The Same Stories Show Up Everywhere

After nearly two decades of working with high-achieving people from all walks of life, I’ve learned that the same stories show up everywhere.

The perfectionism that delays a project also slows progress on a passion. The fear of judgment that keeps someone quiet in meetings also keeps them from expressing their creativity. The inner voice that says “I can’t do this” during a hard workout doesn’t stay on the running trail. It follows them into their relationships and work as well.

There’s a reason the same pattern keeps surfacing in places that seem to have nothing to do with each other. From birth, our brains constantly rewire based on what we experience, think, and do. The thoughts we encounter most often, especially the ones tied to something emotionally charged, wear a groove over time. That groove becomes the default pattern, the first place the mind goes before we’ve consciously chosen anything. So when a new situation carries even a hint of an old one, the brain reaches for the same story it’s reached for a hundred times before. The circumstances keep changing, but the groove underneath stays right where it is. It’s why someone who catastrophizes in the first mile of a hard run will often do the exact same thing walking into a hard conversation. The brain isn’t sorting those into separate drawers. It’s sending them down one familiar track.

Consider this: I’ve been working with an experienced marathoner training to qualify for Boston. Like many distance runners, she frequently does progression runs: workouts that start at an easy pace and get progressively faster until the final miles are genuinely uncomfortable. Early on, I asked her to pay attention during these runs to where her mind goes when things start to get hard. She discovered something fascinating: her mind began catastrophizing during the first mile, while she was still running at a leisurely pace. “This is going to be terrible.” “I’m not going to make it.” The discomfort hadn’t even set in yet, but her mind was already writing the story of her failure. When she pushed through to the harder miles, she found her body was far more capable than her mind had predicted.

She recognized the same pattern in her life beyond running: dreading difficult conversations before they happened, imagining worst-case scenarios before meetings even started. Once she could see how her mind related to challenge, she could separate the narrative from reality and choose a different response.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask is: “Where else in your life does that apply?” This question reveals the universal beneath the specific. Someone might come in thinking they learned something about managing a difficult direct report. But when you ask where else that applies, suddenly they’re seeing a pattern about how they handle conflict with anyone they perceive as challenging their authority. Their teenager. Their business partner. Their own inner critic. The specific action becomes a doorway to broader self-knowledge.

And because you’re asking rather than telling, you’re letting the client make the connection themselves. You’re not saying “I notice this pattern seems to show up in your marriage too.” (Please don’t say that.) You’re creating space for them to discover that, which makes it stick. This question can also organically elevate the work. What started as a tactical goal (“communicate better with my team”) might evolve into something more fundamental (“understand why I lash out when I feel questioned”).

When you ask the questions that invite people to have insights about themselves, the abstract becomes personal. That’s where coaching becomes truly powerful: when you guide clients from self-discovery toward self-mastery.

Try this week

The next time someone brings you an “aha” moment or something they’ve learned from a new way of working or relating, celebrate the win. And then, ask with curiosity: “Where else in your life could this apply?”

Then try it on yourself. Over the next few days, pay attention to the language you use when you’re challenged or uncomfortable. What words do you repeat? What do those phrases tell you about a story you might be carrying into more situations than you realize?

Tell me in the comments: what’s a pattern you’ve watched follow someone (a teammate, a partner, or honestly, yourself) from one part of life into another? I read every one.