Self-control: How to take control of your time and life?

Chapter 22 Don't Deceive Yourself
Losing yourself is the biggest mistake
At the beginning of class No.11, the training center convened 27 students to conduct a "self-positioning" test: "positioning our true self." maps, each of which covers a different aspect.Participants must answer honestly based on the current situation, and we will calculate the score.

Scoring method: yes - 3 points; hard to say - 1 point; no - 1 point.

1. I know what the goal of my work is. ()

2. I think I can achieve my goal. ()

3. I have been engaged in the current job for more than 3 years. ()

4. I know what I am most suitable for and what kind of life I like best. ()

5. I am very satisfied with my current life (work). ()

6. I know for sure that I am working toward my purpose in life with all my might. ()

7. I have discovered something I love and I can have it in my life. ()

8. I always have enough confidence in the goals I set. ()

9. At present, I have found many joys in my life, and these joys have made me realize the joy of life. ()

10. I think as long as you work hard, you can develop anywhere, but the key is to accept the reality and integrate into the environment. ()Answer:
More than 16 points: It means that your current life is in a positive state, and your life direction is relatively clear.

More than 10 points, less than 16 points: It means that you already have your own pursuit in life, but you don't have a clear and clear direction yet.

Less than 10 points: It means that your current life goal is not clear, and you don't know what you want.

The results showed that among the 27 students, there were 18 students with moderate self-positioning ambiguity, that is, the phenomenon of self-lostness.In my opinion, this data is conservative enough.

Due to the alienation between people and the fragmentation of social life, people in modern society generally begin to lose their way in the pursuit of transcending themselves, and experience more and more "life emptiness".In other words, the number of people who lose themselves is gradually increasing, and a large number of people will join this rank every year.

There are three main characteristics of self-lostness:

Pervasive, deep and persistent existential anxiety.

Unreal, unexperienced, unnatural and virtual self.These have a lot to do with urbanization, networking, professionalization, modernization, and materialization.

Overt self-deception: Feelings and subconsciously thinking changes should be made—but often not acting on them.

Among these three characteristics, self-deception is the most common, and it is also a comprehensive reaction triggered by the first two characteristics, which is the inevitable result of people losing themselves.Now, more and more white-collars and elites, the more superior the material life, the more self-lost, and even extremely stimulating activities such as drug use, promiscuous sex, gambling, etc., either find themselves in the stimulation, or anesthetize themselves in the stimulation, These are all negative methods.

To some extent, self-deception is similar to self-hypnosis and self-preservation, and there are some similar functions and attributes between them.From the perspective of the self, consciously relying on deception to survive difficulties and troughs is the method most people will adopt.

For example, in the most difficult time, a strong entrepreneur will keep telling and encouraging himself: "It is the darkness before the dawn. If I persist for another month, I will see the light." A woman who is suddenly abandoned by a man may also Comfort yourself: "He left me as a last resort, and I believe he will come back."

The object of this self-deception is only oneself, and cannot directly affect and interfere with objective things.Moreover, self-deception is often groundless, sometimes just a simple and stupid belief-except for those "optimistic comforts aimed at self" that have been rationally analyzed, most people's self-deception has a tendency to escape reality .

It often manifests itself as a staunchly apologetic justification, also based on people being dishonest to themselves, or having a lot of problems they don't want to face, and wanting to adopt a method that allows them to easily avoid themselves, so in Some seemingly reasonable arguments and reasons were found in my brain to comfort myself.

People often look for reasons that sound reasonable, acceptable to them, and more normal, to cover up their true feelings and responsibilities.

They are expressed in the brain in the following form: "The reason why I... is because..."

Think about it, how many times have you escaped from reality in this way?In years of courses and surveys, we have found that this self-deception exists in everyone to some extent.

People always inadvertently exaggerate what is good for us, thereby reducing the other side that is not good.Some self-deception is to cover up one's own mistakes and weaknesses with another kind of falsehood, and its harm is very huge.

For example, people all know that smoking is harmful to health, which is an axiom all over the world, but most smokers think: "Other people smoking may be harmful to health, I am an exception, I usually pay attention to it, and smoke two less cigarettes a day. It will not harm your health."

The inventor of the American jogging exercise, Jim Fox, died of jogging, which is a representative case.If we make a summary of this phenomenon, it is that many people are often destroyed by the things they love most-people will unconsciously ignore its adverse signals when they are engaged in the things they love most.

Jem's father died of a heart attack at the age of 43, and he himself knew he was a heart risk man.In the days before Jem's death, he felt physically tired and had a tingling sensation in his heart.Both of these signals were harbingers of an acute heart attack, and Jem's body was already sending him signals, sounding sharp alarm bells to remind him, but Jem ignored them as usual and went to participate in a Running a race, Jem had an accident.

Jem's self-deception is a kind of "prejudice in his own favor."Although, Jem had sensed a heart attack, he had a strong self-prejudice that a heart attack might be dangerous for others but would have no consequences for him.

There is also a kind of self-deception, which is a common life-type self-deception, which involves not only an individual, but also a group, or the entire group of self-deceptions to the outside world.For example, a wife is often beaten black and blue by her husband and suffers from severe domestic violence. When people ask her, she will say that she accidentally fell.She lied to others only to protect her sense of self and self-image, while maintaining the image of her family in the eyes of outsiders.

There are also self-deceptions that are unconscious and not easily perceived. Most of these situations mean that some people habitually rationalize some of their irrational ideas or behaviors through self-deception, with the purpose of Alleviate self-guilt, thereby avoiding responsibility for oneself.For example, a lovelorn, some people seem to be abandoned by the other party every time they fall in love, but the fact is that he (she) uses some words and behaviors unconsciously to push the other party away from him, thus reducing the pain caused by the breakup. self-blame.

Student Catherine once told me about her tragic love history. After listening to her story, I found that the responsibility does not lie with the other party, even though she repeatedly emphasized that those men are unresponsible.In fact, it was her subjective behavior when the two got along that made the other party have the impression that "she no longer loves me", and then broke up with her on her own initiative.In this way, Catherine put herself in the role of being killed forever, thereby evading some responsibilities and allowing herself to gain psychological balance.

There is also self-deception that is conscious, called self-deception.He (she) knows the truth of the facts very well, but because he cannot accept this fact, he (she) consciously makes some psychological hints to himself, making himself believe in the illusion woven and hiding the truth in his heart.This kind of deception is most likely to occur in people with paranoid personalities.

escape from life
Everyone has the behavior of escaping from life more or less. Before we make changes, we often create some accidents temporarily, so that the well-made plans die before the action.For example, there are some people who have made up their minds in their hearts and want to improve and change their lives, but they fail repeatedly in their actions.Because the habit of self-deception has been deeply baked into their hearts, even if they don't want to admit it.

To put it another way, each of us likes to justify ourselves, smooth things over for our current state, and create some reasons, which not only deal with the doubts of others, but also satisfy our own hearts.But there are also differences between the two. Self-deception is blindly escaping, and self-justification is to find a reasonable reason to easily obliterate one's dishonesty, the reality that one does not want to face and escape, and cover up the true values ​​​​in the heart. False views and ideas put on a proper cloak.

In fact, everyone, including me, really has to face their own heart, and in the process seek the sincerity buried in the subconscious.To complete this process, you and I both need to clear the roadblocks of perception.

Many people avoid themselves. This obstacle is that we want to be "good" and we don't want to see ourselves as "bad".Therefore, when "badness" happens to us, we turn away and use "self-deception" to cover up our "badness", and even make our "badness" reasonable.

The real cowards are those who dare not face themselves, face life.A person must have the courage to accept the truth, have the courage to abandon the false, to see, face, and admit what actually happened.From now on, you will use this new standard to face yourself, measure yourself, and break out of the cycle of self-deception.

In fact, in everything, you are faced with the choice of being a warrior or a coward.People also know how relaxed and free a person who doesn't have to do any deception anymore, who has a clear heart and is his true self calmly.

see reality and love it
"You have to face failure, not escape from reality. You should develop a habit: add assets to yourself, not liabilities." I said to the students, "If you can't see the reality clearly, you will always live in another and In a world that doesn't exist and can't be real, you hate reality and don't want to open your eyes and see what's going on in the world around you!"

Even if you are incompetent, you don't have to feel inferior.Traditional schooling, home education overemphasizes failure.In fact, many outstanding people in this world have made countless mistakes. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. If you make too many mistakes, you will succeed. Successful people are able to accept their failures and mistakes and clean up the mess. They regard difficulties as challenges.

Only by seeing the reality clearly can we effectively plan our own life and be in control.I have heard from many people who want to start a business and realize a great plan.They were desperate to achieve something, and in their analysis I saw their ignorance of reality.Everyone has a dream, the dream of an actor, the dream of a star, everyone has had it.It's okay to work hard for your dreams at any time.But you also need to see reality clearly, including your own reality, social reality and environmental reality.Making plans out of reality and yearning for some kind of ideal can only bring you tragedy in life.

Only by seeing these realities clearly can we work hard in a direction and have the opportunity to control the process of our hard work.

Only when you see the truth can you love it.At some point in your life, think about who you are.Why am I me again, and why my soul lives in my body.Give thanks for your body, your soul.They found each other and made you.

So, you have to thank you for being you, and thank the world for being what you are, more than anything else.Then you'll love it and be willing to remodel it!

Value every promise to yourself

Almost all outstanding people dare to be responsible for their commitments.If a person cannot be responsible for his own commitment, then he cannot be responsible for the commitment of others, how can he be an outstanding person?Obviously impossible.

When the British economist David Li Jiatu was 9 years old, he saw a pair of shoes with fur collars in the window of a department store. The style was very new and no one had ever seen them wear them.His father thought that these shoes were not suitable for him to wear, but David insisted on buying them, and promised to wear them after buying them, and to wear them until they were too small.In order to prove his determination, David also gave his other shoes to his younger siblings.

After buying the shoes, he found that they were a pair of wooden shoes, which were specially used by the shoe store for samples.Not only was it uncomfortable, but everyone would stare at him when he crossed the street in his shoes, because the wooden shoes made a lot of noise and clicked with every step.David originally wanted to satisfy his vanity, but he was humiliated in front of his classmates. The whole school knew him wearing wooden shoes. In order to make his voice quieter, he had to walk as lightly as possible when walking.

A classmate suggested that he change to a pair of more comfortable shoes, and offered to lend him a pair of shoes.However, David refused.

He believes that his father has bought him the shoes as agreed, so he should always wear them as agreed.In this way, he didn't start to change other shoes until his feet grew too big to fit the wooden shoes.

This incident had a great impact on David's growth and made him dare to take all responsibilities in his future work and life.What he got from it was that no matter how big or small, no matter how good or bad the outcome of the matter is, he dared to take action and could not shirk responsibility.

Many of us will make a promise to others very hastily: "I promise you, I will..." "Don't worry, I will finish this project by next Friday!" Everyone boasts, as if they can do anything.But after the promise was made, they found that it took a lot of courage and great difficulty to realize this promise.

As a result, some people break their promises, or simply ignore them, which greatly reduces their trustworthiness.

So, make a solemn promise to yourself: I will be so strong that nothing can break my inner peace.

How can it be done?You need to set goals for each day, each week, each month, each year, and even your entire life.Just as seeds need rain to sprout and grow leaves, so your life needs purpose to bear sweet fruit.Secondly, when setting goals, you might as well refer to the best achievements in the past to make them flourish.Then tell yourself: "This has to be the goal of my future life."

(End of this chapter)