LIES YOU TELL YOURSELF

 

“The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think.

 

We do this because we're afraid.

 

We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we'll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy.”

-          Richard Bach

 

Want to know some lies we tell ourselves?

 

1.) My talent and its demands protect me from the responsibilities of normal people.

 

       You'll see this a lot at writers colonies, where you get to the kitchen and someone has just left their dishes despite the ‘please wash your dish’ sign.

 

      While most people still think talent matters more than anything, in my experience, character will doom talent more than most other challenges a writer faces.

 

     Certainly, you don’t need to be a good person to write a good book, any more than you need to be a good person to be a good doctor.  But to live a fulfilling life, character is the key ingredient.

 

2.)I wish I could do _______, but I can't.

"I can't almost always means I don't want to," says Amy Johnson, PhD, a Chicago psychologist.

 

"I can't allows us to pretend the choice isn't ours," she says.

 

 "It feels beneficial in the short term because we don't have to own our preferences or admit that we have a choice in the matter.

 

But Johnson says that habitually saying "I can't" makes people feel disempowered across all areas of their lives.

 

"I tell clients to say 'I don't want to' instead of 'I can't'—even if it's just to themselves. It gives them their sense of power and choice back."

 

3.)When I’m not engaged in the process of writing, I’m thinking about writing, therefore I am writing.

 

      No.  You’re just blocked.  When your fingers are typing paragraph after paragraph,

      THEN you're writing.

4.)I deserve this drink ...

 

Or this dress. Or this car. Or...whatever.

"I hear this so often," says Johnson.

"These lies let us hide from our real feelings with momentary comforts.

The problem is, when the comfort wears off,

we're left facing the feelings."

 

Johnson once had a client who said she deserved to indulge in rich food after a long day at a job she loathed.

Johnson says another insidious phrase that people use is

I need,

as in, "I need that new black dress."

 

"If you're alive and surviving without it right now,

then you clearly don't need it," she says.

 

     "It might sound insignificant, but changing I need to I want is incredibly freeing.

I need sets you up to believe that you'll be hurt if you don't get the thing. I want gives you more freedom."

 

      5.) Publishing this book will change my life.

 

           Only if you copied FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS word for word.

 

           But it will definitely be for the worse! 

 

           Usually people who believe this actually believe their debut will exalt them

           somehow, make them into a better, more attractive person, the person they

           have always wanted to be.

 

          [Sorry. That is limited to bad Chic Flicks.]

 

          And chances are you are better off preparing for the possibility you will still be

          the same person with all of your bills and character flaws afterward.

 

         What will change your life is committing to regularly producing work.

 

More than

         any single opportunity,

usually a commitment to writing succeeds instead.

        6.) I'm definitely right.

         This is one of the most damaging lies we can tell ourselves, says Carol Tavris,

         PhD, social psychologist, co-author of

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.

 

         "It's called the basic bias—

          the idea that everyone else is biased, but we're not."

 

         The belief that you know best and that you've got all the facts prevents you from

         even listening to evidence that you're wrong—

 

         that your memory is wrong, your perception is wrong, your explanation is wrong.

 

         It's self-damaging, in that it keeps you stuck within the confines of what you think

         you know, and, says Tavris, "it also makes you a miserable person to be with."

 

         7.) “I Don’t Have Time!”

 

        I am afforded the same 24 hours that you are. I don’t get 30 hours.

Stephen King doesn’t have a magical stopwatch

that allows him to operate on Secret

        Creepy Writer Time.

 

       You have a full-time job? So do a lot of writers. Kids? So do a lot of writers.

 

       Rampant video-game-playing habit? Sadly, so do a lot of writers.

You want time,

       snatch it from the beast’s mouth. And then use it.

      8.) I have no willpower.

      You have some willpower.

We all do, says Roy Baumeister, social psychologist

and author of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.

 

        Baumeister discovered in lab tests, though, that willpower is finite—

after people

        used self-control for some tasks, they had less of it for subsequent tasks

(so it's probably best not to quit smoking,

get organized and go on a diet on the same day.)

 

       But he also found that willpower, like a muscle,

can be built up over time

       through regular training.

 

     9.) “It’s Okay That I Didn’t Write Today, I’ll Do It Tomorrow!”

 

        Another temporal lie. Oh. You didn’t write today?

You’ll write tomorrow, you say?

        And I’m sure it wasn’t you who ate the last of the Oreos either, right?

 

        You write every day.  Period.  It gets to be a habit.  That habit will see you through

        when the grim, dry days. 

 

      10.) I'll never get over it.

 

"We're not necessarily conscious of how rapidly we recover from adversity,"

 

        says Richard J. Davidson, PhD, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, and

        co-author of

The Emotional Life of Your Brain. (

         Richard Summers, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University

         of Pennsylvania,

tells most of his patients undergoing a crisis

"to allow themselves

         to really feel some of the negative emotion and to trust nature—

 

         those emotions have really a finite lifespan and tend to abate over time."

 

        That said, he offers a benchmark for people who are grieving.

 

        There's a big spread, and it's important to remember that," he says,

'but a good rule

        of thumb is that after six months

there should be at least some sense of forward

        motion for the person."

If not, professional help may be one answer.

 

      11.)  “Writing Should Be Easy / Ecstastic Torture!”

 

        I don't know what planet you come from, but do they breathe oxygen there?

 

        Many come to believe that writing should either be super-easy

       (“The words should just fall out of my eyes whenever I tilt my head forward!”)

 

       or that it’s a miserable activity

(“OH, IT HURTS SO BAD TO GIVE BIRTH TO

       FINE PROSE.”).

 

        When it’s not easy or not wretched,

we feel like we’re not doing it justice.

 

       Put that lie to bed.

Some days will be easy. Some will be hard.

 

      Some days you dig soft earth, other days the shovel hits stone.

But you dig just

      the same

because that’s the only way the hole gets dug. 

 
     12.)  I don't judge people.

 
    Sure you do.

 

      Researchers from Harvard Business School, who've recently studied how people categorize

      and perceive others,

 

say that within less than a second,

 

we make what are known

      as "spontaneous trait inferences."

 

These are remarkably consistent.

 

      All over the globe, it turns out, people instantly judge

each other on two main qualities:

 

      warmth and competence.

 

      People who are judged as competent but cold—

 

for instance, a wealthy tycoon—

 

      elicit envy or hostility.

 

      People who are usually perceived as warm but incompetent

 

 (such as elderly people)

 

bring

      out feelings of pity.

 

We're still judging with our conscious mind when we size people up,

 

 

      adds Michelle B. Riba, MD, MS, clinical professor of psychiatry

 

at the University of

      Michigan.

 

"Although when we do this, it's ourselves that we're judging, really, more than

      the other person,"

she says.

 

"We're trying to figure out how we fit in."

     13.)  If only I had a million dollars, I'd fulfill my dreams and do_____.

 

This little self-deluding chestnut?

 

It's disproved every time we see an attorney

who aspires to

     own a pastry shop and bakes cookies to sell on the weekends,

 

 or a baker who goes to law

     school at night.

 

     Somehow, though, we are certain—

 

absolutely certain—

 

that we can't take the leap without

 

     a financial guarantee or windfall.

 

     It's a Truth, we believe, with a capital T.

 

 14.) I don’t care what anyone thinks of my writing.

 

    We may write the first draft for ourselves ... but even then, we are thinking

of how the

    final product will be received by an agent,

 

an editor,

 

or some ideal reader we have

    imagined in our heads.

 

     We write to be read. 

 

Whenever I catch myself saying, "I don't care" about something,

 

     I know, deep down, I am saying it to lessen the pain of the situation.

 

LAST THOUGHT:

 

     If we're all deluding ourselves in real life,

 

 shouldn't our characters get to occasionally stick

 

     their fingers in their ears and declare they can't hear anything?

***
For a friend -  {No lies follow!}

I am honored to join author Ellie Garratt in celebrating the launch of PASSING TIME: Nine Short Tales of the Strange and Macabre.

Fans of Poe, Lovecraft, and King will love this dark smorgasbord of beautifully crafted tales, while readers who prefer lighter fare will delight in the wonderful prose and fine storytelling. Just remember, these are not tales to lull you to sleep… unless you enjoy checking under the bed before you turn in.

PASSING TIME Book Links:

Amazon.com