It’s something I started thinking about recently. And I have to warn you—it was a little uncomfortable at first. But it was also one of the most useful things I’ve done for my mental state in a while.
Our brains are storytelling machines. All day long, they take the raw material of whatever is happening around us and spin it into a narrative. And the narrative feels real. Feels true. It feels like just the way things are.
But a lot of the time? We made it up.
Not on purpose or maliciously. It’s simply because that’s what brains do. They fill in gaps, assign meaning, connect dots—and sometimes they get it completely wrong. The story your brain tells you about a situation can be so convincing that you never stop to ask: Is this actually what’s happening, or is this a lie I’m telling myself?
So I’ve been asking myself, “What am I making up right now?” so I can get to the bottom of it.
The Houseguest Story
If you didn’t know, my mother-in-law has been staying with us. And if you’ve ever had a long-term houseguest—family or otherwise—you know that it shifts things. Your routine, your space, and your rhythm are all completely turned around and twisted. Things that are usually yours suddenly require some negotiation, even when everyone is being perfectly lovely about it.
I noticed that I was putting enormous pressure on myself to keep everything normal. I tried not to let the disruption show. To somehow maintain my usual pace and habits and my sense of self. As if nothing had changed, when clearly something had changed. I was frustrated, stressed, and felt like I’d lost something.
Then I asked myself: What am I making up here?
Because here’s what was actually true: My mother-in-law being there wasn’t the problem. The story I was telling myself about it was the problem. I was telling myself I should be operating at full capacity and that any disruption to my routine was a personal failure. That I couldn’t live my life a little differently for a while and be okay with that. The fact is, my routine has been a little off. That’s it; that’s the whole fact.
Everything else—the pressure, the frustration, the sense that things were falling apart—I made all that up. My brain took “routine is a little different” and turned it into “everything is wrong, and you’re not handling it.” Those are not the same thing.
When I finally put the story down, I realized I could be present. I could let my house feel a little different for a while without it meaning anything catastrophic about me or my life or my ability to function. The situation hadn’t changed; the story had.
The $100K Story
Here’s the other one I’ve been sitting with.
This year’s financial goal is audacious and scary. It’s six figures. Every time I’m on a Zoom call, I see the reminder on a sticky note right above my camera. I put that reminder there so I can know where I’m headed. Lately, every time I look at it, my brain has been offering me a very specific story.
You’re not even close and you’re not going to get there. Who are you kidding?
The feeling is real. I keep telling myself I should be way futher ahead than I am, so the discouragement is real. But is the story true?
The goal exists because I set it—which means at some point, I believed it was achievable. The business I’m running is generating revenue. I am learning and growing every single day, and by the end of the year, I’ll have a team member. The gap between where I am now and where I want to be is not evidence that the goal is impossible. It’s just evidence that I’m not there yet.
“Not there yet” and “can’t get there” are not the same thing. Not even close.
What I was making up was a conclusion. I was telling myself that the distance between me and my goal meant the goal was out of reach. But distance isn’t a verdict. Distance is just distance. You close it when you keep going, not when you decide the destination doesn’t exist.
Something shifted the moment I separated the story (“I can’t get there”) from the fact (“I’m not there yet”). The goal stopped feeling like a taunt and started feeling like what it actually is—a direction.
How to Ask Yourself About the Lies We Tell Ourselves
So how do you figure out what’s real and what you’re making up?
First, start by noticing when something feels heavy. When a situation is producing a lot of emotion—stress, discouragement, frustration, pressure—that’s usually a signal that a story is running in the background. The emotion is real. Whether the story driving it is real is something to investigate.
Separate what is happening (or happened) from what you decided it means.
What happened is a fact. It’s observable, neutral, and can be proven. The weather. Data in a spreadsheet. The person living in your house. What it means is the part you’re adding. That’s the part worth examining.
Ask yourself: If I took the story away, what’s left?
Sometimes you’ll find that the situation is genuinely difficult and the feelings are completely warranted. That happens too. Not everything is a mental narrative that needs reframing. But a lot of the time, you’ll find that the situation is manageable and the suffering is coming from a story on top of it. When that’s the case, you get to put the story down.
What Are You Making Up?
I’m not suggesting you gaslight yourself into thinking everything is fine when it isn’t. What I am suggesting is that you get curious about the difference between what’s true and what you’re treating as true.
The routine being off = true.
“My life is derailed” = made up.
Not at the goal yet = true.
“I’ll never get there” = made up.
The facts are almost always more neutral than the stories. And when you can see the facts clearly, you can actually do something useful with them—instead of spinning in a story that’s keeping you stuck.
So the next time something feels bigger than it probably should, try asking the question: What am I making up?
You might be surprised how much lighter things get when you stop carrying a story that was never real to begin with.
