Do the elements of our lives—our time, our sacrifice—line up with what we say we want to be? How many of us are really people of our word? How often do we say things about ourselves, hoping they are true? How many times do we believe things about ourselves that really, honestly, aren’t true?

At the very least, we say things in a way that exaggerates what is true. Let me give you a couple of examples. I love it when somebody tells me I really believe in family. I’m a family person. That’s awesome. So I love that you want to spend time with your family. You think of them often.

They encourage you. You encourage them. You love being around your family so much that you know you go out of your way to do that. And people in your family also want to spend time with you. Well, people don’t call me very often. There’s probably a reason why. And we tell ourselves we love family, but do we only get together with family when the calendar tells us we’re supposed to do Easter weekend?

Christmas, birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries are essential data points on a calendar where we gather with the people we call family. Being a family person means that you are a part of a family in between the data points. For us to be people who say we care about family, it cannot just be from one holiday to another.

We are then deceiving ourselves. How about this example? I really want to grow in my craft and career path. And yet, the reports we’re hearing in this post-pandemic world are that the average person can barely get through a 40-hour workweek.

We want to be the best by only giving 30 hours a week. We want to be the best at our craft. We want to be the best when we graduate at the top of our class, but we want to avoid attending class.

We want to be doctors but don’t want to study to get into medical school. And when we’re in medical school, we want to do something other than what we’re supposed to do. Oh my gosh, I have had many years of study. If you’re that young person saying that, I really don’t want you to be my doctor when I get older; I want you to have spent a good decade of your life studying.

We do this to ourselves. We say we believe things. But the question is, do the elements of our life are time? Are sacrifice? Do they line up with what we say we want to be? Because if not, we will fall short. And if not, you know, we end up doing. We end up self-sabotaging our life. We self-sabotage our finances.

We self-sabotage our relationships. Maybe we even self-sabotage our souls because we say we believe something, but nothing about our lives lives up to that.