I bumped into an insidious and powerful force again this week. Something that flexes its muscle behind the scenes. That sneaky little SOB, cognitive dissonance.

Stating the obvious, habits are important. They create a positive flywheel effect and when it’s spinning I feel good! I’m healthier, think clearer, create more, and even my consumption habits become more mindful (think finite enjoyable discovery on social media versus doom scrolling).

I want that.

However, this positive flywheel has too many damned easy off-ramps. One slip leads to another, leads to another, and next thing I know I’m zipping around on a negative flywheel. The real bitch of it is that can happen without me really being conscious of it.

At this stage of my life, I’ve got the freedom to choose how I spend my time. But that freedom can be a double-edged sword. A weekend trip disrupts routine. Then I don’t eat any regular meals on Monday. A late night working leads to tiredness on Tuesday. Tiredness invites snacking and sweets. Cognition nosedives. Suddenly, without any deliberate decision, I’ve leaped off that positive flywheel entirely and instead I’m riding a plane that’s plummeting towards the earth.

The title of this post though is cognitive dissonance. Here is where that comes into play.

It hit me while thinking about a friend’s toddler, who is grumpy during routine things they do every day. I’ve taught preschoolers and kindergartners. I know that young children rely on adults to be their prefrontal cortex. Routines and habits are essential. Stick to them, and daily activities like meals and bedtime are manageable. Deviate and you’re setting yourself up for tantrums. Structure helps keep kids regulated.

So I’m watching my friends struggle and I can see clear as a day how a little structure would go a long way in alleviating a lot of stress they are causing themselves.

Mind you, at the same time the warning lights are flashing on the dashboard of my car yet I don’t even notice them two feet from my face. My adult brain is not only failing to provide the structure I know I need, it’s got me thinking that I am cruising along just fine and blind to the warning signs.

Richard Feynman famously stated at a Caltech commencement that, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”

I’ve built part of my career on my ability to observe how executives and organizations fool themselves. And yet big sigh when it comes to looking in the mirror, I can still pull the wool over my own eyes.

Good news: the remedy is simple.

Reflection.

Plenty of ways to do it. I like my Morning Pages, but walks, voice memos, friends, coaches, therapists or even an LLM will do the j-o-b at the PPV.

If we are wired to fool ourselves, then deliberate reflection is how we can lift the wool from our eyes.