The Mind That Shapes the Story: How Coaching Works Beneath the Surface of What We Think We Know.

The Rooms We Live In Without Realising It

I sometimes think of the mind as a house with many rooms. Some we walk through every day without noticing. Others we have kept closed for years. Some we have never entered at all. But almost every room has a window that shapes how we see the world.

Most of us live in a single room of our own mind and assume that it’s the whole house. We assume our thoughts are facts and our  predictions are reality. We can feel like our identity is fixed and unchangeable. Yet the moment we open even one new window, the entire shape of our life begins to shift.

This is what coaching often reveals. Not a new version of us, but a new window. This brand new way of seeing ourselves, our story and what we believe is possible. But beneath these shifts are some quiet psychological forces we rarely stop to notice. Forces that shape how we learn, how we act, how we interpret the world and how we become who we think we are.

The Beliefs That Build the Foundation

I believe one of the most powerful things a person ever develops is self efficacy (the belief that you can influence your own outcomes). That quiet internal voice that says “I can.” It can sound small, but it changes everything.

What fascinates me is that this belief often shifts before any evidence appears. It is not the proof that creates the confidence. It is the confidence that allows the proof to emerge.

This is where coaching begins to feel almost alchemical. When someone sits with you and considers the possibility of a version of themselves they have never lived before, their brain starts preparing for that identity. This predictive processing (the brain pre-adjusting itself around what it expects to happen) is your mind quietly rehearsing your future before you have even stepped toward it. Coaching becomes the place where people finally notice that this window exists.

The Expectations We Rise To

Something I witness again and again is that people rise to expectations they never set for themselves. The Pygmalion effect (the idea that people perform better when others believe in them) shows us that human potential is often unlocked from the outside in.

But what really happens to someone when they feel deeply believed in or when that a belief is steadier than their self doubt? Sometimes that alone is enough for the mind to open a new room. What happens is that meaning enters in the moment someone realises they are allowed to outgrow the person they have been.

The Stories We Think Are Ours

Self perception theory (we learn who we are by watching our own behaviour) suggests that we are not trapped by our past. But we can actually be trapped by our interpretation of our past. Then there’s that question that’s almost impossible to answer. Are you living your life or are you living your interpretation of your life?

Coaching reveals that the story someone has been telling themselves is too small for the person they are becoming. When that story can be analysed for what it really is, identity begins to move. Like a door that has been stuck for years finally opening just a crack. Identity, becomes not a fixed truth, but a room we continue to renovate.

This invites people to choose what they want to wire into themselves. And because learning is state dependent (we learn and remember differently depending on our emotional state), the atmosphere, safety and presence all begin to matter. A mind that feels met starts to open in ways that cannot be forced.

The Meaning We Give to What We Feel

Cognitive reappraisal (the ability to reinterpret an experience in a new way) teaches us something profound. That we are not shaped solely by what happens. We are actually shaped by the meaning we give to what happens. Because fear can become information. A failure can become direction and a limitation can become a signal of where growth wants to happen.

But here is the deeper question. What if your experience is not the problem and your interpretation is the part that needs to evolve? Maybe with that question in mind, it’s important to understand that meaning does not remove pain, it transforms it into something we can carry.

Bringing the House Together

When you look at these ideas together, the metaphor becomes clearer. Your mind is not a single room. It is a house full of windows. Self efficacy opens one window. Expectation opens another. Identity opens a third. Our worldview changes the structure itself and meaning holds the whole house together.

Most of us are not trying to change our  behaviour. We are trying to find the room where change becomes possible. And coaching, at its best, is the moment when someone realises that they have been living in only one part of themselves. When they step into another room, the view changes. So does the story and the future they thought they had.

Closing the Circle

So here is a question I’m sitting with today.

What if transformation is not about becoming someone new, but instead it’s about finally seeing the rest of the house?

Coaching does not give people answers. It gives them windows. It shows them rooms they did not know were theirs. Slowly, they begin to realise that the story they thought they were living was only ever one version. I believe that meaning is not just discovered, it’s constructed and chosen. It’s reinforced and finally returned to. The mind reshapes itself the moment we are willing to open a different window.

Thank you for reading.

Isaac Davis