The Lies I Tell Myself
Have you ever thought about how many lies you tell yourself? I can’t possibly be alone in realizing that I unintentionally lie to myself all the time. Some lies are small, such as, ‘I can eat this snack that hurt my stomach last time because it didn’t hurt that bad, so it probably won’t hurt this time,’ or ‘sleeping from 1 am to 9 am is the same thing as sleeping from 11 pm to 7 am.’ On the other hand, some of the lies I tell myself can be very large and impact my life heavily. These big lies tend to be excuses I think of to avoid difficult changes I know I need to make. While I might not always be conscious that I’m making excuses and lying to myself, taking a few moments to challenge these thoughts is all it takes for everything to unravel.
Let me give you an example. One of the biggest, most damaging lies I tell myself is that I don’t have enough time to do even the bare minimum. Are there days when this is true? Absolutely, but not the vast majority. I make excuses that I’m too busy with work, spend too much time in the car driving from place to place, have too many random obligations that come up throughout the week, and so on. The embarrassing truth is I waste so much time with my head stuck in the sand like an ostrich whenever I get even the tiniest bit overwhelmed (Fun Fact: Ostriches don’t actually stick their heads in the ground out of fear, but I’m sticking with the myth for the analogy). The second I start feeling stressed or a wave of discomfort, I put on a TV show, movie, or YouTube video and numb out, often for hours on end. I lie to myself and say I don’t have control over this, but if I challenge that thought, I can easily see how untrue it is. Would it be uncomfortable to face my feelings instead of distracting my brain with video content? Of course, but that doesn’t make it any less doable.
Personal accountability is missing for me in this scenario and, quite frankly, in most of the lies I tell myself. I’m making active choices and pretending like something forced my hand. Worse yet, I’m holding myself back by pretending to be a victim of circumstance instead of a victim of my own making. Taking accountability is sometimes hard to do, but it enables control and power over my life and circumstances. By not allowing myself to lie and make excuses, I am forcing myself to take ownership of my choices. Saying I don’t have time sounds a lot better than saying I choose to be lazy when I get stressed. That reframing alone leaves me nowhere to hide from taking accountability for my choices. How do you handle personal responsibility? Is taking accountability a common practice or something you could work on?