Lying to yourself, you may have heard this before, both in a good manner and a bad manner. If you will search this through you will find so many related articles that will tell you so many different things. I was thinking of it so much as to why I made that decision, it shouldn’t have happened. I should have done that or that. I do this not only when I end up with a bad result, but also when the result is good.
Why do we Lie to ourselves?
That’s a tricky question, and a normal person cannot answer this easily. Even if he/she does answer, that answer will have so much self-contradiction that the person who said those words will not be able to believe it. But he/she can pretend to believe because of self-deception. There are so many reasons why we do that. There are so many researches that show so many different reasons. Most of the time we don’t even know that we are doing it. But once we get to know it, and if we keep noticing it we can try to reduce it, or use it only where it gives us benefits.
Self-Deception is both good and bad for our life decisions. It is good for our mental condition and bad for our growth. I will explain both with reasons.
Good results from self-deception
In the wall street journal The case for lying to yourself you will find all the good reasons why self-deception is good for our mental health. Although this article doesn’t explain the results that we achieve, but only explains why we do that by research. If you observe closely a night where you couldn’t sleep because of something, for instance, fighting with your partner, not doing well on some project in the office, not getting good marks, or not fulfilling your own expectation of yourself. These are the situation for deception. The best way you can find sleep is to lie to yourself. Otherwise overthinking will lead you to depression. And that is not good for your mental health. But in the morning if it is about your study or your performance, you keep the same deception, then you will not be able to grow.
If you are an average student, average employee, or average-looking, you can achieve what you want by telling yourself a lie that you are a top student, top employee, or very handsome. A study has shown that mental confidence is more needed in such events than in the actual current state. It’s all in the mind. A deception will stop you from seeing the inability. and you will try harder to achieve what you want. And that’s all you need to keep going.
Bad results from self-deception
Self-deception also happens from cognitive dissonance. When you have conflict in your thoughts, that time all you wanna do is to save your reputation, tell yourself something positive and keep going until it’s very late. But sometimes that’s not good at all.
We don’t want to be wrong
For instance, you have flaws in the way you work at your office. And if someone points it out, at that time we want to ignore it. We neglect it. Because we don’t want to be wrong. So we make all the excuses why we are right so that we could feel better about ourselves. That is better in mental health sometimes, but when the flaw comes over and over again, even your mind becomes self-contradict. Am I? So in such a case, self-deception is not a good thing.
We don’t want to be hurt
If you are in a relationship that is toxic. The solution is clear – leave. If you are in a company that is not providing you with enough money or you don’t enjoy the work, the answer is – Leave. But your mind in both cases will create a deception so that you cannot see it. Your mind will come up with excuses to stay because it will cause some changes in your life, which will cause you pain emotionally. But those changes are good for your growth.
In both cases, I think all it comes to the end is how we handle this situation. There is a very fine line between good deception and bad deception. All we need to do is find the one that suits your situation. Also instead of trying to find comfort in your decision, make it a little rational and a little emotional. A good way to make that decision is to listen to yourself. Your inner instincts already know what is right. But do not sabotage it with deception.
Thanks for reading
Have a nice day