Everyone has a favorite lie they tell themselves. Find yours before it finds its way into another year.

Everyone runs a story about themselves that is slightly kinder or slightly more tragic than the record supports. It is rarely a deliberate lie, more an explanation that saves you from a harder one: busy rather than avoiding it, unlucky rather than unprepared, fine rather than lonely. The story works, which is why it lasts for years.

Ask which explanation you reach for most often when something has not gone well. Check it once against the actual sequence of events. Demolishing it is not required, only knowing that it is there.