Keep Yourself Consistent With Your Word

In goal achievement, accountability is often suggested to help with success. The concept is straightforward. Get a coach or a partner who serves as an external resource to help you keep your word. Whether it’s waking up at 6 a.m. consistently or sticking to a workout routine, these accountability systems provide outside influence and support.But here’s the thing: you can lie to a coach, deceive your accountability partner, and even attempt to fool yourself. However, the third option, self-deception, fails 100% of the time. You always know exactly what happened.Here I’m talking specifically about scenarios you have determined clearly beforehand what your behaviour is going to be. An assignment or task, for example. A coach might not discover your failure, your partner might remain oblivious, but you know. This is why personal accountability trumps all external systems.Hey there. It’s me, Kore. And you’re listening to Exercising Self-Control: From Fitness To Flourishing.The Natural Inclination Toward Self-DeceptionOur brains naturally resist accountability because acknowledging failure triggers discomfort. We rationalize (“just five more minutes of work”), minimize (“missing sleep one night won’t hurt”), and deflect (“I’ll make up for it tomorrow”). Recognizing these patterns is the first step toward breaking them.Possible Counter-Arguments To “You Can’t Lie to Yourself”Now, is it true we can’t lie to ourselves? This, as in many things, depends. There are forms of self-deception that occur non-consciously that are possible.1. Psychological Defence Mechanisms: Psychologists have extensively documented how our minds protect us through denial, repression, and rationalization. People genuinely convince themselves that harmful behaviours aren’t problematic. For example, alcoholics who truly believe they “don’t have a drinking problem”, or workaholics who sincerely think their 80-hour weeks are “temporary”. These aren’t conscious lies. They’re non-conscious self-protection mechanisms.2. Cognitive Dissonance and Compartmentalization: We’re capable of holding contradictory beliefs simultaneously. Someone might genuinely believe they value health while consistently making unhealthy choices without experiencing the internal conflict you’d expect. They’ve compartmentalized these beliefs so effectively they don’t register the contradiction.3. The Neuroscience of Self-Deception: Brain imaging studies show that self-deception activates different neural pathways than conscious lying. When we successfully deceive ourselves, we’re not accessing the same “truth detection” systems that would catch us lying to others. The brain literally processes self-deception differently.4. Gradual Boundary Erosion: The “one-more-minute” phenomenon works precisely because each individual extension beyond the boundary feels insignificant. People aren’t lying about their bedtime. They’re genuinely convincing themselves that “this time is different”, or “this exception is justified”.5. The Motivational Blindness Effect: Research shows that when we’re highly motivated to achieve something, we genuinely don’t “see” ethical violations or boundary breaches. It’s not conscious deception. Our motivation literally blinds us to information that conflicts with our goals.And finally, perhaps the most compelling challenge is that if we truly couldn’t lie to ourselves, self-deception wouldn’t be such a universal human struggle requiring constant vigilance and external systems to overcome.This counter-perspective suggests that personal accountability requires developing the skill of honest self-awareness rather than simply relying on an innate inability to self-deceive.My PositionMy position, as always, is that what we do non-consciously is not up to us as a matter of choice in the moment. What we can do is make conscious choices. That’s it. Those conscious choices are best when consistent with the person we intend to be, the values we aspire to live, and the goals we strive to realize. It’s these conscious intentions with which we can purposefully condition our non-conscious behaviours and processes.And when we have clarity on our intentions, we can develop the integrity required to more effectively live the life we prefer. It’s from this perspective that we can become more honest about our own choices.That said, let’s get to the practicalities.Photo by Brett Jordan on UnsplashCommon Self-Deception PatternsBeyond my own bedtime struggles where I far too regularly postpone sleep for “just one more thing”, people commonly lie to themselves about:* Diet choices: “This cheat meal doesn’t count.”* Financial habits: “I’ll budget starting next month.”* Exercise routines: “I’ll work out twice as hard tomorrow.”* Relationship boundaries: “I’ll address this issue later.”The Predictable Consequences Of Self-DeceptionWhen we break ...