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How self-deception slowly erodes our choices
One thing I see as a financial planner is how much we lie to ourselves. Because I work at an intersection of wealth, planning, health, and aging, I’m constantly watching people deceive themselves about achieving their goals, what their options are, or why they “can’t” make a decision right now.
Those self-deceptions are rarely dramatic. There’s no crash or momentous failure. In fact, most of the lies I see don’t create chaos, but reinforce continuity. They enable us to go forward the way we always have, avoiding uncomfortable questions or difficult decisions.
However, they do take a toll. They quietly erode our options, our ability to maneuver, our desire to change…until the choices we assume would always be there fade away. These losses don’t announce themselves. They accumulate while we’re still functioning.
Here are the five I see most often and how they ensnared my clients.
Lie #1: “I’ll figure out what I really want later”
Morey is a client in his early 50s who has done everything “right.” Financial security. Professional respect. The kind of flexibility people claim they want.
But when I asked what he wanted the next chapter to look like, he shrugged. “I’m giving myself a couple of years to think about it.”
Five years later, nothing meaningful had changed. Although his accounts had appreciated, the arrival of two daughters-in-law and a grandchild had closed his window on a dream of taking his adult children to Africa—something he could have done if he had acted earlier.
Morey’s lie was thinking waiting until “later” was the responsible thing to do. But “later” isn’t a plan, it’s a holding pattern. Without structure, “later” turns drift into a lifestyle, one that can consume your best options while you’re still deciding.
The lie isn’t that you’ll figure it out later. The lie is believing time does the figuring for you.
Lie #2: “I’m just staying informed”
This lie wears the uniform of diligence.
My client Stephanie checked her investment accounts multiple times a day. But not to trade or because she needed the money. She told me she did it because, “This is the only place where I still get feedback.”
Stephanie used to lead teams and make decisions at her job. She missed that feedback loop, and “staying informed” about her investments was really about regulating her nervous system.
Procrastination research increasingly frames delay as short-term mood repair: you do the thing that reduces discomfort now, even if it makes the future worse. “Staying informed” often functions the same way:
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You read instead of decide.
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You monitor instead of build.
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You optimize instead of commit.
If you can’t name the decision you’re avoiding, you’ll call it “research.”
Lie #3: “I still got it”
Aging denial is really aging accommodation, tiny adjustments we make to convince ourselves we can still do it…and avoiding making real decisions about our diminishing capacities (or the capacities of our parents).
One client, Robert (78), had been smoothing mistakes and filling gaps for years while insisting nothing had changed. Finally, he admitted that, “I didn’t realize how much I was compensating until I stopped.”
These changes due to aging make us feel uncertain of ourselves, and research shows our brains react to this uncertainty with heightened physiological arousal seen in anxiety-related contexts—our threat response. Often, our brains respond by telling us a calming story:
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“I’m fine.”
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“I’ll deal with it when it gets bad.”
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“I still have time.”
In the process, we kick that can down the road until we’re acting too late, leaving us with fewer choices and much more difficult logistics.
“I still got it” isn’t arrogance. It’s avoidance.
Lie #4: “Money is the problem—not the way I use it”
This lie is durable because it sounds like virtue.
One client said, almost sheepishly, “I don’t even enjoy focusing on money anymore—but I don’t know what else to focus on.” Even though he’d already reached every milestone, he quietly set new ones not out of financial need but because money became a proxy for certainty. And certainty is addictive.
This is the “finance as fidget” pattern: you keep optimizing because optimizing provides a clean feedback loop. Rather than give the money a purpose like using it for family, friends, charity, or even on ourselves—all of which involve making a decision—we keep tweaking because optimization feels like control, and control feels like safety.
When money becomes the main project, it’s usually because the real project is unclear.
Lie #5: “I know myself best”
This is usually the last lie to fall, because it’s flattering.
A new client told me last year, “I’ve done a lot of introspection. I know my patterns.” But when we mapped his last several major decisions, the same arc appeared every time: excitement → overcommitment → quiet resentment → withdrawal. He had no idea he was falling into this pattern until he got an outside perspective.
Introspection is not the same as evaluation. People routinely overestimate how well they can evaluate themselves, especially in the absence of structured experience and feedback. A 2025 paper on self-estimates of cognitive ability found they’re often inaccurate, and simple feedback alone didn’t reliably fix that—experience mattered more.
Your internal narration is not a reliable measurement system. It’s a storytelling system.
Why these lies work on us
These lies reduce uncertainty, protect our identity, and postpone irreversible choices. They’re also reinforced biologically. Stress makes ambiguity feel dangerous. If uncertainty spikes arousal, the brain will reach for whatever lowers it: monitoring, optimizing, planning, delaying, reframing. It’s the continuity treadmill.
5 ways we break the pattern
By using structure instead of affirmations or “introspection,” we can overcome the perils of illusory inertia.
1. Track decisions, not activity.
If you can’t point to a clear choice you’ve made, you’re probably avoiding one.
2. Define “enough” in advance.
Set your endpoint with money, with research, with optimization. Otherwise, the game never ends. My clients hate this until they love it.
3. Seek disconfirming feedback.
You need data you can’t generate on your own so that you get real feedback and not praise or vibes.
4. Treat identity as provisional.
“I am this” locks you in. “I’m in a phase of this” keeps you flexible. If you mentally lock yourself into a permanent state, you can’t and won’t change.
5. Commit before clarity feels comfortable.
Clarity rarely appears on its own. It usually arrives after you’ve already started making choices that lead to those “aha” moments.
Remember that these self-deceptions don’t destroy lives, they narrow them. That’s what makes them so insidious, because you can spend years as an introspective individual waiting to see how things will turn out or continuously optimizing your resources for when you’ll finally make a decision. Then you realize that your indecision led to a decision being made for you…and it rarely leads you where you wanted to be.
Related: Empty Nest, Full House: Why Gen X Is Trapped in Place Planning Fatigue