In this episode, we discuss the importance of not lying to yourself.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about the worst thing you can do to yourself, which is to lie to yourself. I got this lesson from The Brother Karamazov, which was a tough book to read but it provided me this valuable lesson about life.
Here is the passage from the book that me this very valuable lesson.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offence, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill — he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful posturing. . . . ”
A lot of the problems that we face in the world is from the fact that people are lying to themselves for how things really are in the world. You might be in a relationship that is going south but you’re lying to yourself that everything is fine so you don’t really have to address the issue.
You might lie to yourself for why you didn’t do a good job on a project so that you can feel good for not accomplishing the task that you were supposed to finish.
I know people who are very delusional about how things are happening in their life and it’s because they are lying about who they really are as a person and it’s just not their fault for what is going on. But it really is their fault. I have a good rule and just assume everything is your fault so you can take control over the situation and figure out what should be fixed and what should be thrown away.
People who delusional also tend to get more easily offended when things don’t go their way and will just sabotage their life and other people’s lives. So lying to yourself is not going to make you better or your environment better because I know I don’t want to interact with someone who gets easily offended by the truth.
I value the truth and will take any truth that comes my way. I don’t want to accept any lies because they will just cause you harm. The truth might hurt, but it will instruct you how to be a better and stronger person in the future. And if you’re a stronger and better person in the future, then the world is going to be a better place to live in. There will be more love and there will be more to go around because we’re not stuck in a fixed mindset.
Lying to yourself and to others is the worst thing that you can do yourself. It’s hard, to tell the truth or face the truth because it’s going to make you feel vulnerable and that you’re not your best self and if you’re not doing your best, then you were being wasteful of your life and you can’t get those hours back. Or you’re afraid of losing something and you feel like your world will never be the same if that lie is removed from your life and you won’t be able to recover.
The truth is that you can recover and you will get stronger. You might have some cuts or bruises, but it will make you a stronger individual for the future. If you lie to yourself, you’re just going to sabotage yourself. I sabotage myself by saying that people don’t want to hear my pitch for financial planning because they won’t value it, but the truth is that some people won’t, some people will, and some people are just waiting. So I need to just find the right people. I can’t save the world world, but I can save a slice of it and I just can’t be living that lie that people don’t want my services.
I know that if I want to live my best life, I just have to honest and being honest will myself can bring me greater joys in the world because the pressure of keeping the lie just holds you back. I head a funny saying that if you keep your demons inside yourself, then they just go into your soul and start lifting weights. So if your demons are lifting weights and getting stronger, then there will come a point where you won’t be able to contain them anymore and they will just burst out at the least opportunistic time.
So to prevent a meltdown from happening, face the truth and keep those demons out of your soul. If I find myself lying to myself, I like to remind myself of the demons lifting weights and it just scares me into facing the truth. I hope this helps you out as well.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode, to summarize it, the worst thing that you can do to yourself is to lie to yourself. So it a great policy to face the truth and don’t let your demons get stronger.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
