by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Are You Living in Reality or Are You Flying Blind?
Human beings are meaning-making machines.
We walk through life viewing the world not as it truly is, but as we interpret it to be. Every encounter, every decision, and every experience is filtered through a veil of assumptions, expectations, and beliefs.
These mental shortcuts – our assumptions – help us make sense of an otherwise overwhelming world of chaos and confusion, but they can also lead us astray, keeping us from truly engaging with reality.
Really, it’s a bit of a paradox: while our assumptions allow us to navigate life and to survive in the world, they often prevent us from seeing things clearly and getting to a place where we can truly thrive.
I guess the challenge really lies in recognising when these assumptions serve us and when they hinder us – to know the difference between the REAL and the UNREAL because if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s this:
The Veiled Veil: Living Through Filters
Imagine walking through life with a veil over your eyes – not an opaque one that blinds you completely, but a translucent one that subtly distorts what you see. This is how the human mind operates:
Between your perceptions and the external world lies the filter of your thoughts, beliefs, and past experiences.
We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.
Everything we encounter is coloured by our perceptions, our inner emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and/or trauma, usually), and our conceptualisation of what we perceive (this is the Veiled Veil of limited perception (because our bodies are limited) and the limited interpretation (based on our ‘stuff’).
Your interactions, judgments, and decisions are all influenced by this filter, which has also been shaped by your upbringing, cultural conditioning, personal experiences, and even the evolutionary wiring of your brain.
It’s a cocktail of your past, how willing you are to face it, and the ego you’ve created for yourself in reaction to it that’s sent many ‘parts’ of you hiding in the Shadow Territory. Everything you assume is rooted in all of this – not necessarily the TRUTH of what’s REAL.
At its core, this filtering process is a survival mechanism – the human brain, faced with a world of infinite complexity and chaos, simplifies in order to feel a sense of order; it prioritises what’s relevant and discards the rest, helping you avoid sensory overload.
But this comes at a cost:
In simplifying the world, our minds also distort it. Assumptions – those untested, UNREAL beliefs we treat as facts -take the place of direct experience of something REAL.
What Are Assumptions, Really?
Assumptions are mental shortcuts that help us navigate the unknown. At their most basic level, they’re pieces of data that we treat as true, even though we haven’t verified them.
For example, if you’ve always believed that you’re “bad with money” you might approach financial decisions with an air of defeat before even trying to manage your finances properly. This assumption becomes self-fulfilling, not because it reflects reality, but because it shapes your behaviour in ways that reinforce the unreal belief (it’s unreal because being “good with money” is a skill and attitude that you can learn).
The problem isn’t that we make assumptions; it’s that we forget they’re assumptions in the first place – we mistake them for reality and just float through life acting according to them instead of what’s actually going on ‘out there’.
This conflation of assumption and fact is where things go wrong. If we’re not careful, we end up living in a mental world of illusions, disconnected from what’s really happening, and finding ourselves lost to the Void as we (mis)perceive life instead of actually living it.

Assumptions Are Not Always About Facts
Leadership expert Peter Senge, in The Fifth Discipline, points out that assumptions don’t just revolve around facts. They also include methods, goals, and values. In other words, assumptions dictate not only what we believe to be true but also how we think things should be done and what we consider important.
This is why assumptions often lead to conflict – both with ourselves and with others. If you’ve ever argued with someone about the ‘right’ way to do something, for example, or about what’s ‘fair’, you’ve experienced the clash of differing assumptions.
The key to avoiding unnecessary conflict?
Make the unspeakable speakable.
(This why a real conversation can change your life).
Bring assumptions to light – instead of arguing over surface-level issues, dig deeper:
Ask others questions like, “What do you expect of me?” or ask yourself probing questions like “What do I assume to be true here, and why?”
Essentially, if you’re acting on assumptions then you need to go deeper – if you don’t know if you’re acting on assumptions or not but you have a lot of conflict or frustration in your life (which means you’re out-of-sync with reality) then you need to keep digging until you get to the ROOT of whatever it is that you really think.
Only then can you free yourself and grow real.
Expectations and Ego: The Illusions We Cling To
Closely tied to assumptions are expectations – our internal projections of how things ‘should’ go or even BE.
The short-version is that expectations are often born from our needs, insecurities, and desires – all inspired by our underlying, unresolved SHAME and how it forces us to try and control the world and the people in it so we can keep our ego were it needs to be in order to avoid facing ourselves. They’re less about reality and more about our ego trying to stake a claim on the world.
(This is different to standards which are healthy boundaries about how we’ll be treated or how we’ll show up in life).
When expectations go unmet, it’s easy to feel frustrated, hurt, or even betrayed but the issue often isn’t the situation itself – it’s our attachment to how we thought things ‘should’ be based on what our ego needs to feel satsified (i.e. to keep the Shadow Self at bay).
Letting go of these attachments doesn’t mean lowering your standards; it means approaching life with curiosity and openness instead of rigid demands and the control freakery that sustains ego and holds us back from growth.
Instead of asking, “Why didn’t this go my way?” ask “What’s actually happening here?”
In doing so, you align yourself by with reality by taking ‘yourself’ out of the equation rather than fighting against it by forcing your ego onto things.
Real Always Works
This brings us to a key point: real always works.
Reality doesn’t care about your assumptions, expectations, or beliefs. It simply is. All we can really do is:
- Accept that it is what it is.
- Try to resist it and be frustrated and/or miserable.
If you want to get results- whether in your career, relationships, or on a personal growth journey – you need to engage with reality as it is, not as you wish it to be.
When you align your actions with reality, things start to flow.
You can’t build a house on imagined foundations and expect it to stand – in the same way, you can’t build a meaningful life on unexamined assumptions and illusions.
You need to build on something solid and the only solid foundation is REALITY in TRUTH.
Steps to Engage With Reality
Breaking free from the prison of assumptions and aligning with reality takes effort, but it’s worth it – here are some practical steps to help you:
- Cultivate Awareness
Start by becoming aware of your assumptions – pay attention to the thoughts and beliefs that guide your decisions.
Ask yourself:- What am I assuming to be true in this situation?Is this assumption based on evidence or is it a projection of my past experiences or fears?
Journaling can be a powerful tool for this. Write down situations where you felt stuck or frustrated and analyse the assumptions that may have been at play. Almost always (in fact, always) it’s not reality that’s causing us problems but our assumptions about it. - Question Your Assumptions
Once you’ve identified an assumption, challenge it.
Ask yourself:- What evidence supports this belief?Is there an alternative perspective I haven’t considered?
Treat your assumptions like hypotheses rather than facts. Be willing to test them against reality and always stay curious and keep learning. The more we’re caught up in ego, the more we need our assumptions to be true.
That means we end up believing what we need to believe to resist real growth, not what’s actually true and can help us grow in the first place (“the ego is the opposite of reality” for this reason). - Practice Active Listening
When engaging with others, focus on understanding their perspectives rather than imposing your own. Ask open-ended questions and genuinely listen to their responses. This helps you uncover hidden assumptions – both theirs and your own – and fosters better communication.
Really, the key point is that asking questions will almost always serve you because – if you’re asking from a real place – you’ll always learn something real in return. This can serve you to grow in the way you need and want to instead of holding yourself back behind mere interpretations in the service of the ego. - Let Go of Expectations
Practice approaching situations with curiosity rather than rigid expectations – instead of trying to control outcomes, focus on observing and responding to what’s actually happening.
For example, if a meeting doesn’t go as planned, resist the urge to label it a ‘failure’. Instead, ask: “What can I learn from this for next time round?”.
This will also help you to develop an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity one because it will help you to detach from the need for things to be something that they’re not and to be open to new opportunities. - Test Yourself Daily
Refuse to judge yourself, but promise to test yourself (challenge yourself without judgement). Step out of your comfort zone and engage with the world in ways that challenge your mental shortcuts and old patterns and habits (which are assumptions too if you think about it).
Whether it’s striking up a conversation with someone new or trying a different approach to a familiar task, these small actions help you align with reality because they push you through your EDGE (the place where your ego meets reality) and help you stretch into something more REAL. - Seek the Truth, Not Comfort
Pursuing the truth can be uncomfortable, but it’s the only way to grow. Commit to being honest with yourself, even when it’s difficult – reality always works, and facing it head-on is far more rewarding than living in denial.
The only reason the truth is uncomfortable is because “the truth will set you free (but first it will piss you off and make you miserable)” – in other words, it will free you but it will first threaten your ego which has been designed to resist it.
What you need to remember is that there is a difference between physical danger and emotional discomfort. The ego finds the truth to be emotionally uncomfortable but presents it as a threat – it’s not, it’s just going to help you find yourself again and to become more integrated as the ego gets out of the way and the real ‘you’ hiding in the shadows comes to the surface.
A Practical Exercise: The Assumption Audit
Here’s a simple exercise to help you uncover and challenge your assumptions so you can implement some of this ‘stuff’:
- Choose a Situation: Think of a recent event where you felt frustrated, confused, or stuck.
- Identify Your Assumptions: Write down everything you assumed about the situation. For example:
- “They don’t respect me”.
- “This will never work”.
- “I’m not good enough”.
- Challenge Each Assumption: For each assumption, ask:
- What evidence supports this?
- Could there be another explanation?
- Look at the Emotions Hidden in Each Assumption: Dig a little deeper and see what is the emotional tone of each assumption:
For example, if you feel disrespected, maybe you already feel a lack of self-worth and you’re just projecting it out (in other words – it’s not REAL, just an extension of what’s already going on inside you…if you can face that, you can heal it). - Replace Assumptions with Curiosity: Rewrite each assumption as a question. For example:
- “Do they respect me? How can I find out?”
- “What steps could I take to make this work?”
- “What strengths do I bring to this situation?”
- Take Action: Based on your new perspective, take one small step to engage with reality more effectively.
(Awareness (Deconstruct Ego), Acceptance (Integrate Shadow), and Action (Trust and Move Forward) works every time – call me to find out how to go deeper in your own journey)!
Final Thoughts
Assumptions are inevitable, but they don’t have to control us – by cultivating AWARENESS, questioning our beliefs, and engaging with and ACCEPTING reality, we can live more authentically and effectively by taking REAL ACTION.
Life is too short to live behind a veil of illusions and to spend all your time shadow boxing with yourself; strip it away, and you’ll find that the truth -messy, beautiful, and imperfect as it may be – is always enough to start building with. Real always works.
Stay real out there,

*Based on ‘Revolution’ number nineteen in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness