Why You Should Gaslight Yourself

clever and mindful uses of self-deception

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Not too long ago, my little brother used to be cute. Not an annoying know-it-all. A 4-year-old ball of energy tailed by all the ruckus in the house, who turned sofa cushions into mini fort roofs and danced around the kitchen when he did a chocolate heist from my stash.

He had no level of risk assessment and illustrated every superhero’s signature landing pose better than the movie, his words not mine.

There was a time mum walked into an obstacle course (previously called the living room) and found him charging up for a mammoth leap from one table to a smaller one, all focus of the world pooled in his eyes, disregarding every sentence with the word ‘careful’.

She had her hands in limbo, ready to catch given the impossible distance, and questioned, “Are you superman today?” to which he finally paused and took offense. “No, …I’m batman”. And he jumped the next second, landing in style with a smug joker grin.

Years later, I think he was onto something.

It was a few months ago in our personality lecture that we came across The Batman Effect. A psychological strategy and (healthy) scientific concept where an individual consciously adopts an alter ego, or ‘dual personality’, to gain confidence, improve self-control, increase perseverance, and perform better in challenging situations.

Research says this ‘self-distancing’ creates a dispassionate view of problems by embracing a separate persona, helping you view situations more objectively and manage anxiety or fear better. All by gaslighting your brain the hiccup has nothing to do with you. Taking away these weighing thoughts helps our self-confidence and determination all while the greater composure elevates our performance during the task itself.

Keeping bipolar personalities aside, this bizarre (and childish?) way of reframing our mindset is one of many mechanisms in which we play tricks on our brain.

But a bigger intrigue is why bother relabelling emotions and faking things in a world where the word emotion, to start off with, has no simple definition? When we have multiple realities, mixed feelings, all sorts of identity crises and no one says what they mean anymore?

Of course, to counter the many illusory effects our magnificent brain plays on us beforehand.

How we already get fooled

Think of the last time you had a bad day. Or spilled your coffee, or had the worst combination of temperature and crowd at the tube, or someone doused all your incandescent excitement over something with just a word, or or or.

We have a negativity bias and are hardwired to remember adverse events and store them in the easiest shelf to reach when unpacking our day or recalling our experiences. So for every negative experience, you allegedly need at least three positive experiences to offset its emotional impact and maintain well-being.

Given how each bad day/moment/interaction is dying to be burned into memory, surely we are conscious of this when dealing kindly with people, right? About that…

How we approach relationships or workplaces is numerically worse. Our cheeky brain needs a 5:1 ratio of positive reactions like appreciation, praise, laughter, and support, sort of like “emotional bank account” deposits. These are foundational and submerged in the memory to be cashed in when couples or friends weather conflicts and manage lingering negative feelings.

Think of the pile of dishes they left undone as opposed to the four other times they made you dinner when you were tired, bet you forgot the latter. The weightage our brain gives is skewed. Quite the catch-22.

Apart from biases though, the data we ingest in the first place may not be perfectly categorised either. Akin to an AI model, the information we perceive is categorised by our brain into slots, given a name then assigned a resulting attitude.

Raspberries = food. Burning match stick = danger. Petrichor = beautiful. Soft cashmere = how much is it? These attributions are largely well-connected but to be human is to err, and so do our brains.

There was a shaky bridge a number of men had to cross as part of a related study and meet a woman at the end of, who took a quick evaluation. Experiencing high arousal with adrenaline, a spiked heart rate and stress, they misattributed the physiological arousal as romantic attraction.

When the body experiences physiological stimulation but the cause is unclear, the brain seeks an explanation. And depending upon the environment (and the feelings of others there), gives it the best possible label.

Speaking of false alarms and crossing bridges, if you are intending to cross one metaphorically and take on a goal, but you tell people about your lofty plan or achievement-in-the-pipeline, receiving positive feedback can trigger a release of dopamine - the “feel-good” chemical associated with pleasure, motivation, and reward.

And this false dopamine hit makes us complacent and acts as a proxy for success, so we never begin. Gaslit into the high with nothing to show for it.

Not all illusions are detrimental.

If we do start tip-toeing towards a goal and set into motion, but leave our acts unfinished (or abandon a half-baked draft in archives for ages) our memory is a strict brown parent constantly reminding us of our inadequate efforts. This is the Zeigarnik effect, where people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed ones because fragmented activities create cognitive tension, holding a privileged place in memory and being more easily recalled.

You must have observed this in marketing and entertainment (gosh netflix and their cliffhangers), it’s all a reminder to finish what we start (note to self first).

Circling back, despite our skewed memory of bad things our partner has done, our minds are pretty good at devoting to just the one person for us (take that polyamorists!).

We devalue alternatives by diminishing the perceived attractiveness and desirability of other potential partners to protect our current commitment. Evolutionism supports this to reduce our dissonance and maintain confidence in ‘the one’ (with rose coloured glasses sometimes).

Long story short lads, the odds suck in being fairly stable, despite the little wins.

Which is why we should do an uno reverse. Finally - the point of the post.

This isn’t about winning against our magical brain; that’s like outsmarting Houdini at his home stage when we’re playing an away game.

Heck, we still dust off unsolved mysteries about our brain.

This tends more to being aware of its penchants and hacking these inclinations to our advantage (hopefully with these 4 ways).

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You know yourself best - and can fool yourself best

• Imagining something makes it happen. Not really manifestation (less backed by science), but more mental rehearsal or guided imagery.
  Taking an F1 example, cuz why not, if you were a driver and visualised standing on the podium, you’d be likelier to get initial motivation and enjoyment, but those who revise the track and steps in their head with process visualisation would make greater effort, have sustained motivation, and ultimately perform better.
  Athletes, surgeons and dancers do this and conjure scenarios with how they’d respond to them.

• If misattribution exists, can we teeter it to spin in our favour? Maybe not with attraction (which is elusive even for science), but surely during setbacks and negative arousals.
  When fear, doubt or “what if I fail” creeps in, frame them differently with a growth mindset. Gaslight your inner critic: “That voice is just the unga bunga danger call which probably isn’t valid, not a projection of reality” (unless you’re my brother and have no judgement of risk). This allows you to move, even when your instinct is to stall.
  Pain, embarrassment, risk — they’re not monsters, they’re milestones. If you re-narrate discomfort as proof of growth, not danger, you reduce paralysis.
  [read the warnings further below, this stuff comes with instructions!]

• Become batman. Acting as though you’re already the person you want to be (“fake it till you are”) gives you confidence, changes behaviour, and alters perception (yours and others’).
  We act in line with the identity we believe in. If you believe you’re tough, resilient, capable — even before you fully are — you’ll behave more like the version you want.
  If you want gardens, become a gardener.

• Minimise regrets by reframing failures with emotion engineering. When (not if) you do mess up, tell yourself: “Good. That’s data. Better than staying transfixed by fear of failure.”
  If you gaslight your regret into pride or relief, you reduce the hold of shame, guilt, or self-doubt, so you can move forward. Tell yourself: “This is temporary, I’ll adjust, I’ll grow.” That self-deception gives hope and endurance.
  ‘This too shall pass’ is a great reminder in both our highs and lows.

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So am I saying delulu is the solulu?

Ew. No. Maybe for a whimsical self-indulgent minute or two; you do you. Self-awareness is key here. You can NOT alter your emotional state without first knowing your state (The book The Good Psychopath’s Guide To Success goes further into this, don’t ask me why I know it).

But here’s some guardrails for when you self-experiment with self-deception.

Caveats

• Over-gaslighting yourself can lead to denial of real problems. If you constantly reframe everything, you may ignore feedback loops, blind-spots, or consequences.
  We don’t want to use these practices as defence mechanisms but as level ups after we have sorted and correctly labelled what’s wrong.

• There must be a balance: between self-belief / reframing, and realistic self-assessment. Without realism, you risk stupidity (doing dumb, harmful things).
  So please, check if the table is too far and do a risk-benefit analysis; our guts are stronger than we give them credit for.

• Some traits have dark edges. Using them well demands strong moral anchors, driving with caution through the woods of self-harm or abusing others with actual gaslighting (insert skull emoji).

• Find yourself and keep most bits - or how will you know the real you? For example, I can’t strike off humour from my writing - it’s my way of making lemonade from life’s lemons.
  If I gaslit myself into taking the alter ego of my idol author (who could be more serious), I’ll lose my essence. Pity.

• Know when to take the mask off. Of course, all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players, but your friends and family want your actual thoughts (specially now when people speak less of their mind), not a crafted performance you realise too late no one is seated to watch.

The truth is, your brain is both the magician dazzling the crowd and the heckler throwing peanuts from the balcony. It conjures possibilities out of thin air, but it also whispers illusions that can be detrimental if you don’t keep an eye.

You can’t beat it outright, but you can study its rigged games, learn the sleight of hand, and start tilting the odds in your favour.

Gaslight your doubts, not your loved ones.
Trick yourself into braver steps, even if your knees are shaking, because half of life’s podium positions go to the ones who simply convinced themselves they were capable.

And when you finally stick the landing like the cute version of my brother, calling yourself batman or not, it will be you who did it.