April 9, 2024
You have negative beliefs. Fears, shame, anxieties, insecurities. These come from the events of your life, or the environments that you have lived through. Because of these beliefs, you have likely lied to yourself to justify some – or all – of them.
Self-deception is when you lie about your thoughts, ideas, feelings, or situation, to yourself. This practice can be a habit that you aren’t aware of, or it can be intentional and serve an immediate purpose. Hiding the truth from yourself, or running from it, is ignoring reality and attempting to rationalize your next move.
Some people don’t even believe it’s possible to lie to yourself. The problem is you can get really good at this behavior. And you can come up with many reasons for doing it that seem rational at the time.
Examples
There are endless examples of lying to yourself. The following examples are but a few.
- “Ok, so I complain about my job a lot. But I really do love it.”
- “I didn’t want that job anyway.”
- “I’m alone in this.”
- “He’s not always like this.”
- “This is good enough for me.”
Signs of Self-Deception
The following is a list of signs that someone might be deceiving themselves. This is not a comprehensive list.
- Making excuses for yourself or others
- Not accepting responsibility
- Continuously blaming others
- Avoiding unpleasant realities
- Feeling defensive or threatened when others challenge you
- The ideas, advice, or help from others is rejected
- Justifying destructive behavior
- Lacking authentic identity
Impact of Self-Deception
As you can see, self-deception has the potential to have a large impact on relationships. When you lie to yourself, you are only maintaining a façade, while the problem grows bigger. And the longer you put off dealing with it, the harder it is to handle.
Self-deception provides a sense of control. Everyone likes to feel that they have some kind of control in their life. When you feel out of control, that’s when you turn to controlling others the most.
Related: The Purpose of Therapy
It takes a lot of self-awareness to begin to correct this. Self-deception takes work to recognize and change. We would love to help you with this issue.
CEO at Thrivology
Todd has a Master of Science degree in Marriage & Family Therapy from Harding University and has been a therapist for over 22 years. He has extensive experience with teenagers and families treating relational problems, addictions and behavioral problems.
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