Your Brain Has Receipts. It Also Has a Bias.

The stories we tell ourselves, the evidence we collect, and one very revealing spelling lesson.

I may have accidentally convinced an entire table of perfectly capable spellers that they couldn’t spell.

And naturally, I turned it into a lesson about the human brain.

Occupational hazard.

I’ve been thinking about how the things we tell ourselves influence what we notice, how we interpret experiences, and what we come to believe about ourselves.

Our brains are constantly sorting information, making predictions, identifying patterns, and trying to make sense of the world. But they aren’t impartial observers. They tend to notice information that supports what we already believe.

There’s a name for that: confirmation bias.

If you believe you’re terrible at everything, one mistake becomes proof. A compliment gets dismissed. A success becomes luck. Your brain has receipts, but apparently, it keeps a very selective filing system.

Changing what we expect doesn’t magically make us capable, lovable, or successful. But expectations can influence what we notice, how we interpret situations, and how we approach them.

I watched a tiny example of that unfold at my reading table.

The Spelling Lesson That Became a Psychology Lesson

I was working with a reading intervention group on a spelling concept we’d already practiced and mastered. The students were spelling the first several words correctly when we reached one I thought might be tricky.

Before dictating it, I said:

“Oof, this one’s a little tricky, so do your very best.”

Seems harmless enough. A little encouragement. A heads-up.

Except every student spelled the word incorrectly.

The mistakes weren’t complicated misunderstandings. They involved skills I knew they had already demonstrated.

The only thing I’d changed was the information I gave them beforehand. I had introduced the expectation that the word would be difficult.

Had they second-guessed themselves? Lost confidence? Focused more on the anticipated difficulty than on the skills they already had?

I couldn’t know for certain, and this was hardly a controlled experiment. It was a small group, a handful of words, and one brief lesson. The words weren’t identical, and other factors could have contributed.

Still, I tried something different. For the remaining words, I stopped commenting on their difficulty. I simply dictated them and let the students use what they knew.

They spelled the rest correctly, including words with patterns that were just as challenging, if not more so.

The observation made me wonder:

How often do we change the way we approach something because we’ve already decided it will be difficult?

And how often do we do that to ourselves?

The Commentary Before the Experience

My students hadn’t arrived believing they couldn’t spell. They had been demonstrating the opposite. Then I introduced a little doubt—not intentionally, but nonetheless.

It made me think about the commentary we provide ourselves:

I’m terrible at interviews.

This conversation is going to go badly.

I’m probably going to embarrass myself.

People always leave.

Things like this never work out for me.

We predict the outcome before experiencing the event, then act surprised when those expectations influence our confidence, behavior, and interpretation of what happens next.

We become the narrator of a story that hasn’t happened yet—and start acting as though we’ve already read the ending.

So, Can We Think Our Way Into a Different Experience?

I want to be careful here. Positive thinking doesn’t guarantee positive outcomes. Optimism won’t prevent disappointment, grief, rejection, failure, or circumstances beyond our control. Telling people to think positively can even make them feel responsible for things they never had the power to prevent.

That’s not what I mean.

I mean recognizing that our thoughts are interpretations, not necessarily facts.

If I believe I’m incapable, I might avoid a challenge, approach it hesitantly, or treat one mistake as confirmation. If I believe I’m capable of learning, I might stay curious, tolerate mistakes, and keep trying.

Same challenge. Different expectations. Potentially different behavior.

This isn’t about standing in front of a mirror and declaring ourselves destined for greatness, though if that’s your thing, carry on. It’s about noticing the commentary running in the background and questioning whether it’s helping us.

The Million-Dollar Question

How do we stop doing this to ourselves when we’re the ones providing the commentary?

I can stop telling my students that a word will be difficult. But what happens when that warning comes from inside my own head?

What happens when we’ve rehearsed the same beliefs for so long that we no longer recognize them as commentary? We simply assume they’re true.

The first step may be noticing the predictions we treat as facts.

I’m going to fail.

Am I? Or am I anticipating failure because I’ve experienced it before?

Nobody likes me.

Nobody? Or am I interpreting one interaction through an old belief?

I never get anything right.

Never? Or have I become so focused on mistakes that I’m overlooking what I do well?

Another question I’ve been practicing is:

What else could be true?

Not what would make me feel better or sound the most positive. What else could genuinely be true?

Maybe this will be difficult, and I’m capable of figuring it out.

Maybe someone is upset with me, and that doesn’t make me a terrible person.

Maybe I made a mistake, and it doesn’t erase everything I’ve learned.

Maybe something didn’t work out, and that doesn’t mean nothing ever will.

We’re not trying to trick our brains into believing something unrealistic. We’re giving them access to evidence they may have overlooked.

Maybe We Need to Stop Leading the Witness

I’ve been thinking about my students since that lesson—how quickly a simple comment may have influenced the way they approached something they already knew how to do.

And I’ve been thinking about how often I do the same thing in my own life: warning myself before the experience, predicting difficulty before encountering it, and allowing old beliefs to shape new opportunities.

Our expectations are part of our experience. They can influence what we notice, how we respond, and what meaning we assign to the outcome.

So the next time I catch myself announcing that something will be difficult, that I’ll probably fail, or that things never work out, I’ll remember that spelling lesson.

I’ll remember what happened when I stopped providing commentary and let my students use the skills they already had.

Then I’ll ask whether I can extend that same courtesy to myself.

A little less predicting.

A little more observing.

A little less assuming I know how the story ends.

And a little more willingness to find out.

Because maybe the most important mindset shift isn’t changing what we believe will happen.

It’s questioning why we’re so certain in the first place.