Self deception in everyday life

People can lie to each other in order to reach certain goals or to avoid certain punishments but why on earth would someone lie to himself?

In fact, there are lots of reasons that could force a person to lie to himself and to even believe the lies!!
The best way to explain self deception is to give you direct examples of it.

Here are some examples of self deception:

I can’t concentrate when I study: Some people never manage to concentrate whenever they try to study. In fact they always find something that distracts them whenever they attempt to study as if the whole world is against them.

The truth is those people are afraid to study and get bad grades because this will prove that they are not intelligent. As a result the minds of those people come up with a brilliant idea…

Why not prevent them from studying and thus giving them an excuse to use when they get bad grades?

In such a case the subconscious mind of such a person thinks of something like “Its better to get bad grades then blame my ability to concentrate than study, get bad grades then blame my intelligence”

Of course not all people who can’t concentrate are lying to themselves

Of course I am not saying that the only cause for lack of concentration while studying is the desire to lie to yourself but in many cases that’s the real reason.

Here are some other examples of self deception:
• Procrastination or wasting time: People waste time thinking that they are bored or not in the mood to study while in fact the main reason for procrastination might be fear of failure, fear of rejection or fear of testing their self confidence.

• Drinking or other bad habits: Some people drink or get involved into other bad habits just to find an excuse to use when they fail. Those people might think of something like “If I could only stop drinking I would have been very successful”

• Life is unfair!! This statement is familiar huh? In fact its nothing more than a self deception attempt and a big lie that most people believe in. After all it will hurt less to say that life is unfair than to say I didn’t manage to reach my goals, right?

Don’t worry!
I know that discovering that you were deceiving yourself might be unpleasant but don’t worry. Here is what you should do:

• Know that you are really intelligent: If you weren’t intelligent enough your mind would have never been able to setup such brilliant self deception scenarios!!

• Face your fears: If you were escaping from something or if you were afraid to test your real worth then it’s time to become brave and face the things you were escaping from.

• Self confidence and courage: Once you start facing those things you were running from eyou will become much more confident in yourself.