The belief that quietly shapes your identity, and how to challenge it

I have always believed that I am terrible at seeing spatial relationships. In fact, when I was much younger, I didn’t get hired by the post office because I couldn’t figure out how to unfold and reconstruct a cardboard box. While spatial relationships may be obvious to everyone else, they have rarely revealed themselves to me. Consequently, I never considered becoming an architect, an engineer, or a graphic artist, each of which requires the ability to design structures, manipulate 3D objects, or navigate complex physical environments.


It wasn’t just a belief that I lacked the cognitive skill to understand spatial relationships, I had evidence. Failing the post office carton test seemed to prove that I would never succeed at any job or activity requiring even a rudimentary ability in this area. That was it. The door was closed. Permanently, or so I believed.

This is how identity works.

We form a belief about ourselves.

We gather evidence to support it.

We organize our lives around it.

And over time, we stop questioning it.

What begins as a conclusion slowly hardens into identity.

Last year, I went to visit a friend who had been experiencing some cognitive difficulties. Her neurologist suggested that she do jigsaw puzzles to improve her cognitive function, and she invited me to join her.


“No way!” I replied. “I’m terrible at spatial relationships. I’ve never been able to do jigsaw puzzles, and I highly doubt I could do one now.”

She was kind but persistent. “The best way to start,” she said, “is to find all the edge pieces and build the perimeter. From there, you can begin to fill in the rest.”


I was skeptical. I still couldn’t see how any of the pieces fit together. But I did notice something: every edge piece had one smooth, continuous side.

That small observation became the first crack in my long-held belief.

A few weeks later, I noticed that the LA Times offered a daily online jigsaw puzzle, just 30 pieces. I don’t know what possessed me to try it, but I did. At first, I only completed the perimeter. Even that felt like a breakthrough.


Little by little, I got braver. I began attempting to finish the entire puzzle. After two weeks, I completed my first one. I could hardly believe it!


From there, I kept going. Every day, I practiced. I moved from simply finishing to finishing consistently, and then to finishing faster.

Within a month, I had found other online puzzle sites. Now I do one jigsaw puzzle every single day. To my surprise, I can comfortably complete a 200-piece puzzle online. It may take several hours, but that’s okay.


The more I practice, the more I can see how the pieces relate to one another. I notice edges, patterns, and subtle distinctions. I’m no longer blindly guessing where a piece might go. I’m making informed choices.

My ability to perceive spatial relationships has improved.

Looking back, what changed wasn’t my intelligence.

It was my willingness to test what I believed.

Change didn’t come from insight. It came from a small experiment.

For decades, I lived inside what I now think of as an Identity Loop:

• A belief: I’m bad at spatial relationships
• Supporting evidence: the post office failure
• Avoidance: never trying again
• Reinforcement: the belief becomes “who I am”

The loop is elegant and limiting.

But something disrupted it.

A single observation.

A low-stakes attempt.

A willingness to be wrong.

That disruption created what I now see as a different pattern: a Disruption Cycle:

• A small contradiction
• A safe experiment
• New evidence
• An updated belief

Not a total reinvention. Just a shift. But enough to open the door.

Interestingly, I’ve always been highly attuned to interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics. But until I was willing to question my identity as “someone who is bad at spatial relationships,” nothing could change.

We don’t resist change because we’re lazy.

We resist it because changing a belief can feel like losing who we are.

As I’ve shared in previous newsletters, identity is largely composed of our beliefs about ourselves: our perceived capabilities, limitations, and relationships to others and the world.


But here’s the subtle and important distinction:

A belief is not reality.

It is a story we’ve told ourselves about reality.


The problem isn’t that we have beliefs. The problem is that we stop distinguishing between the story and what is actually true.

Over time, those stories become invisible. They operate as assumptions rather than hypotheses.

And assumptions don’t get tested.

This is where change becomes difficult and where support can become essential.

We all have blind spots that quietly reinforce our identity. It’s very hard to see beyond them on our own.

A therapist, coach, or even a thoughtful, unbiased friend can help us identify the beliefs we’ve stopped questioning and support us in testing them.

Because ultimately, this is the work:

Not tearing down who you are.

But becoming more honest about what’s actually true.

This is also the work I do with clients.

Together, we identify the beliefs that feel fixed, trace the evidence that supports them, and create small, safe experiments to test what else might be possible.

Not dramatic change.

Just enough of a shift to let new information in.

So I’ll leave you with this:

What belief about yourself have you accepted as fact?

Where did it come from?

And when was the last time you tested it?

Every belief is a story. And every story can be revised.