When you do anything other than what needs to be done (either in mind or activity) you are deceiving yourself.
Deceit – To trick or mislead in the false direction. To deceive by telling lies or otherwise giving a false impression. To accidentally or intentionally confuse. To beguile or lure someone away from duty, accepted principles, or proper conduct; to lead astray. To attract by temptation etc. An effective, clever or quick way of doing something. To fool; to cause to believe something untrue; to deceive. A person with poor judgment or little intelligence. An instance of actions and/or schemes fabricated to mislead someone into believing a lie or inaccuracy. Falling for the convenient voice inside head. Misinform, misguide, seduce, and cheat, charm, captive.
Examples
You have important work to do and you decide to wake up early the next day.But you are giving excuses to yourself such as – few minutes can be adjusted, I have a headache, I am not feeling well & I can get a leave for today, etc. Even after planning the night before that you will have to get up at this “particular time” you do not wake up. May or May not your work gets done in the end but you at the moment of waking up deceived yourself into believe something that increased the chances of failing to do what you want. Your risked your success with deception. How fool can a person be when, even after planning what needs to be done, he comes up with different thoughts that distracts him from achieving what he has decided? The worst is that he doesn’t even realize that he is trying to fool himself!
Gossip is another form of deception wherein nobody in the group knows what the truth is. They all assume certain things about the other person which may or may not be true. Assuming anything is a form of deception which tricks your mind and distracts it from the truth. Say no to assumptions.
Seeing the world through your own perspective is self-deception as well. Because your perspective is designed by your values, experiences and knowledge it is built to serve your egoistic needs. The lens you use to see the world is in itself not deception free.
Judgement you make about other people is a form of self-deception as well. Making a judgement of a person by his looks will astray your mind into seeing things which do not exist. In this way you are fooling yourself to see something which is not true. It is your loss as well when you deceive yourself by judging the other person through whatever criteria you do, because you might miss certain things that that person can give up. So who ends up a fool by judging in the end? Be Judgmental-free.
Limiting beliefs are a form of deception. You “think” you cannot do certain thing and that it (the thought) is the deception. Look at the definition again, anything (including your so seemed rational thoughts) other than what needs to be done either in mind or activity is the deception.
Any kind of fear is a deception as well. Try doing just for once what you fear the most and you will see the fear (deception) will go away. Fear is also known as self-deception mechanism.
Any habit that moves you away from your goal is a deception.
Any opinions of others that you rationalize is a deception.
Any distracting actions of your that your try to justify is a deception as well.
Anything you feel, think, believe, or assume that happens in order to justify something that could stand against your goal is a deception.
