Are you sabotaging yourself?

When you decide to make a significant change in your life, such as discovering your purpose or life mission, sometimes you face a rather uncomfortable question: What if what I think I want to do isn't what I actually want? What if I'm deceiving myself?

I know it's not easy to know, especially when you're at the beginning of the road. In fact, the only way to know if what you want to do or what's happening to you is right for you is to try it first, take risks, start your journey, and see what this thing you've bet on brings you.

But there's also self-deception that's a vital situation you've been enduring for a long time. Let me give you a couple of quite common examples:

- A job where you're not happy but pays well and gives you a good social position, so you convince yourself that this is what you really want.

- A long-term relationship that no longer works, but you refuse to imagine a life alone, so you tell yourself that having a boring life as a couple without a common project is normal.

In reality, you know that part of your life isn't going as you'd like, but you focus on other aspects, channel your energy into other areas of your life. If you're unhappy in your relationship, you might put all your effort into succeeding in your career... or if you're unhappy in your job, you might develop some sort of emotional vice or stay out late with friends or colleagues, just to give an example.

Self-deception

But what is self-deception really?

It's no secret. Many of us live in that constant self-deception, whether consciously or not. On one hand, self-deception results from external manipulation and acquired beliefs. For example, being told which careers are best for our future, that success in a relationship equals extraordinary sex, or that our happiness depends on our purchasing power or the consumption of products offered by advertising.

As you can see, these are ideas that aren't exactly ours, so it's vital that we're able to listen to our inner selves and analyze ourselves to realize if what we've been sold is valid for us. Not what our family, friends, partner, boss, coworkers, or the social collective to which we belong want, but what makes us happy and fulfilled as the unique and individual beings we are.

Self-deception is one of our worst enemies because many times we blindly believe something that isn't true or isn't meant for us. Sometimes it's fear of our own desires, lack of self-confidence, or fear of being outside the circle of social acceptance, of losing the support of our friends or our job.

Unmasking self-deception

But self-deception isn't only related to social beliefs; many times, we deceive ourselves out of fear of suffering or out of pure ignorance. Here are three steps to help you unmask your self-deception.

What's really hidden behind our self-deception?

- Hidden, repressed pain: What's the real problem you're trying to avoid or ignore at the moment? I invite you to connect with your pain, that pain that we often ignore and don't want to see. By pain, I mean that significant issue you're avoiding solving or don't want to acknowledge.

The best way to discover this pain is by analyzing your personal satisfaction in different areas of your life: love, family, health, work, finances, and emotions. The areas that make you least happy could be a true source of pain that you might be ignoring.

- Lack of connection with your true values: If you don't know your values, you live an empty life, without true self-realization, without connecting with emotions that provide happiness, and you might be seeking easy and quick solutions to cover up your real problem.

Also, if you notice contradictions among your top five values, it's quite easy to self-sabotage.

- Lack of awareness of your primary needs: When you know your top three needs and prioritize them, you can clearly know where to focus your energy to feel more fulfilled and happy. Think about these six needs in your daily life and identify the most important ones for you:

  - Security (stability, comfort, knowing that everything is under your control in life...)

  - Variety (fun, adventure, passion, leisure, disconnection...)

  - Love/connection with others (feeling part of a social group, feeling accepted, loved, and having close relationships with family, partner, friends, colleagues, etc.)

  - Significance (being proud of your achievements, feeling special and different, excelling in something, self-esteem, self-value...)

  - Growth (feeling that you're developing personally or professionally, emotionally or spiritually, and feeling like you're advancing in your life)

  - Contribution (helping others through your work, contributing to a better world, adding value to others, leaving a mark in this world)

Self-deception, as you can see, is related to your beliefs, values, primary needs... Only by knowing yourself deeply can you determine if you're deceiving yourself or not.