts with one line.
Every meaningful change begins with one action.
Open a fresh page and start writing now.
I write regularly about fear, aliveness, and the inner choices that shape our lives. More of that writing lives on Substack.
