I Still Get Tripped Up By My Brain (Even After 5 Years of Coaching)

I still get tripped up by my brain.

And I've been a coach now for 5 years (officially) – 30+ years (unofficially).

Recently, I caught myself spiralling because a potential client went silent after our discovery call. My brain immediately went to: "See? You're not good enough at this. Your messaging is off. You should have said X instead of Y. Maybe you should just lower your prices."

Classic flavour of brain drama for me.

None of it was true. She emailed two days later to book - she'd just been hit with a family emergency.

But in those 48 hours? I was ready to burn down my entire business model based on thoughts my brain offered up as facts.

This is what I do for a living - help people see their thoughts aren't facts - and I still fall for it. Every single coach I know still falls for it. Every successful entrepreneur I've worked with still falls for it.

Because your brain is sneaky. It doesn't announce "Hey, I'm about to feed you some complete nonsense dressed up as reality!" It just serves up the thought with absolute conviction, and you believe it.

Until you don't.

Going Back to the Basics: Three Mindset Lessons Every Business Owner Needs

So I want to go back to the basics as a reminder for both of us. Three foundational lessons I learned years ago that I occasionally still forget - but that save me oodles of time, energy, and well-being when I remember them.

1. What You Think Is Not Always True

Your brain is trying to keep you safe, not accurate.

It will offer you worst-case scenarios dressed up as reality. It will interpret silence as rejection, a slow month as failure, a difficult conversation as proof you're not cut out for this.

When that client went silent, my brain didn't say "Maybe she's busy" or "Maybe something came up." It went straight to "You're not good enough and everyone can see it."

That's not analysis. That's catastrophising with a productivity bow on top.

Your brain does this because for most of human history, assuming the worst kept us alive. That rustling in the bushes? Better assume it's a tiger than risk being wrong.
But in business? That same wiring makes you interpret a quiet week as impending doom. A tough client conversation as evidence you should quit. A moment of struggle as proof you're failing.

None of that is true. It's just your brain doing its job badly.

The work is learning to question it. Every single dramatic thought deserves a "says who?"

When your brain offers up "You're not making progress," ask it: compared to what? Based on what timeline? Using what measurement?

When it tells you "This isn't working," ask: what specifically isn't working? For how long? And what would "working" actually look like?

Most of the time, when you actually interrogate the thought, it falls apart. Because it was never based on facts - it was based on fear.

2. Your Thoughts and Beliefs Are Not Always Yours

This one messes with people.

You think the only way to succeed is to work your butt off until you do, even though you see others doing it differently and still prospering. But that's what your parents and teachers believed, so you do too, and you pull up your sleeves and get to work.

You use an outdated productivity model to create and succeed in a world that needs your innovation, not dedication to the grind.

Some of your beliefs come from societal norms from the last century that your loved ones and role models grew up with. You've inherited them like hand-me-down furniture - never questioning whether they actually fit your life.

Here's what that looked like for me:

I believed that if I wasn't exhausted at the end of the day, I hadn't worked hard enough. That belief didn't come from my experience - it came from watching loved ones work themselves to the bone and hearing that praised as "dedication."

I believed that struggle was the price of success. Not because I'd tested it, but because every story I'd been told about achievement involved someone suffering first.

I believed that rest was something you earned, not something you needed. Because that's what hustle culture taught me, what corporate mentors modelled, what every "successful" person seemed to believe.

None of those beliefs were mine. I adopted them. Absorbed them. Assumed they were facts instead of inherited opinions.

And they nearly destroyed my business and my health before I realised I could question them.

What beliefs are you carrying that don't actually belong to you?

The one that says you need to be available 24/7 or clients will go elsewhere? The one that says investing in yourself is selfish when you have a family? The one that says if it's not hard, it's not valuable?

Where did those come from? Who taught you that? And more importantly - is it actually true, or is it just what you were told?

3. You Can Decide What You Want to Believe

This is the one people argue with me about the most.

"But Tricia, I can't just decide to believe something different. I can't just magically think my way out of reality."

You're right. You can't think your way out of reality.

But you can absolutely choose which thoughts you want to think about reality.

Here's what I mean:

You weren't born believing you needed to earn rest. You learned it. You weren't born believing ease meant you weren't working hard enough. Someone taught you that. You weren't born believing your worth was tied to your productivity. You absorbed it.

And what was learned can be unlearned. What was absorbed can be released.

The facts of your business are just facts: you had three sales calls this week, two clients renewed, one prospect didn't respond, you worked 35 hours, you made X revenue.
But the meaning you assign to those facts? That's completely up to you.

Your brain might offer: "Only three calls? That's not enough. You should be worried. This means you're not working hard enough on lead generation."

You could also choose: "Three quality calls is exactly what I needed this week. Two renewals is proof that my work creates value. One non-response is just data, not a referendum on my worth."

Same facts. Completely different experience.

The resistance to this idea is real, and I get it.

Sometimes the very idea that you can choose what to believe feels scary. Because if you can choose, that means you're responsible. And if you're responsible, you can't blame your circumstances, your past, or your brain for keeping you stuck.

So you argue that you can't choose. You insist that your thoughts are just "the truth" and there's nothing you can do about them.

And in doing so, you end up arguing for the beliefs that keep you small.

I watch this happen with clients all the time. They'll tell me they "can't" believe they're capable of running a six-figure business while working 25 hours a week. When I ask why not, they'll list all the evidence their brain has collected to support that belief.

But they never question why their brain is so committed to collecting that specific evidence while ignoring everything that contradicts it.

You can believe you're behind and failing, or you can believe you're exactly where you need to be and building something sustainable. Both are interpretations. Neither is objective truth.

The question isn't which one is "right." The question is: which one actually serves you?

Why Mindset Matters More Than Strategy for Business Owners

I spent my first two years in business convinced I had a strategy problem.

I needed better marketing. A clearer niche. More sophisticated funnels. Different pricing. Better systems.

And sure, I could have improved all of those things.

But the real problem was my thinking.

I thought I needed to hustle and grind to prove I was serious. I thought if something felt easy, I was doing it wrong. I thought rest was laziness and struggle was virtue.

No amount of strategy was going to fix that. Because I was using an outdated operating system to run my business.

Sometimes I find it strange that we live in a highly tech-savvy society, yet our brains, in some ways, are still operating on archaic software.

We're walking around with the mental equivalent of Windows 95, wondering why we keep crashing.

We are still unaware that we can question what we think. That every thought is optional.
We don't recognize that we can update our beliefs the same way we update our phones - by choosing to install new software that actually supports what we're trying to build.

How to Question Your Thoughts and Change Your Beliefs

These are three 'basic' lessons that save me oodles of time, energy, and well-being when I remember them:

1. What you think is not always true
2. Your thoughts and beliefs are not always yours
3. You can decide what you want to believe

Simple? Yes. Easy? Not always. Worth practicing? Absolutely.

Because here's what I know after five years of doing this work:

The entrepreneurs who thrive aren't the ones with the best strategy. They're the ones who can manage their minds while executing strategy.

They're the ones who can catch the catastrophic thought and question it before it derails their week.

They're the ones who can identify an inherited belief and decide whether to keep it or release it.

They're the ones who understand that choosing empowering thoughts isn't toxic positivity - it's strategic thinking.

Pressure Test Your Thinking: A Simple Exercise for Business Owners

If things are going wrong in your business this week, go back to the basics and pressure test your thinking.

Ask yourself:
1. Is this really true? Not "does it feel true" - is it objectively, provably true? Can you present it in court with evidence?
2. Does this belief belong to me? Or have I inherited or adopted it from someone else's playbook? Where did I learn this? Who taught me this was true?
3. What would I want to believe about what's happening if I could choose? Because you can. You absolutely can. What belief would actually serve you here?

Your brain will try to convince you that your thoughts are facts.
They're not.

They're just thoughts.

And you get to decide which ones you keep.