In this episode, we discuss the importance of not lying to ourselves to rationalize the poor decisions we make.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about when we rationalize, we indulge in rational lies. One of the worst things that we can do to ourselves is to rationalize a bad choice.
I feel like one of the worst ways that I rationalize is that I tell myself that I will wake up early the next day and work on the project that I’m putting off or need to finish because you know what? I value sleep so much that I will push that activity off and choose sleep in the morning when the alarm goes off in the morning.
I tell myself the night before that I’m not going to let that happen and I rationalize that I’m going to be discipline in the morning to help me wake up and not hit the snooze button.
Since I value sleep so much, it’s just a rational lie that I tell myself to make myself feel good for not finishing my project and doing something else. I feel this happens with a television show or playing on my phone and I see that it’s getting late.
We rationalize our health, our careers, and our finances, and it ends up hurting us down the road. If you need one percent better or worse for the day, you really can’t notice that change as a person but if you rationalize the poor decision over the decision, it’s just going to be easier to do that poor decision the next time and if you do that poor habit enough times, it will become a habit and then it will be really hard to get that poor habit.
To become a better version of ourselves in the future, we can’t be rationalizing poor decisions. It’s just a rational lie that we tell ourselves to make us feel better in the moment. We are not bad people for cheating on our meal plan, it’s only one meal and won’t make a difference.
When it comes to meal plans, I think Tim Ferriss has a pretty good routine, where you stick to the meal plan for six days and one day, you can eat anything you want. You just have to make sure you stick to this routine. It won’t work it you cheat once a day. So you have to have guidelines for how you’re going to live.
It is a choice and you don’t have to do the right choice every time, but you have considered who you are going against your competition. Are they making more moves than you? Are they in a place where you want to be? Is it because they are making better decisions and not indulging in rational lies?
You have to decide what type of life you want to design and then you have to go out and design it. I think a good way to not indulge is to know what your identity is. If your gym rat and you identify as a gym rate, then most likely you’re not going to eat crappy and smoke because that’s not what a healthy person does. Once you say you’re something, then you’re less likely to do things that go against that identity. I love the gym and I identify as someone who is healthy and I make choices that will make me healthy so then I won’t indulge in rational lies that will make me not be that person I want to be.
No one really wants to see themselves as a bad person so we tell ourselves that it was okay to do that thing and rationalize that decision. You don’t need to justify anything, you just to have to rationalize it. Sometimes this is a good time and sometimes it’s a bad thing. You as a person have to know what you want out of life and go after it. Just don’t complain that something is not going your way because you rationalize poor decisions in the past.
Some poor decisions are forgivable because you really don’t know better. I make so many mistakes with business because I think it will work out but then it doesn’t but the key thing is that I learn from that mistake and not make it again. But if you’re trying to lose weight and you keep junk food in your kitchen, which makes it super easy for you to snack on when you’re hungry and you rationalized the purchase of that junk food because it was on sale or that you want to have something for people to snack on when you have guest come over, then it’s not a very good decision to keep junk food in your kitchen when you’re trying to lose weight.
When it comes to keeping your money under control, I feel that people rationalize sales. They say that I had to spend $50 dollars to save $10 because I had a coupon but you didn’t really have the $40 dollars to spend in the first place. You rationalize that you didn’t want to miss out on that sale and that you needed the stuff in the first place. And when I’m saying needed, I’m using air quotations because you really didn’t need it. It was a want.
If you want to live a better life with more options and freedom, then don’t rationalize poor decisions.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode, to summarize it, remember that when we rationalize, we indulge in rational lies and if we do this too much, it just going to cost us our health, our money, and our future. Don’t let this happen to you.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode.
Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
