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What does it mean to be honest with ourselves?
One general answer is this: matching up what we’re telling ourselves with what we do. That’s a good starting definition, but self-honesty is more multifaceted than that.
Understanding Self-Honesty
To begin, we must recognize the different categories of self-knowledge that contribute to our overall experience of self. We define ourselves through our bodily capabilities (physical self), our memories (remembered self), our thoughts (private self), our relationships with other people (interpersonal self), and our self-concepts (conceptual self).
To function effectively in the world, we integrate these different ways of knowing ourself and experience a primary self. When we deviate from this primary self, we notice.
After an argument, we might say, “I don’t know what got into me, I wasn’t myself.” After a difficult night, our morning self may wonder what our nighttime self was thinking. A hungry physical self can redirect our thoughts, interfere with our personal interactions, and diminish self concepts we typically emphasize.
Self-Knowledge and Self-Dishonesty
When one source of self-knowledge contradicts another, we are not being honest with ourselves.
If our conceptual self says we are friendly and welcoming and our interpersonal self reveals that we are closed and difficult to read, then our conceptual self needs to adjust its self-concept or our interpersonal self needs to change its approach to people.
As we age, our physical self and our relationships change, so our conceptual self needs to update its emphasis on some physical and personal traits, or else we may grow into self-dishonesty. Self-honesty, in this case, entails keeping our conceptual self in line with the physical self and the interpersonal self.
If our remembering self is at odds with corroborating evidence, then we risk not being honest with ourselves.
If we selectively remember and amplify a few personal slights in childhood, then we may end up moving into adulthood with lowered self-esteem. Of course, all memory is selective and we experience our own truth, but it’s helpful to reconsider our selectivity, especially when encountering evidence to the contrary.
I had an old friend pass away recently, and one of the main themes at his Celebration of Life service was that he had difficulty believing he mattered to people. He did matter, a lot, and he was beloved, but his self-concepts did not match the esteem others had for him. Thinking of this as dishonesty may seem harsh, but a belief that limits us is a belief we would be better off without.
Or maybe our remembering self is overemphasizing our actual achievements and virtues. If an election has been validated and certified, for example, remembering that it was stolen from us is being dishonest with ourself.
Honesty After Loss
After a serious injury or illness, we are no longer the physical self we once were, so we need to update our conceptual self. We can still think of ourselves as healthy, but with limitations that our resilience can compensate for and learn from. If we lose our job, we can redefine our professional concepts to accommodate a different job and possibly a new life style.
Some dishonesty after a loss is natural. We might say “I’m fine” when people ask us how we are, even though we feel far from fine. We carry on with our interpersonal lives, even as we feel a disconnect between the person we present to the world and the person we experience from within. Our lives feel split and inauthentic, and we can feel dishonest.
Addiction and Being Honest With Yourself
When people are dishonest with themselves about an addiction, they are also dishonest with others. In the process, they lose motivation to address their addiction, while devoting extra effort to concealing their trail of dishonesty.
Addiction recovery specialist and Psychology Today blogger Michael Rounds says, “Be honest with yourself and you will be amazed with how far this will take you in the journey of recovery.”
Deception Essential Reads
How Do We Become More Honest with Ourselves?
1) Begin with small truths. Ask questions with clear answers. What music do we really enjoy? (It’s okay if it’s not the progressive jazz our romantic partner enjoys.) What do we really want to do next weekend?
Starting small and ratcheting up is a variation of the foot-in-the-door technique with persuasion, where small steps lead to large changes. Incrementally, we learn to confront larger truths.
In this way, we begin honestly accepting ourselves. Each time we admit a truth about ourselves, we gain confidence in admitting the next truth. Each time we encounter evidence that contradicts a self-deception, we move toward self-honesty.1
2) Engage in cognitive therapy with ourselves. Ask and answer this question: “What am I telling myself when I choose self-deception over honesty?”
Set aside feelings and pay closest attention to what we are thinking. It’s these thoughts that create the emotions we are protecting ourselves from.
3) Be specific. With our own frustrated desires, it helps to be clear and precise. If we don’t like parties and prefer small, quiet gatherings, then we should admit that to ourself, accept that we find parties unpleasant, and seek out small gatherings. In that way, we stop pretending—or people-pleasing—and we can begin self-actualizing.
4) Talk to people who listen well. It helps to have self-honesty reflected back to us. Such reflection can occur with a good friend or a therapist or in a support group.
5) Externalize our desires by writing them in a journal. We cannot go to therapy all hours of the day, any day of the week—we don’t have the time or the resources. Writing in a journal, on the other hand, is always available to us.
Importantly, writing externalizes our thoughts and emotions. We gain control of our words—and therefore our meanings. We get to know ourselves by revealing our most private fears, thoughts, and feelings. Ultimately, we are able to stand apart from our own writing and study it as an artifact for self-revelation.
Every so often, we can read and re-read our journal. We are usually aware of the connections between individual behaviors and what we’re telling ourselves, but we often miss patterns. By going back and reading our journal entries, we can more easily detect patterns in what we say and what we do.
6) Be prepared to take action. We often avoid self-honesty because we know there may be consequences.
If we admit we are repeatedly unfulfilled in our relationship, for example, we need to say something to our partner, which means a difficult conversation. It may even result in leaving the relationship.
More favorably, voicing our self-honesty can then bring out honesty from our partner, which can lead to second-order change in a relationship.
Final Words
Being honest with ourselves means realizing that self-honesty can be difficult. For one thing, our own misconceptions are often hard to detect. For years, we may have defined ourself by others’ expectations—without realizing it. And once we become aware, it can be unsettling to change a fundamental self- concept, especially if we’ve been rewarded for pretending or criticized for expressing our truth. Accepting this necessary labor is crucial to self-honesty.
