Can a little self-delusion help you in the long run?
If you are like me, you’d know the hardships of grappling with self-doubt and fighting the imposter syndrome that’s lurking in the dark, ready to pounce at you any time you feel like you have achieved something. I have always underestimated my abilities and it got to a point where compliments made me uncomfortable and achievements made me question if I really did deserve it. Slowly, this became my second nature. In hindsight, I realised my poor self-image made me lose out on a lot of opportunities. Even when I had it in me to achieve something, I undermined my abilities.
At one point I realised that my life was going in a downward spiral. The reason why I wasn’t happy or content with my life was because I made it so. Even when I had the self-awareness, I did not know how to help myself out of the rut. I just kept hoping things will work out on its own. But bad news for me, by becoming an adult I held the steering wheel of my life now. This meant that the way my life was going to pan out would solely depend me. If I crashed, then that was it.
Realising this felt like getting a slap across my face. But the truth was bitter and I had no choice but to accept it. A few days into processing all of this I remembered something my therapist told me a couple of years ago. She let me in on this little secret of tricking my brain into thinking happy thoughts. It’s an approach that helps you to have control over your mind and not let your thoughts run wayward. It starts with identifying when your mind starts wandering into dark places. Then you tell yourself to hit the brakes and divert your mind to think positively.
I went and did a bit of snooping around on the internet and I couldn’t believe the horde of productivity hacks that made use of this approach. It wasn’t just about tricking your brain to thinking happy thoughts, there were articles and videos on how to trick your brain into learning difficult things, how to trick your brain into believing something new, and even an article on how to trick your brain into losing your weight faster. (I’ve bookmarked this for future reference).
So, does this mean “Delulu is the solulu”?
Before we unravel this mystery, let’s see what ‘Delulu is the solulu’ mean.
A few months ago, social media was caught in the frenzy of a Gen-Z trend that preached staying delusional is the solution to your problems. Gen-Z being Gen-Z came up with a lingo for this just like they do for everything.
When I saw the “delulu is the solulu” trend on initially, I thought it was just another viral bandwagon everyone was getting on. Without second thoughts I laughed at these reels and shared them with my friends. But at one point I was like hey, that kinda makes sense!
After a little bit of research, I found out how delusions could be of use to us. Self-delusion (a teeny tiny bit of it) can actually help you achieve your goals. By starting to dress, talk, and act like the person you want to become, you slowly become that person.
Fake it till you make it, right?
Even though we see self-delusion being used as a hack in the recent times, it’s not the child of 21st century’s productivity culture. The power of self-delusion was explored centuries ago by the French natural philosopher and mathematician Émilie du Châtelet. In her autobiographical work ‘Discourse le sur bonheur’ (Discourse on happiness) published in 1779, Châtelet talks about the important role illusions play in creating one’s happiness. Though the term self-delusion is not explicitly used, we understand from Châtelet’s writing that she’s talking about breaking away from the clutches of the bitter reality and constructing illusions using imaginative powers to make oneself happy.
Here's a excerpt taken from ‘Discourse le sur bonheur’
“In order to be happy, one must have freed oneself of prejudices, one must be virtuous, healthy, have tastes and passions, and be susceptible to illusions; for we owe most of our pleasures to illusions, and unhappy is the one who has lost them. Far then, from seeking to make them disappear by the torch of reason, let us try to thicken the varnish that illusion lays on the majority of objects.”
Amen, sis!
But isn’t self-delusion a bad thing, you may ask.
Humans deceive themselves every single day without even realising it. Even when we know something is bad for us, we find ways to make ourselves believe it is not.
Here’s an example. I bought myself expensive coffee the other day when I had everything I needed to make pretty decent coffee at home. I convinced myself that I needed a little treat even though I was broke. If I could deceive myself into buying that overpriced coffee, why can‘t I use the same strategy to my benefit?
A healthy amount of self-delusion could be helpful. It gives you the confidence you lack and helps you reach your goals. Start by visualizing yourself as the person you want to become. Eventually, your actions will end up making you that person. Instead of letting your mind paralyse you with negative talk, you learn to hype yourself up. This will slowly untangle you from the web of negativity you have spun over in your mind about yourself and your circumstances.
So, do we just say delulu is the solulu and lay back?
Here’s my two cents on it. Too much of anything can be bad. Same goes for self-delusion too. You cannot put your trust into your delusions and hope everything will work out the way you want it to be. (Life would have been so much easier if it worked that way)
Self-delusion is just a tool or strategy that will help you leverage your situation a little bit. But before you start using it as a strategy, you should also understand that there is a downside to an unhealthy amount of self-delusion.
Ask yourself why you are using this strategy and what you want to achieve with it. Define your boundaries on how much you can depend your delusions and where you have start doing actual work. You need to let your inner voice reason with you every now and then so you don’t lose sign of the reality.
Remember, self-delusion is not a one-size-fit-all solution to your problems. It is a mindset and if used in moderation can help you incredibly.