"If you want to be successful in life, you have to apply only one rule: never lie to yourself." This statement by Paulo Coelho contains a great truth, a secret of Pulcinella that is not normally considered.In fact, have you ever wondered how many lies you repeat to yourself every day? According to a study conducted at the University of Southern California, one person tells an average of 200 lies a day. If you think that is an exaggerated number, you should know that another experiment, this time carried out at the University of Massachusetts, found that during a short conversation of only 10 minutes, an average of 2-3 lies are told.While no lie is fully justifiable, perhaps the worst are those we repeat to ourselves that severely limit our potential and do not allow us to see things as they really are.
We lie to ourselves in a thousand different ways, but there are two main reasons for self-deception:
- We don't want to face reality. In this case, we are aware that we are lying and that we are deceiving ourselves. In other words, we make excuses for our mistakes or to justify our poor performance. We make promises that we don't keep by defrauding ourselves.
- We don't know the reality. In this case, we are not fully aware that we are lying. We are so used to the inner dialogue we have with ourselves that we are no longer able to distinguish the boundaries between reality and our beliefs. Of course, these lies are even more dangerous because they can undermine our self-esteem and cause us to make blunders.
Lie No. 1: Happiness - "If only ……., My life would be great"
In this case, we are fully convinced that our life would be heaven on earth ... if only we had more money, a perfect body, more friends, a perfect match, more freedom, a better job ...
What happens is that we have spent so much time thinking about this problem so that we have idealized the solution. We have forgotten that we can be happy here and now, instead we subordinate our happiness to a solution that, perhaps, would not give us as much satisfaction as we imagine.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with setting goals and trying to achieve them; this ambition, the desire to improve, is in our DNA and makes us better people. However, the lie hides in the fact that we have linked our happiness to that condition, as if its realization were the magic pill that gives us happiness and, conversely, the cause of all our problems. This lie condemns us day after day to perennial frustration, as if our life was suspended, waiting for something.
However, remember that often the things we desire most do not always give us the happiness we expected and, above all, they are not a guarantee of permanent happiness. Schweitzer once said: “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success ".
Lie No. 2: Time - "If I had more time I could finally ......."
We firmly believe that if the day had a few more hours, we could make all our dreams come true or continue that project we have forgotten in the drawer. We often believe that if we have set a goal and have not achieved it, it is because we needed more time.
However, we spend an average of three hours each day watching television and more than one hours surfing the Internet, not counting the time we spend texting each other. Indeed, one of the main differences between a successful person and someone who postpones his dreams indefinitely is that the former knows how to use his time effectively.
In fact, time is not what we lack, it is enthusiasm and willpower, but we are not always willing to acknowledge it. This does not mean that we have to spend every minute of the day doing something, even rest and meditation are essential for our well-being.
However, if you have a project, don't bring up lack of time as an excuse. Make sure you don't waste too much time on trivial things. As you take your time to reorganize your priorities, you will realize that time is not an issue.
Lie No. 3: Procrastination - "Tomorrow I begin ……"
It is probably one of the most common lies we repeat throughout our life. Imagine the day when most things went wrong for you, when you feel stressed and tired. You feel like you have wasted your day, and somewhere in your mind a sense of guilt begins to arise. So, to get rid of it, decide that tomorrow will be different. This has been a lost day, but the next day will be better and you will make the most of it.
However, do you really think that tomorrow will be a perfect day and you will finally wake up full of energy and motivated?
The truth is that we don't know what tomorrow will be like and what situations we will face, this phrase often simply hides our laziness or lack of motivation for what we are doing. In fact, when you start postponing something to tomorrow, the next day you will postpone it again and so on.
So, if you really want to do something, it's best not to postpone it without having a good reason. Remember that if you are not living your dreams today it is probably because you decided to postpone them yesterday.
