Bangalore: We generally tend to lie ourselves when it comes to Career. According to Careerealism, J.T.O ’Donnell explains an article he has read, by Sam Sommers, a professor of psychology at Tufts University, where Sam highlights how and why we like to kid ourselves.

“People do this all the time. We bend the facts to fit our self-image, perpetuating a view of ourselves that is often more positive than accurate.”, says Sam

He frames the major ways we use self-deception to make ourselves feel better. In the article, Sam reasons out that some self-deception is useful as a coping device to keep us from falling victim to feelings of dejection or helplessness. But generally, the tools we use to kid ourselves cause troubles. Listed below are the five main ways, we utilize self-delusion to make ourselves feel better.

1. Explanation: Whenever we commit something wrong we generally tend to justify it with our own explanations. For instance, the staff that submits false receipts on his expense report to get some extra money every month says to himself, “everybody in the office does it and moreover, the company does not pay me enough.” Another example of such kind of rationalization is the candidates seeking for a job, fakes on their CV to get the job interview and ratifies the lie with “Their applicant criteria is impracticable… it’s the only means I’ll get the opportunity to prove I am the right candidate for the job.” Overall, through validation we permit ourselves to take short cuts, evade extra work and utilize resources.