Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday!
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​tl;dr We lie to ourselves to avoid discomfort, protect our self-image, and deal with overwhelming situations. Self-deception helps us feel good, but if we want to increase our potential, rebuild our integrity, and break unhealthy patterns, we have to implement systems for accountability.
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“I didn’t eat that much today.”
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“I’m going to start again on Monday.”
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“I don’t spend that much time on my phone.”
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Do any of these sound familiar?
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The initial hurdle we face with self-deception is that we’re usually not trying to lie to ourselves in the first place. It’s not like when a parent tells their children Santa brought the gifts Christmas morning, only trying to make the holiday more magical but knowing full well they bought each and every one of them. When we lie to ourselves, it often feels like it could be the truth.
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“I didn’t eat that much” sounds reasonable if you had a donut and coffee on the way to the office, a Mexican-style bowl for lunch, a protein bar (or alternative snack) with another coffee after work, dinner, and a little sweet treat to end the night. But this could easily be 3500 calories, well above the caloric need of a lightly active individual, let alone someone who is sedentary.
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It certainly doesn’t feel like an outright lie when the donut took you three bites to consume, the Mexican-style bowl wasn’t that good, the afternoon snack was also three bites, dinner was rushed, and the little sweet treat feels deserved after a hard day.

The first challenge is identifying that we are actually deceiving ourselves. The first clue with the calorie example is an increase in weight, or inability to lose weight, despite “not eating that much.” No, it’s not your hormones, it’s not your metabolism, and it’s not your age (most likely). We'd rather blame the uncontrollables than face the fact that maybe we just aren’t trying hard enough.
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Admitting to ourselves that we haven’t been exercising regularly or that we’ve been eating and drinking too much is uncomfortable. It would potentially force us to take action and do the thing we say we want to do (get in better shape, exercise, eat better, etc.), or reexamine who we really are (instead of a person with a terrible metabolism, we’re someone who doesn’t invest in our health).
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The image we hold of ourselves is a sensitive topic for most people. It’s a story we’ve developed over decades of life, about what we stand for, what we love, and what our purpose is in this life. So to challenge something so deep-seated is going to be uncomfortable at best.
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For example, say you’re very strongly opposed to social media and kids having phones. You’ve seen the harmful effects it’s had on society and think the world would be a better place with less tech- our modern-day Luddites, if you will. But if I pointed out that you FaceTime your grandkids, play Candy Crush for hours a day, and may even scroll some TikTok or YouTube videos semi-regularly, you may not be as anti-tech as you tell yourself you are. A clue that it might be true is how defensive you get when examined.
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But self-deception helps you protect this identity, and in turn, keeps things copacetic.
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The last important function deceit serves for our discussion is dealing with overwhelming situations. The first examples that come to mind are extreme stress or trauma. I think for those of us working in healthcare, there is an aspect of white lies that helps us do our jobs. Pronouncing someone’s death after an awful code, then going to put on a friendly smile to talk to the next patient’s family about how great the surgery went, requires some self-storytelling that gets us through the day. It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but just part of the job.
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Also, those who survive traumatic events have to create a narrative. It’s a coping mechanism that can truly impact a person’s life and help them move on.
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Self-deception serves a very understandable purpose in many of these areas. But if we’re unhappy with how our lives are going, feel stuck in a rut, or generally want to improve ourselves, we need systems that keep us honest.
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Back to the calorie example, if we are gaining weight or unable to lose weight but don’t feel like we’re eating that much, there’s a way to illuminate the truth: count your calories! You don’t have to like it or want to do it, but what gets measured gets managed. Calories are quantifiable, unlike how full you feel or your judgment of how much you ate. When you count your calories, you may find your “I-didn’t-eat-that-much” day was actually enough calories to fuel a 6’2” man’s workout day. There’s no hiding behind those self-soothing thoughts anymore.
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When we want to improve our habits in any area, the first step is to measure what we’re actually doing. Don’t think you’re scrolling that much? Measure your screen time. You say you want to get in shape? Measure the time you scheduled for workouts. You have been trying and trying to go to bed earlier but keep failing? Look at how you fill your time at night.
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Once you get an honest measure of your habits, then you can implement systems to change them. Hire a coach so you’re held accountable when you say you will show up for something. Put it on your calendar so you see where your time is being allocated. Remember, it’s not like most people are trying to lie to themselves, but we do it to make ourselves feel better. We have to find these outside resources to provide a true reflection of what’s happening.
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If you never considered that you tell yourself some white lies, then this might have been an uncomfortable read, if you even made it this far. But consider where you feel most stuck in your life; in those areas you may find opportunity for clarity. Or talk to someone whom you can rely on to tell you the truth, not just the yes-men in your life.
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If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM.
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This week, my podcast recommendation is from Science Vs. “Weight Loss; Why Won’t It Stick?”
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With that, let’s wrap up summer enjoying the moment, living in the present, and finding gratitude in the mundane.
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Until next time,
Shannon