Is your Story a Dream or Nightmare?

Jake Luehrs
March 01, 2025

ONE QUESTION

Are you pursuing your best life or pursuing approval from others?

ONE THING TO PONDER

Comfort creates a prison that is hard to escape. It puts us in a place nowhere near our potential, yet not painful enough to change.

ONE PERSPECTIVE

Our challenges don't make us unique — they make us human. But what we do with those challenges....that's where our story truly begins.

What's your story? Or more importantly, what story are you telling yourself that could actually be causing you to suffer or hold back?

I ran across this pic from 5 years ago. I created the message for others, yet I was struggling silently…and I saw the word on the paper and thought, how ironic:)

SHIELDS AND CRUTCHES

‘I don’t know’ is often a shield to avoid the truth…the truth that we may be selling our potential short because we fear failure, judgment, and pain.

I know it, you do too…There is something big you’re not going after because of those fears.

There is a knowing that we often ignore. And ignoring that knowing eats away at our soul.

We've mastered sharing our hardships—the obstacles, the trauma, the daily battles. We wear our struggles like badges, sometimes not realizing we've turned them into prison walls.

I'm not suggesting minimizing those experiences.

I'm suggesting to use them as your fuel, not your crutch. We don’t need more crutches, we need more strength.

Process the challenges, accept them and work through them, but don't allow them to be the self-imposed cage you end up living in.

While we wait for someone to rescue us from our narrative, life is passing us by. No one—not a partner, friend, coach, or miracle—can rewrite our inner dialogue.

That is on you and only you.

A DECISION POINT

We don't have problems. We simply have decisions to make.

The healthiest form of growth comes from acceptance. Accept your struggles without judgment—see them for what they are, not what your fear makes them out to be.

The other option would be to resist them, blame others and circumstance, and remain trapped in your comfortable known misery.

You can't turn the page or write a new story if you're committed to holding on to the story you've always told yourself.

YOUR BREAKTHROUGH QUESTIONS

Take a moment, grab a pen and paper. Answer these questions from your intuition, not your logical mind:

What story are you telling yourself today?

Is this narrative serving your growth or hindering your potential?

Are you seeking attention through self pity or seeking solutions to move forward?

Remember, if you want different results, YOU must become different.

We can expect change if we aren’t willing to change first.

What an incredible gift that is—the power to choose who you become.

I'll see you along the way!

Onward and upward!Onward and upward!

PODCAST

Happiness is a Direction: Arthur Brooks

The Rich Roll Podcast

This is a deep thought podcast, nothing about it is surface level. So if depth isn’t the place you’re in, it may not be the right time for this one. I’m a significant fan of Aurthur Brooks. He dives into everything from why addiction plagues high achievers to the tension that shows up between striving and surrendering. Highly recommend if you’re in the right headspace to be open to hearing some hard truths.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Leadership and Self-Deception
by the Arbinger Institute

There is nothing more common in leadership than self-deception. This is a terrific read to gain some self-awareness. We unknowingly betray ourselves and then perpetuate that betrayal to justify our actions and decisions. The challenge is that many times we don’t even realize it’s what we are doing. This is a short read, but an impactful one with some significant nuggets.