When Should a Story About Yourself Be Revised?

A past mistake can become a sweeping story: “I always give up.” But one memory rarely tells the whole pattern—and a kinder story isn’t automatically a more accurate one, either.

When a familiar belief about yourself meets new evidence, how do you decide whether to revise it? What helps you separate what happened from what you concluded, and what would make a new interpretation feel grounded rather than merely comforting?