7 Subtle Lies We Tell Ourselves Every Day

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We lie to ourselves. Almost every day.

Because we don’t want to face the truth. We don’t dare to face the truth. For example, I have been trying to finish reading a book for 4 months; it is lying there on one of the dusty shelves of my cupboard. Every evening, after returning from work, I pass a silent side glance towards the dusty book and make a mental note that I’ll read this today, come what may! And somehow, I don’t end up reading it and the next morning, I convince myself – ”Oh! I had so and so work, I was busy and therefore, I couldn’t complete it.” But, turns out, the truth is that I have been lazy.

And, I’m sure that is the case with almost everyone. Only, in the place of a book, there might be some other thing. You see, I lie to myself. We lie to ourselves. You may be thinking, ”Hey! I’m no liar!” but the thing is, the lies are subtle. When it comes to covering our own shit, we rely on some patterns to save ourselves.

Here are some lies that we often tell ourselves:

1. If more time were there, I could have done that

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Crass. You do something or you don’t. See, the thing is, we often like the idea of doing something, but when it comes down to it, we actually don’t do it. I like the idea of being a basketball player, but I don’t do anything about it. People claim that they want to start their business, get six pack abs, a job in their desired field. But they don’t want it. If they did, they would take time out and commit themselves.

 

2. If I say this, people will think I’m stupid

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No, they won’t because people don’t care if you do ‘that’ thing or not. And, even if they do care, they’re going to be far more concerned about, what you think of them.

The truth is that you’re not afraid that people will think you as stupid, lame or obnoxious. It is you who think you are stupid, lame or obnoxious. This insecurity stems from the fact that you consider yourself unworthy.

 

3. If I could just get a chance to do ‘X’, my life would be amazing

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Pick what your X is: get a job, become a traveller, get married, have a beautiful girlfriend, have money. Obviously, your happiness factor won’t be met because the list of X is very long. People always suffer from mild dissatisfaction. And this approach is not good because by thinking like this, you’re not focussing on the ‘now’ and hence, you have stored your happiness for the time when that X thing happens.

 

4. I don’t know what to do

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Do you really? This is just an excuse to get out of things. The bigger question is that did you at least start to TRY for the thing? Just give it a whirl.

 

5. I would change, but I can’t because of [insert excuse]

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Own up to it. We do give excuses. And you know why? Because a person would rather hold on to his misery than risk failure at anything. You’re obviously benefitting from this strategy, in some unconscious way.

 

6. I cannot live without this person

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You can! I’m not discarding the difficulties that come with it, but you can live without a person, for sure. Because, we human beings can adapt very well. Given any surroundings, we can totally adapt.

 

7. I know what I’m doing

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Of course, you do! Most of them are blinded by this thought. They think what they’re doing is what they ought to do.

These are some of the lies that we tell ourselves every day. How many of these did you tell yourself today?

You block your dreams when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.

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