I lie to myself a lot. I’m an honest person, more or less, but I frequently lie to myself because it helps me cope. Don’t worry, I will explain.
Some people are great at the type of self-talk where they bully themselves into submission. “You WILL eat these vegetables!!” they’ll say as they force another Brussels sprout into their mouths. Others go the opposite extreme where they make an excuse for themselves at every turn. “It’s okay, you don’t need to exercise today. You’ve had a hard week, you deserve some ice cream instead.” A lot of us don’t fall into either of these categories. We require a little more nuance to our self-talk. Might I suggest my personal preference? I prefer to lie.
Why I Lie to Myself Every Day
I don’t lie to myself with everything, or even most things. But, I really enjoy a good lie with things that aren’t going to get better. Take waking up early, for instance. Baby Burrito Bowl does her best to wake us up around 6am every day. We get up even earlier on days Mrs. Burrito Bowl has to work. On those days I tell myself, “You have to get up right now, but you can sleep in as late as you want this weekend.”
Notice I don’t say, “It’s okay, you can sleep in RIGHT NOW for a little while. It’s fine if we’re a little late for work today.” I also don’t say, “Rise and shine motherf**** time to kill or be killed!! Testosterone!” Instead I gently tell myself that I can sleep in this weekend, but right now I have to get out of bed.
I know my lie is not even remotely true. Saturday morning will come and two little blue eyes will shoot open at the first hint of daylight. Internal talk me knows it’s a lie and so does mostly asleep me. We’re all on the same page. Like a junior high football coach telling his team they’re going to go out there and win when he knows damn well they’ll lose 47-0, I pump myself up with nonsense to get me through.
The fact that all parties present know the lie is a lie doesn’t matter. It still serves its purpose- it gets me through.
I know taking a cold shower is beneficial both mentally and physically, so I lie to myself every time I take a shower. “Okay, THIS time we’re just doing warm water. We won’t do any cold exposure today,” I tell a timid and scared Mr. Burrito Bowl. “Well, shucks, I guess if it’s just going to be warm water that’s not so bad,” I respond to myself while doing my best internal Butters impression.
Without fail towards the end of my shower I’ll turn that dial as cold as it can possibly go. I’m not surprising myself with the cold water, I’m good and ready for it. I just know I’m not ready to believe the shock of the cold water is fast approaching when I’m at the beginning of my shower. I need time to warm up and wake up first.
Some people wake up and immediately go into savage mode. I can get INTO savage mode but I don’t start there. I have to be gently led into savage mode with a series of lies each meant to wake me up from the comfortable fog of sleep into the battlefield of life.
A few minutes into my shower David Goggins is yelling at me in the middle of his jog, “There’s a lot of soft motherf****ers out there that want to keep that shower water warm. F*** that sh**. Savages don’t need warm water. Turn that sh** cold!”
No matter how far you have made it in life, you need to be that dog waiting for scraps to hit the floor. If you maintain that dog mentality, your refrigerator will never be full! You will always have that Day One, Week One mentality. You will stay a hunter vs being the hunted! pic.twitter.com/XYy0xuIT4i
— David Goggins (@davidgoggins) July 11, 2019
WOOOoo!!
By the time I’m a few minutes into my shower my inner Butters has been replaced by Professor Chaos.
A little self-deceit to start me off until I’m ready to go get the day. I get my cold exposure while simultaneously not being afraid to step into the shower. Win-win.
(If you’re lost on the Professor Chaos reference watch this video: Butters and the birth of Professor Chaos)
There are countless other ways I enjoy a good self-lie. When I go to the gym I tell myself we’re just doing an easy workout today. I tell myself that so I actually go to the gym. Why skip an easy gym day? I’ll skip a hard gym day if I’m going to skip one. Deep down I know as soon as I get warmed up and feel the pump of the first few sets, I’ll be in the groove and I can start letting in the idea that maybe this will be a hard workout. At that point my psyche is ready to take on a hard work out.
Everyone has a Butters side and Professor Chaos side. Some people never tap into that Professor Chaos side. They never get into savage mode. They live their entire lives in their Butter’s character, just hoping nobody comes by and takes their bubblegum.
My natural state is to be Butters. I don’t like conflict and I don’t want to be another bro always looking for a fight. But, I don’t want to be Butters all the time. Sometimes I want to feel like a bad ass. I want to feel alive and let Professor Chaos out of his cage. If you’re a natural Butters, you might need to coax the Professor Chaos out.
If you’re sick of the Butters side of you always being front and center, learn to lie. Getting out of shape and getting back to the gym after so long feels intimidating. Yelling and screaming at yourself won’t work at this point. All that will accomplish is getting you back into bed where you’ll ask your significant other to come be the big spoon. Instead say, “I know you’re tired. Let’s go to the gym and just do an easy workout. We can take tomorrow off, but today we have to at least go there.”
Then hold your hand and lead yourself to the gym.
Once you’re there and you start to get warmed up, you realize it’s not so bad and the water’s pretty warm. Let that Butters side of you slowly slip into the background while you adjust. Before long you notice David Goggins and Jocko Willink are running laps and doing kettle bell swings in your subconscious. Your blood is flowing and your heart is pounding and you look in the mirror and notice you’re wearing a tinfoil Professor Chaos mask. Transition complete.
At this point the Butters side of you is long gone. You couldn’t find that piece of you if you tried. You’re in savage mode now. You would have never put your gym shorts on if you knew how tough this workout was going to be, so you lied to yourself and you’re happy you did.
I do this with everything. You can quit your job tomorrow, today you gotta go to work. We’ll sleep in tomorrow, today you gotta get up. We’ll eat ice cream and pizza on Saturday, today we’re eating broccoli. Don’t worry we’ll leave the shower on warm.
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How to be Happy with the Body You Have
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On Swearing (Warning Explicit Content)
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I lie to myself when I do my workouts most days. I have a 3 mile walking video and I tell myself I can quit after two miles if I’m not feeling it. But I know by the time I got two miles I’ll be okay just finishing it out almost every single time. But it gets me started.
nice! yup that’s the exact same strategy I use. I go on my morning walks with Baby Burrito Bowl and I always say I’m just going to walk the whole way. Halfway through I almost always start to jog.