Being honest with yourself – one technique that changes lives

in #psychology7 years ago (edited)

CAUTION! Contains pretty less surprising information that you would like to see here.
Though being put in action it literally changes your way of living and simplifies the decision-making process.

This magic formula is: asking straightforward questions+giving honest answers.

Who told me that? I’ve got a friend who is very good to talk to. She listens carefully and gets truly involved in your problems. However, in order to understand me as much as possible, she always asks me a lot of questions: “Why did you make such decision?”, “What did you want to achieve by that?”, “Did you have other better options?”, “What stopped you from doing this instead of that?”. After hearing them I was always torn between two options: to make up a suitable story (to lie) or to tell her the truth. Why did I consider making something up? Because by that time I had already realized how illogical and stupid would sound my true answers. Answers, that clearly show I haven’t ask myself any of these questions while making (sometimes even important) decisions.

After I had observed such a behaviour in my life (and then in other people’s too), I’ve started to wonder what cause that we skip such a simple but important step before making serious decisions and taking actions. And I’ve found reasons:

  1. We protect our self-esteem.
    Much more often these honest answers reveal all your flaws. “Why don’t I want to go to school/work?” – the answer may sound “I’m not accepted by classmates, I think I’m one of the worst workers in comparison to others, I don’t like this job and can’t come up with any better options”. It’s not easy to accept your true feelings about yourself in some situations, but when you do it leads to the next obstacle.

  2. We don’t want to take responsibility for our inaction and ignorance – once we have information and don’t do anything with it it’s our fault when nothing changes. We all know how to deal with excuses and modify it, though when it comes to the truth – you can’t make up any. You are left with just two options – to make a change or leave things as they are. In both cases, you’ll be the one who is in charge of it. Why does it bother us? Read the next reason.

  3. We are too lazy or too afraid of taking any uncomfortable actions.
    It’s common knowledge that it’s difficult for us to step out our comfort zone. But we should. That is where the magic begins!

  4. Last but not least (true psychologically proven reason) – people tend to live automatically. Despite stressful situations when our brain turns on “fight or flight mode” and noradrenaline makes us much more sensitive to all distractions as well as increases our attentiveness level, we don’t have so much control on our own decisions. It takes time and consciously established habit to start questioning “obvious” actions and fast-made decisions which are caused by our schemes for a living.

Well, for me knowing true reasons was a key to dealing with them.
What did I do?

  1. I’ve accepted all my flaws and imperfections. I didn’t want (even unconsciously) to hide them anymore.
  2. I’ve stopped tyrannizing myself and gave myself a right to be wrong, lazy, ignorant and absolutely bad. In exchange, I won’t be blind living in illusions about me and will have the true picture of my life.
  3. (I personally didn’t have this problem, but a lot of people do). Stop caring about what others think. Generally, all people only do care about themselves. If you have such a problem – give an honest answer: ” Are you living to please other people or to fulfil yourself and become a happy person?”.

After such a self-analysis it’s going to be easy for you to simplify your life by using this unsurprisingly mere formula:
Ask straightforward questions & Give honest answers.
Wish you to be in a harmony with yourself!


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WE GOTS SOME WORK TO DO, BUT ITS GONNA BE KILLLLLLLER ;D

Great way to express your thoughts.

Thank you! Just tried to be honest as well :)