The power of self-deception: discover how you lie to yourself

Did you know that our mind deceives us? And what is more, that it does so almost every day?

We think that reality is what we see, but frequently, psychologists show us that this is not the case. We only see a part of that reality, not all of it, and moreover our mind interprets what we perceive in a particular way. That is why I usually say that there are as many realities as there are people, because each one of us has their own reality. A reality that is believed to be unique and correct. But that really is partial and not entirely true.

Self-deception is the art of lying to oneself. The difference between a lie and self-deception is that we know how to recognize a lie, we are aware of it, but self-deception we are not. In self-deception we accept as truth a reality that is false but without being aware of it.

Our mind often tries to protect us, it has good intentions, but the result is not always positive for us. Knowing these self-deceptions can help us see the world in a different way, it can make us open our mind to the world instead of shrinking the world so it fits into our mind.

Discover the 8 most frequent self-deceptions in our day to day.

1. I am in control

We often think that we control our environment, that if we do things well the result will be good and if we do things badly the result will be bad. But it is not always like that, because in life there are many more variables than just mine. Therefore cause and effect is overrated. Normally there are about 1,000 causes that produce a single effect, and one of those thousand causes can be me.

Well yes, we are that tiny and our control over life is minimal. But this is very hard to accept, because it could demoralize anyone, and we spend our lives controlling everything: the order of my house, of my office, the lives of my children, the weekends, leisure time, …

Beneath this need for control hides the fear that human beings feel toward insecurity. Our mind moves so poorly in what it perceives as insecure that it deceives itself into believing that it can control it.

The habit of "having everything under control" may give you an apparent benefit, which is thinking that by having everything under control, you will not make mistakes, that everything will be in "its place". And what happens when you make a mistake? Do you really believe you control your future?

What can we do to overcome it?

- Let things flow more. Understand that not everything is in your hands

- Make an effort only on what is important, there is no need to have everything so tied down

- Accept mistakes as something that happens and happens frequently because there is nothing we can have 100% under control

- Accept that you cannot control others. You cannot change people who do not want to change

- Recognize how far you can go, do your part as best you can and leave the rest to the Universe. You cannot take care of everything and everyone.

2. Immunity: this is not going to happen to me

We often believe that we will not be the ones who end up out of work in a crisis or that our house will never burn down. It is like a sense of immunity that works very well for living peacefully, because we could not bear being aware every day of the many things that could happen to us and that we see happening constantly around us.

But when something happens to someone close to us, or to someone we have not seen in a long time but who is our age… in that thousandth of a second we know that the same thing could happen to me. And what happens is that in that instant I begin to value what I have.

What can we do to overcome it?

It is not about now spending the day worried about all the bad things that could happen to me. What we cannot do is live right at the other extreme, going from carelessness to excessive worry. It is about becoming aware that this could happen to me, but that right now it is not happening to me, and valuing what I have because I will not have it forever.

For me the insight comes when I realize that things are ephemeral and that therefore I have to be grateful for what I now have from detachment

There are many people who, after overcoming cancer or a serious illness, arrive precisely at this point, at knowing that they are not immune and that therefore one must appreciate what one has at each moment.

3. I will die around the age of 80

We live thinking that we have a long time left before we die, but really no one knows either how or when they will die. Our mind does not like that uncertainty at all, and it generates this self-deception to protect itself. In Buddhism death is accepted as part of life, as a reminder that all of this is going to end one day.

We do not control our life and much less do we control our death. It can happen tomorrow or next month. Why do you think it will be at 80?

Perhaps because death is the greatest of all uncertainties that exist, our mind has decided to use this self-deception to live without thinking about dying.

What can we do?

What would you do today if you knew it was your last day of life? It seems that this question would change many things in your day to day, right?

Now it is not about living each day as if it were the last, because it can be exhausting: I won't make dinner because I wouldn't want to cook if it were the last day of my life, nor go to work, nor pick up the kids from school, nor…..With a bit of luck you would end up at a psychiatrist's appointment dragged there by your family, who see that you are going a little crazy.

Once again the balance is in the middle. Live knowing that one day you will die, live knowing that we cannot assume when that day will be, live as you would live if this were the last year of your life, enjoy your loved ones and your work, and if there is something you do not like, if I were you I would change it.

4. The law of least effort

This is the law that governs our mind, which is really lazy or perhaps a great saver of energy. Be that as it may, what is certain is that it always seeks the path that involves the least effort. That is why you see many people in situations they do not like but that they do not change. Their mind thinks: ugh, what a drag to change now….better stay as you are. And then the person begins to think: I'm not so bad in this job either…and the self-deception begins.

It is the law that keeps us in our comfort zone even when it stopped being comfortable a long time ago.

What can we do?

When you have spent a long time noticing that something does not please you or something is not as you would want but you remain there, give yourself a deadline: if in 6 months I still think the same, I will make a change. But set a date.

Listen to your body. Perhaps your mind can deceive you, but your body usually tells the truth. Sooner or later anxiety will appear, or you won't be able to sleep, or you will catch every cold in the world. Our body speaks to us, it tells us whether or not it wants to go there or be with that person or no longer wants to continue with our partner. We only have to learn to listen to it as we did when we were children.

Stop blaming the boss for your discomfort at work and take the reins of your life, do not let your mind tell you: but you're not so bad there, because perhaps it is using the self-deception of the law of least effort.

5. Selective perception: I see what I want to see

Sometimes, in session I do a small exercise to demonstrate this. I tell them: for one minute, look at all the red objects you see in the office. Then close your eyes and tell me how many yellow objects you saw.

The most observant can tell me one or two yellow objects, but they have seen double or triple the number of red ones. What is going on, does yellow not exist? Not for my mind, because what mattered was the red.

Well, this happens constantly. Every day thousands and thousands of visual stimuli reach us, auditory, olfactory, etc., and our mind has to make a selection because it cannot attend to everything. And what does it choose? Well, that which it believes is most important to me. If among my beliefs is that everything bad happens to me, my mind will pay more attention to the bad that happens to me and much less attention to the good. If I think that my mother loves my brother more than me, my mind will select everything that indicates that she is attentive to him and not to me. And so, our mind "deceives" us, thinking that this is what it has to do because it is what is in line with my beliefs.

And this is reflected in popular sayings such as: "we see what we want to see" or "there is none so blind as he who will not see"

What can we do?

This is one of the hardest self-deceptions to overcome. Because we believe that the truth is what we perceive and it is very hard for us to see the other side, the color yellow.

Now that you already know that your mind deceives you according to your beliefs, perhaps, the time has come to review those beliefs and look at them in a more objective way.

It is also good to listen to others, so that they give you a different vision of the world from yours and to integrate it as part of a truth, because we only perceive what we want to perceive.

6. The decision I have made is the correct one

How hard it is for us to admit our own mistakes! If we make a decision, we cannot stand the discomfort generated by having been wrong.

The other day at my son's birthday, my mother gave him some T-shirts in size 10 (my son is 7 years old) and they were visibly enormous on him. But she said they were his size. And yes, they are his size if you want the T-shirt to serve as a dress. Anyway, this is just one example of how hard it is for us to admit that we have not done something well or that the decision I made was not the correct one.

So our mind again uses self-deception to make us see what clearly is not (like the dress-T-shirts that my mother saw as fitting so well). In fact there is a psychological mechanism that compensates for any decision we make by giving more value to what we have decided to choose and less to what we have discarded. It is something like unconditional support for my decision whatever the consequence may be. And here is where the difference between a lie and self-deception becomes most evident, and it is that we see that the decision made is perfect.

It is a good defense mechanism if we consider that we make many decisions each day and that it is adaptive to make them quickly and without hesitation. Hence the functionality of this self-deception. Imagine that with each decision we spent hours thinking about what to choose, and that after making it we then saw that it was not the correct one, it would be madness!

What should we do?

In day-to-day decisions, nothing. It is fine to be quick, after all we are not risking our lives in each and every one of them. So decide with feeling more than with reason.

In important decisions, we will have to do the same thing, decide with feeling because reason does not know everything when we decide. So what should we do exactly? Well, simply understand that we will fail at some point and that nothing happens, that we learn more from mistakes than from successes and that in life we decide constantly, therefore, by statistics alone, we will sometimes have to get it wrong.

7. It is not my fault

The fault always lies with others. How easy it is to see the speck in someone else's eye, right? And what if I tell you that the one responsible for your life is you?

I do not like the word fault because for me only the person who knows in advance that what they are going to do is wrong and still does it is at fault. Most people, when they act badly, usually do so because they do not know how to do it better.

I prefer to speak of responsibility. But my mind does not like to feel discomfort, it wants us to be well, and that is why it tells us: it wasn't you, it was the other person. But this leads us straight to failure. Because if the other is the guilty-responsible one, I cannot do anything to change the situation. Blaming the other catapults me into inaction.

My relationship doesn't work because he/she is selfish. My job is horrible because my boss doesn't know how to lead. I feel insecure because my mother didn't treat me well in the past. And you?

Have you had nothing to do with all of that which happens to you?

What should we do?

Stop looking for the speck in someone else's eye. Look at what you have not done well and change it. You will see how the results improve.

Take responsibility for your life and above all for your well-being, because you are the only person who can make you happy.

Do not be afraid to acknowledge that you did something too, I insist, more is learned from a mistake than from a success. And although a relationship is a matter of two, what I can change is my part, not the other person's, that is why I must place the focus on what I can improve.

When something doesn't work in your life, this should be your first question: what have I done wrong and how can I do it better?

8. Cognitive dissonance

This is a very well-known psychological effect: if there is something that is very hard for me to obtain, I grant it more value than it probably has. My mind could not bear having spent time and energy (remember it is very lazy) on something that then is not worth it, that is why it uses self-deception to see that what we have obtained was worth the effort expended.

This, marketers know very well. That is why they sometimes raise the price of a product to raise its value. If something has cost us more, it will seem better to us.

What should we do?

Not everything expensive is better, nor is everything cheap bad. Nor does excessive effort assure us of success. Life is balance and I have to find it.

Give things the value they have, not the price.