(Mr.)

Yes, one could end up misinterpreting their emotions for a number of reasons, including a misguided desire not to change their direction. I think one of the main criteria is whether or not the emotion-induced thoughts still seem reasonable when in a more neutral emotional state, or like I said in the post:

I've noticed that on days when I haven't had enough sleep, I also feel skeptical about what I'm doing with my life. When I'm more rested and in a neutral mood, those doubts seem overblown. So I try to discount such doubts when they seem to be caused by mere physical fatigue.

But you're right that this is not a guarantee of getting it right. Maybe we're deceiving ourselves about how our lives are going, and that self-deception will persist if we try to examine it while in a neutral emotional state. Perhaps it is only when we fail badly enough to get a strong negative emotion that the barriers of self-deception break, and we will be mistaken to dismiss our thoughts in those states because they don't seem reasonable in other emotional states. It's impossible to know for certain. I added a caution about this to the post (just above the references), thanks for suggesting it.