To successfully distort reality you probably need to keep two separate mental books: the false one designed to motivate yourself, and the accurate one to keep you out of trouble. If you forget that you don’t really have a “reality distortion field”, that you can’t change the territory by falsifying your map, you might make a Steve Jobs level error by, say, voluntarily forgoing lifesaving medical care because you think you can wish your problem away.

Thanks for this paragraph, I feel like you finished a thought I've been stuck in the middle of having for a year. Instead of framing the problem as a dilemma - "do I deceive myself, or not?" - simply choose whether or not to turn on your internal cheerleader as needed.