Before You Set Another Goal, Question What You Believe.
An assumption is a thought we have never stopped to question. Often it isn't even true, and yet it quietly decides what we say, what we try and what we keep postponing.
I notice this in almost every coaching conversation at this time of year. We are tired. The school year is winding down, the traffic is worse, and December is close enough to see. The temptation is to tally up the year: what got done, what didn't, and what is somehow still on the list from last January.
Perhaps you made meaningful progress. Perhaps the year asked things of you that you could never have planned for. Or perhaps you are looking at a familiar goal and wondering why, despite your best intentions, it hasn't moved.
Before you turn that reflection into a new set of goals, or another reason to be disappointed in yourself, I want to invite you to look underneath them. What have you been assuming about what it would take to move forward?
Maybe you are waiting to feel more confident before you speak up, or for things to settle down before you look after yourself. Maybe you are waiting until you can explain a decision in a way that guarantees nobody will be disappointed. These conditions feel sensible, even responsible. But it is worth asking honestly: how long have you been waiting?
The decisions we make before anything happens
Imagine there is a conversation you know you need to have. You have thought about it in the car and rehearsed it in the shower. You have explained your position beautifully to a friend, a partner, anyone except the person you actually need to speak to.
You tell yourself you are waiting for the right moment. Underneath that is often an assumption: if I tell them what I need, I will damage the relationship. The conversation hasn't happened, yet you are already living with its imagined consequences.
In coaching, I see how often the real work is not the conversation itself but the story we have built around it. When a leader finally has the talk they have been dreading, the response is frequently not rejection but relief. The other person had sensed the tension too and didn't know how to name it.
I often say that the words "I assumed" should set off a quiet internal alarm. I assumed they would do the work. I assumed it would be the same as last time, so I avoided it. I assumed they knew what I wanted.
The same quiet decisions show up everywhere: the idea you don't share, the boundary you don't set, the responsibility you keep holding. They will think I am difficult. It will be quicker if I do it myself. If I need help, I shouldn't be in this role. An assumption can become so familiar that we stop hearing it as a thought. It becomes the explanation for why we can't, and because we believe the explanation, we stop looking for options.
What do you actually know?
Some of our concerns are grounded in real experience. You may have had an idea dismissed, or watched a boundary land badly. Questioning an assumption doesn't ask you to pretend that didn't happen. It asks you to look carefully at the conclusion you drew from it.
There is a difference between "the last time I raised a concern, my manager became defensive" and "there is no point raising concerns." The first describes an experience. The second quietly decides every future conversation before it begins.
You can acknowledge that a previous exchange was difficult and still choose a different approach: another time, a clearer intention, some support beforehand. A useful place to start is a simple question:
What do I know, and what have I filled in for myself?
You know the email hasn't been answered; you may not know why. You know someone questioned your recommendation; that alone doesn't tell you whether they trust your judgement. You know you feel uncomfortable, and there may still be something valuable on the other side of that discomfort. Separating fact from story gives you more to work with, and almost always more choice.
A question that creates room to move
In Time to Think, Nancy Kline describes Incisive Questions as a way of loosening the assumptions that restrict our thinking. You identify the limiting assumption, examine whether it is true, and then find a liberating alternative you can credibly believe.
That word, credibly, matters more than it first appears. If you are afraid of disappointing someone, telling yourself they will definitely understand might feel reassuring, but you can't know it, and part of you won't believe it. Something more grounded is often more powerful: I can care about this person and be honest about my capacity.
Once you have an alternative you can stand behind, you place it inside a question:
If I knew [the freeing truth], what would I [do / say / ask]?
Applied to the postponed conversation, it becomes: If I knew I could be caring and clear at the same time, what would I say? The other person may still feel disappointed. But their disappointment is no longer the thing deciding whether you speak.
Notice what happens to your thinking when you ask it. The question doesn't argue with you. It simply opens a door, and suddenly there are words, a first sentence, a time you could book in the diary. Something you can actually try.
Which assumption sounds like you?
The Enneagram has taught me that we don't all carry the same assumptions. Each of us tends to have a favourite, one that feels less like a belief and more like simply how life works. See whether one of these sounds familiar:
Type One: It has to be right before I share it.
Type Two: If I say no, I'll lose the connection.
Type Three: My worth is in what I deliver.
Type Four: If they really knew me, they wouldn't understand.
Type Five: I need to know more before I can act.
Type Six: If I don't anticipate what could go wrong, it will.
Type Seven: If I slow down, I'll miss out, or feel the hard thing and get trapped there.
Type Eight: If I soften, I'll be taken advantage of or lose control.
Type Nine: If I speak up, I'll disrupt the peace.
As a Type One, I assume that if I am not using my time in the most productive way, I am wasting it. It's why I find it genuinely difficult to truly relax and "do nothing".
You don't need to know your type to use this. Simply notice which line caught you. That's usually the assumption worth questioning first.
A ten-minute year-end reflection
Find ten quiet minutes, a pen and something to write on. Choose one thing that has stayed unresolved this year, something you keep circling back to. Below, I've walked the postponed conversation through each step so you can see how it unfolds.
What would I like to happen here? Be specific. "I want things to be better with my colleague" might become "I want to tell them that the way meetings are run is leaving me without time to prepare."
What am I assuming that makes this difficult? Write it down exactly as it sounds in your head, without correcting it. If I raise this, they'll think I'm criticising them, and it will make things worse.
What makes me believe this, and what might I be overlooking? Perhaps they took feedback well from someone else. Perhaps your own relationships have become more honest, not less, after a hard conversation.
What can I credibly believe instead? I can raise this as someone who wants our work to go well.
What is my Incisive Question? If I knew I could raise this as someone who wants our work to go well, how would I open the conversation?
What is one small action I can take this week? Perhaps simply: "Could we find twenty minutes this week? There's something I'd like to talk through with you."
Small enough to do, and meaningful enough to begin changing the pattern.
Give other people room to think, too
Nancy Kline suggests that one of a leader's most important jobs is to create a Thinking Environment, where people can think for themselves with clarity and courage. At its heart, this is about the quality of your attention: listening without interrupting, letting someone finish their thought, and trusting that they will often arrive somewhere better than where you would have taken them.
Year-end check-ins are a perfect place to practise this. Before you assume someone needs more confidence, more discipline or another development goal, get curious about their experience. You might ask:
What have you handled this year that you would once have found difficult?
What are you most proud of, even if nobody else noticed?
What have you learnt about yourself?
Where are you holding back, and what are you concerned might happen?
If you assumed something more liberating, what would your first step be?
What could I do differently that would make it easier for you to contribute?
Then comes the hardest part: give them time to answer. Resist filling the silence. You may hear something you hadn't considered, including an assumption of your own.
What are you ready to reconsider?
As you look back on 2026, make room to honour both what you achieved and what you carried. Then look gently at the beliefs that travelled with you. Does rest still have to be earned? Does being capable mean managing alone? Does someone else's disappointment always mean you made the wrong decision?
You don't need to question everything at once. Start with the belief that keeps appearing in the area where you most want something to change. Write it down, get curious about it, and consider what else might be true.
There are still a few weeks left in this year: enough time to have the conversation, ask for the support or make the decision you have been postponing. So before you write a single goal for 2027, I'd love you to sit with one question:
What becomes possible if the assumption I've been living by is no longer the only option?
If you're willing, share the assumption you're ready to question in the comments. Naming it is often the first step in loosening its hold. And if you'd like support thinking it through, I'd be glad to book a year-end clarity session with you.
Here's to giving yourself room to think.
Warm wishes,
Lori