The gap between facts and stories

Are you scared of the facts? Or just the stories you tell yourself?

A friend of mine was offered a job recently. In their own words, it felt "terrifying."

They had worked in the same place for over thirty years. They loved what they did and they were genuinely brilliant at it. So much so that someone else had noticed and had asked whether they fancied moving across from a field role into leadership.

Many of our mutual friends were immediately supportive. "Go for it! You'll be amazing. You have so many transferable skills. You'll smash it!" All said with love. None of it intended to mislead.

And yet all of it was adding to the fear. Because every word of encouragement created a new what if to worry about.

• What if I'm NOT amazing?

• What if I'm out of my depth?

• What if I don't smash it?

What do you actually know?

As my friend told me about the offer, we did not get into the transferable skills (of which there are genuinely a lot). We did not discuss the salary, the benefits, or the career trajectory...

And I asked just one question (in two parts).

What is it you actually know about this new job, and what is it you are telling yourself about it?

When my friend paused on that, they realised that they actually knew very little. The offer had been initial and informal, with an invitation to come in and talk things through in more detail.

Everything causing the 'terror' was based entirely on where their mind had wandered beyond that brief first exchange. There was no evidence to support any of it. None of the catastrophic scenarios had any basis in fact. They were stories. And there was a gap between facts and stories.

My advice was then simple. Go and have a proper conversation with the person who made the offer. Ask every question you need answered. And then, with actual information in hand, decide what you really want to do.

Catastrophising and the stories we tell ourselves

What my friend was experiencing has a name. Catastrophising is the tendency to assume the worst possible outcome of a future situation, even when there is little or no evidence that the worst is likely. It is, as one expert description puts it, turning a small worry into a mental snowball that grows until it becomes a mountain of anxiety.

It is also extraordinarily common. And extraordinarily inaccurate.

Research from Penn State University tracked the worries of participants over a thirty-day period, asking them to record specific fears and then review whether they actually came true.

The finding was striking: 91.4% of worries did not come true. Think about that statistic – nine out of ten of the things we catastrophise about never happen.

And of the small proportion that do? Psychology Today UK notes that even those outcomes are rarely as devastating as we imagined. A future problem can be significantly unpleasant without amounting to a disaster.

The gap between facts and stories

This is the distinction I come back to consistently in my work, and it sits at the heart of what The Four Fears® are really about.

There are the facts. And then there are the stories. The interpretations, projections, and worst-case-scenario narratives that our supercomputer brains construct in the absence of complete (truthful, proven) information.

The facts about my friend's situation were these: someone who respected their work had made an offer. A conversation had been suggested. Nothing had been agreed. Nothing had been decided. There was no evidence of any kind that they would fail, be out of their depth, or embarrass themselves.

The facts were, at that point, almost entirely benign. It was the stories that were doing the damage.

This is not unusual. It is the default. Research from the University of Reading found that people who like to feel in control are particularly prone to catastrophising, because uncertainty is genuinely uncomfortable for a brain that is wired to predict and manage outcomes. When the facts are incomplete, the brain fills the gap. And it fills it, almost invariably, with the worst version of what might be true.

The question (also in two parts) worth asking, in those moments of disproportionate fear, is this:

What do I actually know, and what am I telling myself?

Notice the gap between the two answers.

A pause changes everything

The most important moment in the conversation I had with my friend was not the question I asked. It was the pause that followed.

When my friend stopped to actually consider what they knew versus what they were telling themselves, the catastrophe narrative lost its momentum. The brain, given space to regulate, could distinguish between the story and the facts. And the facts, on their own, were considerably less terrifying.

This simple act of slowing down long enough to ask whether something is real or a story is one of the most powerful gifts we can give ourselves.

And that pause is available to you at any moment. The question is whether you are willing to use it.

Over to you

Think of something you are currently worrying (possibly catastrophising?) about. A decision you are avoiding, a conversation you are dreading, a scenario you have been playing out in your head in the middle of the night, because it won't let you sleep.

Write down what you actually know about it. What you know to be true. Put that in column one. Then write down what you are telling yourself about it in column two.

Again... notice the gap. Almost everything causing the fear will be in the second column. And the second column, by definition, is a story. Stories can be examined, challenged, and rewritten. Hey, it's your story – you hold the pen!

The facts are almost always more manageable than the narrative your Mind Monkeys have been building around them.

If you would like some help separating the two, the Business Bravery Quiz is a useful place to start. It will give you a clear (and personalised) picture of where fear is currently preventing you from moving forward and distracting you from the truth that already exists.

Mark Franklin is The Four Fears® Guy: a transformational mindset coach and speaker working with people who are building something of their own.

What story have you been telling yourself recently that the facts do not actually support? Drop it in the comments if you are willing. You might be surprised how many people are carrying the same one.