Are you honest with yourself? Most people are not honest with themselves and some even go to great expense to protect themselves from the reality around them. They do this by lying. Lying is extremely appealing because in the short term it can make a bad situation seem better than it is, or disappear altogether. But in the long term it will only make things worse.

People lie to themselves and deny reality in various ways. The most common form of lying to oneself is the refusal to accept the truth. They refuse to accept the reality of a situation by simply pretending that things are different from they actually are.

Then there are those who refuse to think about something by trying to forget about it, and bury it deep inside their mind. Some even associate their own negative qualities with someone else, by blaming circumstances or situations on another person.

Often when we experience unhappiness in life it is because there is something that we feel uncomfortable with, and are not fully facing or dealing with it. The source of this unhappiness may be a bad relationship, a bad job or financial worries and most of the time people cope with these situations by lying to themselves.

In fact, many people use self-deception and denial as a way of avoiding having to deal with issues about themselves, their circumstances, people around them or events from the past. What they often don't realise is that these lies only serve the purpose of protecting them from their current reality, by making things appear better than they actually are. The reality is that the deception locks them in to an ineffectual cycle of self-sabotage and poor self-esteem that blocks their ability to move forward in their lives and prevents them living their dreams.

The main reason why people lie to themselves is fear. Rather than confront a situation directly, it is often easier and less painful to simply to forget about it or deal with it later. However, when you lie to yourself and refuse to tackle the situation head on, you do not make things better or go away. You are only putting off the inevitable and this often makes the final outcome much worse.

Every time we try to protect ourselves from reality by lying, we give in to fear. If we continue to give in to fear it will become a habit and over time our character and integrity will weaken or diminish completely. Giving in to fear and refusing to accept the situation for what it is, will also result in the failure to take appropriate action that could have remedied the situation. When we are dishonest, we are effectively saying that we are not worthy enough, that we do not deserve good things and that the only way to get things is to lie or cheat.

Honesty is vital to making effective changes and identifying who we really are and what we really want. When we lie about who we really are or what we really believe, we reinforce the idea that we need to pretend to be someone else or that we are not fundamentally "good enough". Without the truth of who we are and what we really want, we cannot have clarity in life and we cannot achieve our dreams because we have no true direction.

Being honest does not mean that we have to confront all of our shortcomings at once, but it does require that us to make an honest start at identifying where our issues lie and accepting what they are. By identifying our issues, we are more able to see past them to our authentic self. Once we have identified our authentic self, it is easier to determine what it is that we really want. And then we can start to move forward, choosing to deal with issues or simply work around them until we feel ready to deal with them.

Being honest does require a high level of self-discipline and is often really difficult to do at first because we have all got so used to those little lies and pretences that seemed to make life simpler. But that impression is false as being honest actually simplifies life considerably and releases an enormous amount of life energy from propping up complex and often completely useless webs of lies and pretences. Instead, the energy can now be channelled into doing something we really want to do.

So the next time you are experiencing unhappiness in life, stop and ask yourself what is causing this unhappiness. Then resolve to deal with it immediately and avoid the temptation of short term comfort provided by denial, delusion or repression of reality.

Stop lying to yourself and be honest about your life! Confront your fears and never give in! Being honest with yourself will allow you to develop a much better relationship with yourself. It’s only when you live a life that is aligned with your truest values and ideals, will you experience true happiness and satisfaction in life.