Maybe I Can® with Debbie Weiss

Ep. 121: Lies We Tell Ourselves

• Debbie Weiss • Episode 121

Share episode

Send us a text

Welcome back to the Maybe I Can Podcast! In this episode, I'm diving deep into self-deception and the lies we often tell ourselves. Sharing my personal journey of overcoming self-lies, I encourage you to call out your own excuses that keep you stuck. From thinking it's too late to start something new to believing you're not good enough, I've been there too. Together, we'll explore temporary barriers versus habitual excuses, and I'll guide you to rewrite your story for a better life. Tune in and see how honesty and personal power can transform your next chapter!


NEW! The Sprinkle Effect Book!
https://www.debbierweiss.com/thesprinkleeffect

FREE LIFE CHANGING WORKBOOK

Kickstart Your New Life with One Critical Step: A Practical Guide for Women Ready to Redefine Their Paths and Embrace New Beginnings.

DOWNLOAD HERE TODAY: https://www.debbierweiss.com/kickstart

NEW! The Sprinkle Effect Book!
https://www.debbierweiss.com/thesprinkleeffect


***NEW FREE WORKBOOK**

Kickstart Your New Life with One Critical Step: A Practical Guide for Women Ready to Redefine Their Paths and Embrace New Beginnings.

DOWNLOAD HERE TODAY: https://www.debbierweiss.com/kickstart


MAYBE I CAN BEGIN TO CHANGE MY LIFE Enrollment is now OPEN & 50% OFF!

This transformative six-module journey of self-discovery and empowerment includes a printable worksheet and offers lifetime access to all materials. Designed for those facing major life crossroads or simply seeking greater fulfillment, this course is your path to a more purposeful life.

LEARN MORE HERE: https://www.debbierweiss.com/beginchange


Work with Debbie! See all the ways you can work with Debbie to help you live the life you know you're meant for: https://www.debbierweiss.com/workwithdebbie


On Second Thought... Maybe I Can Book on Amazon: https://bit.ly/maybeIcanbook


Morning Sprinkles of Goodness: Download your copy of this free guide to help you kickstart your day. Grab it here: ...

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Maybe I Can podcast. I'm your host, debbie Weiss, and this podcast is here to remind you that your next chapter can be your best chapter, even if you can't see how yet, believe me, I know Because I've been there. I couldn't see how I'm still evolving and every day I'm like, oh, maybe this is it, and one thing leads to another. But you know what? None of that ever would have happened if I didn't realize that I was lying to myself and making excuses for everything under the sun. So today, with love, I'm going to ask you to, along with me, call yourself out on the lies and excuses that you've been telling yourself. Now, maybe your first reaction is me, I don't lie. Now I have to say, I consider myself quite an honest person. I don't lie. I consider myself quite an honest person. I don't lie, sometimes almost. You know, white lies could help me in some situation. But I'm honest, debbie. But you know what? Not with myself. I didn't even realize it, I didn't even know it. It really took something, and I'll talk about it later. That kind of was like this mind-blowing aha moment where I realized boy, I have been lying to myself for the majority of my life and we'll learn that really, for me, for most of us, it's kind of like a safety mechanism, that you think that you're keeping yourself safe and comfortable. But you know what, when you keep yourself safe and comfortable, nothing's ever going to change in our lives. And that's where I was and maybe that's where you find yourself, and maybe it doesn't have to be. That whole, oh my whole life is a lie. Maybe it's one little area or a couple little areas. That's most likely what it is. Even though I've realized this, I still catch myself lying to myself. I'll give you an example Last weekend, saturday night, last weekend, saturday night actually I think it was Friday, friday night, saturday, saturday night I don't want to say I didn't do anything.

Speaker 1:

Actually I was not feeling well. But even before that, besides that, I was doing things, but just by myself. You know, maybe I was, and I don't even remember now. I think I did a little bit of work. Of course I did some laundry, I don't know what else. I, you know, did my thing meditate, journal, all the things that I do. I was reading, I was knitting, like I was doing things. Of course I was watching some Hallmark movies at night. You know, guilty pleasure watching some Hallmark movies at night. You know guilty pleasure.

Speaker 1:

But there came a point where I said to myself oh gosh, I can't believe that I've had nothing to do all weekend and nobody to do it with and I've sat here all alone and I have no other choices. You know, is that true? You know, is that true? Now, I'm not saying it's an outright lie, because obviously people were calling me with all these invitations. No, however, did I have choices? Sure, could I have called a, a friend, and seen what she was doing, and met her for dinner or gone for a walk? Yes, could I have, I don't know, taken myself out of my house somewhere, even if it was walking around a mall, you know whatever, to have some kind of interaction with other people? Yes, had someone asked me to do something, but it just didn't interest me, so I didn't go.

Speaker 1:

Yes, there was a lot of things that were going on, but after you know, more than 24 hours of being alone and doing my own thing, I sat there Saturday night, and you know what? This is the problem with Hallmark movies. Sorry, but sometimes it can get in your head, or at least it can get in my head, and I bet you that was probably. Now that I'm talking to you. I bet you that was probably what it was right. I'm watching this romantic Hallmark movie and I'm thinking, oh, I want to be in that, lovely. I don't think it was a Christmas one, so I don't want to say this wintry town I don't remember what it was, but I don't think it was Christmas. But I want to be in that scene, whatever. That scene is right and I'm not.

Speaker 1:

So I think it kind of maybe made me feel sorry for myself. And what did that do? That started the wheels turning and about me being alone and poor me and I have nothing to do and I had to stop and say cut it out, deb. You are making excuses, you are telling yourself a story to kind of feed into the pity party that I was having a mini pity party by myself. What are some common lies that we tell ourselves? I don't have time, boy. That's a regular right. I'm sure you can relate to that. I think we all can.

Speaker 1:

It's too late for me. I could say that myself. I didn't start this journey that I'm on now to make me be here talking to you and writing books and speaking and doing all of these things. I really didn't start that journey really, and probably until my mid-50s didn't start that journey really, and probably until my mid-50s. Is that too late? I can't remember. You know, I should look this up because I've thought about this lately. What was it? Oh my gosh, what's the Colonel's? The chicken guy? You know Kentucky Fried Chicken. He was in his mid-60s. I've met other authors who started writing books in their 80s. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late.

Speaker 1:

I'm not smart enough, talented enough, qualified enough. Oh my goodness, I have gone down that road a lot in the last several years when it came to writing a book, years when it came to writing a book, speaking, everything that I'm doing, having my own podcast. I don't know how to do that, but you know what I figured out. All I have to do is press record and just talk. I know how to talk clearly. If you follow me, you know I know how to talk. That's my superpower. Other people have it easier. Oh, that's a big one for me too. I'll talk about that in a little while. I'll start tomorrow, next week or someday. That's pretty common. We all know that one.

Speaker 1:

So why do we do it? We're protecting ourselves. We are protecting ourselves from the fear of failure, of being rejected, of being judged, so we're keeping ourselves safe. We're avoiding that discomfort, that discomfort and that risk of trying something new. It feels uncomfortable, right. Everything feels uncomfortable when you start it. I don't think that there's anything that doesn't feel weird. But think about something.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you're one of those people and I don't mean it in a derogatory sense, because I was one of those people for a couple of years. I got away from it but maybe you're someone who's taken up pickleball. You've jumped on the pickleball craze. Did it feel natural when you first started? Did you know what they were talking about with the kitchen? Did you understand it can't bounce here, it can only bounce here. And what about that darn scoring? I can guarantee you had no idea what you were doing. But now you're out there, I'm sure a pickleball warrior, and you forgot what that was even like. You can apply that to anything that you learn that you try for the first time.

Speaker 1:

Imagine if you didn't try pickleball, if that is one of the things that you love right now, and fill in any for Pickleball. What is a hobby of yours? What do you do for a living? What if you never took the risk to get that very first job. Oh my gosh, I can think.

Speaker 1:

I think about it a lot lately, as my youngest son is about to go out into the big, wide world of employment, and I remember how scared I was when I got my first accounting job, and I remember I didn't want to ask any questions and I thought I'm supposed to know how to do this. And I sat there by myself, panic stricken, and every night I wanted to quit because it was the most uncomfortable feeling, not knowing what I was doing. And what happens with everything. Over time we get more comfortable, we get more proficient and then, the next thing you know, we're the experts explaining it to somebody else. What if you never tried it? Your life would be in a completely different state than it is now. So when you're thinking about being scared about trying something new, think about all those things so many things the majority of your life. What if you are a parent and you were afraid to be a parent? Look where you are now, although, even as a parent of kids in their mid-20s, every stage is still a new learning experience, right as we reach it. As a parent, we're constantly learning and growing.

Speaker 1:

These lies that we tell ourselves I don't have enough time, I'm too old, I'll do it tomorrow. We've repeated them so often that we believe them, but they're just a story, and when I realized that I had the power to rewrite that story to, that's when a whole new world opened up to me, and I'm hoping that it will do the same for you. One of the things that one of the lies that I told myself was, before I wrote my memoir who's going to want to read it? No one's going to want to read it because I haven't had any thankfully any big, crazy traumas. I've had a ton of little traumas in my life, a ton dealt with a lot of different things. But who wants to read that? Because that's boring, because we all have a bunch of little traumas in life, right? No one gets away unscathed. And so I convinced myself no of even writing my own story.

Speaker 1:

And what I learned? Once I put myself out there, once I thought about it, I realized, you know, no one's going to want to read about my little traumas. Is that true? I don't think that's true, because when I tell myself a line like that, I always remind myself well, how do I feel what would I want to read that story? And I remind myself, you know what I would, because, yes, it's very inspiring to read someone's incredible story of overcoming. But can I relate to that? No, I can't. I relate to someone who has had similar experiences to myself.

Speaker 1:

And as far as the writing is concerned, I got to be honest, like I guess, I'm a simpleton when it comes to reading. I'm no literary connoisseur. That's not me. I don't want to break down. Oh gosh, I can't even think of the literary terms. Oh my gosh, what things mean? And what did the author mean by that? And I don't want to have to read a book with so much flowery detail or big words in a sentence that I've got to reread each sentence three times. No, I want simple, plain English, a regular person who's talking to me like I'm used to being talked to. Okay, that's basically how I write. Whatever I'm talking, that's how I wrote it on paper. And if you've read any of my books and you've listened to me, you know that that's the case. So if I want to read stuff like that, why wouldn't somebody else? I was telling myself a lie and when I realized that, then I opened myself up. I took a risk. I did things that were extremely uncomfortable every step of the way. It's still uncomfortable, but I did it. It and it's opened up a whole new world for me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so sometimes there are real reasons why we can't do something, but we have to learn to differentiate between a reason and an excuse. So a reason is usually something that's temporary, it's circumstantial, it is based on facts and often something that we can't avoid and it doesn't lead to long-term avoidance, whereas an excuse is something repetitive, habitual, it is usually based on fear or self-doubt, it makes you kind of avoid responsibility, the responsibility of taking ownership, and it keeps you stuck. So let's look at a few different examples. Maybe you want to pursue a goal. If there could be a reason, your reason that you're not able to is I can't start this project today. I'm recovering from the flu. That's valid, that's temporary, right, and it's fact. Same thing. But an excuse would be I'll start when my life calms down. It's just not the right time. That's a good excuse.

Speaker 1:

Like I've told, told myself, my life is crazy right now. Look at my life is spinning out of control. I can't do this now. That's, I'll start someday. I'll start someday. I think you know and this isn't even the topic, but it just reminds me of the idea of a sprinkle and small steps. I think sometimes, when it comes to something like that, you're thinking about pursuing this huge goal and it's like you might have a lot of things going on. I wrote my first book when my husband was dying. I had a lot of things going on and I still had my regular life along with that, and I still found time to write the book, and I did it because I broke it down into very small steps. So instead of saying, oh, today I am going to change my career, no, I want to become a I don't know a teacher and I have no idea what that entails. So today, for 15 minutes, I'm going to research what I would need to do. That's it. Even when your life is out of control, I can guarantee you that you can find 15 minutes to do a little research, and then 15 minutes the next day and the next day and the next day, all right.

Speaker 1:

Another one time management. I had to work late, unexpectedly and I couldn't work out. Sometimes that happens, right, it's unavoidable. There's a deadline. Your boss says you've got to stay. You didn't expect that you know all the things. That seems to me like a valid reason. It's not something that happens to you every day of the week, whereas an excuse can be I'm too busy to work out. There's just never enough time. You can make the time. Believe me, I get up at 5.15 in the morning to work out. You can find the time. Believe me, I get up at 5.15 in the morning to work out. You can find the time Starting a new habit.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's say you're trying to start a habit of journaling. A reason would be I forgot to journal yesterday. Okay, that's, I mean, that's honest. Right, you forgot. All right, I'll set a reminder for tonight. The excuse would be you just throw your hands up if you forgot. I'm just not consistent, so it's probably not for me. So how do you tell the difference? I think you have to ask yourself some questions Is this a temporary barrier or a repeating story? Is this a temporary barrier or a repeating story? Am I problem-solving here or am I just procrastinating? And is this rooted in truth or in fear? And you've got to be honest with yourself. You know, you've got to take a good hard look in the mirror. You're not supposed to berate yourself. This isn't about berating yourself. This is about growing as a person and recognizing when we're making excuses.

Speaker 1:

It's so easy to have excuses become habits. You know, I had those go-to excuses and I think for me it was when my life calms down, because my life never calmed down. I went from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, as most of us do. I have to say right now, knock on wood, my life is pretty calm, but it wasn't for a very long time and it stopped me from doing things and it stopped me from taking the action and really making my life, turning my life into a life that I enjoy. It allowed me, these excuses allowed me to stay stuck in the mud. Stuck in the mud and unhappy and not growing. So please, please, please. Don't think that this is something that you're supposed to be scolding yourself and telling yourself what a bad person you are because you've been lying to yourself all this time. No, it's just the opposite. If you can now discover a lie that you've been telling yourself, that deserves a pat on the back. Please, please. No shame here, just growth.

Speaker 1:

Lately I had been making excuses, my, my. Another excuse that I made lately was within my job. In order to continue with the license that I had, I had to take a test, and I'm a good test taker. I have to say it's a strength of mine, I'm a good test taker. But I told myself, just because I knew there was, this was not a test that I could just sit down and take. There was going to be some serious studying involved. I didn't feel like it and so I told myself do I really need this? Do I really like doing this anyway? This part of my job, I mean, was it required? It was optional, let me just say that. And so, unfortunately because if it were required I would have just done it, but it was optional and I told myself a whole story why I didn't need to do it, why it wasn't necessary.

Speaker 1:

I had every excuse and so I didn't take it, didn't take it, I didn't take that test and kind of at the end, when push came to shove, I thought to myself is this going to be something that I regret? My kind of window was closing and I was going to lose whatever certification I had unless I took this test and I thought I don't want to do this. How many times have I done this with my life where I look back with regret. I'm telling myself a lie. Why? Because I'm being lazy, I don't want to study, it's boring. I have other things that I'd rather be doing. Yeah, all those things, those are true, but I was making excuses to avoid the discomfort. And the beginning of February I said I'm doing this, I am every single day studying one chapter, and I made myself a study schedule and it was boring and it didn't matter, because I booked the test date for the end of February and I paid the money which I couldn't get back at that point and I stuck with my plan and I passed and it's over. And now I have it and I'm never going to look back with regret that I was too lazy to do what needed to be done. Of course, it took me a year to realize I was lying to myself, but so you and I are in good company.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that kind of caused the lies for me to continue was a pity party. Kind of caused the lies for me to continue was a pity party. You know, I got to always come back to my weight my whole life. Fat, my whole life. Sorry if you don't like the word fat, overweight, my whole life. As a fellow. You know my cousins and I as fellow fatties we get over. It's one thing if someone else says that, but different when we refer to ourselves that way. So a weight problem my whole life? I'll be politically correct A weight problem my whole life. And my whole life.

Speaker 1:

I'd say, oh, poor me, I have a slow metabolism. Look at that woman over there. She can eat whatever she wants. She's so lucky. Why does she get to eat whatever she wants? And I'm cursed with this horrible metabolism where nothing that I do, nothing I can do, will allow me to lose weight and keep it off. And that story kept repeating itself and repeating itself until in my 50s I realized well, wait a second, I've lost weight before. And that woman, or those women that I'm looking at over there, how do I know what they're eating? Every minute of every day. I'm watching them. On a Saturday night maybe enjoy one meal.

Speaker 1:

It was a lie and I was a victim. I had created a victim mentality by telling myself poor me, telling myself I had a slow metabolism. Okay, maybe I have a slower metabolism than the next person, but did that mean that that made it 100% impossible for me to lose weight? Absolutely not. 100% impossible for me to lose weight? Absolutely not. So, ask yourself where am I lying to myself? What am I pretending not to know? I was pretending not to know that not everyone Ugh lost my train of thought there, that not everyone Ugh lost my train of thought there. I was pretending not to know that that woman didn't eat french fries all the time.

Speaker 1:

What excuses am I tired of using? Come on, think about it. You know the common ones we talked about in the time. What excuses am I tired of using? Come on, think about it. You know the common ones we talked about in the beginning. I'm too tired, not enough time, not enough money, it's too late. So I want you to take out a pen and paper and write down this simple prompt. And write down this simple prompt.

Speaker 1:

The story I've been telling myself is blank, but the truth is blank. And use that with as many excuses, as many stories, as many of those little lies that you've been telling yourself, and continue to do it, just like I continue to do it. As I said. I'm aware of it. I know all the things that I've just, you know blurted out at you and I still find myself, telling myself lies because you know what, it's easier and it's safer and it's more comfortable.

Speaker 1:

But then our life is boring, dull and we never grow. You don't want that. I know you don't want that, otherwise you would not be listening to this podcast. So end the pity party, audit all your excuses, step into honesty and your personal power and honestly watch how your life begins to change. I'd love to hear if you're brave enough to share with me DM me on Instagram and tell me what your biggest lie is, because again, I've got a whole book full of lies that I've told myself. Or share with me. What excuse are you letting go of today? Until next time, keep believing in what's possible and don't forget. Maybe you can See you next week.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Debbie Weiss

Host