How Rationalization Sabotages Productivity (And What You Can Do About It)
I open my laptop and tell myself, “Time to write that new rationalization article.” Before I open Microsoft word, I notice the Netflix icon on my computer and I think, “Well, it’s been a long day, I’ve earned a quick break.” Then, I start the first episode of How I Met Your Mother.
As the episode ends, I think, “Okay, just one more episode. After that, I’ll get back to work.” This pattern repeats itself for a good four hours until eventually I think, “I’ll write that rationalization article, tomorrow.” Oh, the irony.
Rationalization
Rationalization has two steps:
- We feel a negative emotion: stress, resistance, anxiety, etc.
- We make up a seemingly logical explanation for that negative emotion.
In the above example, I felt stressed about writing, so I rationalized that I deserved to rest by watching Netflix before getting to work.
Most people rationalize on a daily basis. Why? Because our long-term goals and our immediate emotional desires are in constant conflict.
· Intellectually, we may want to lose 20 pounds, but emotionally, our brain would much prefer to sit on the couch and eat Cheetos.
· Intellectually, we may want to be a standup comedian, but emotionally, we’re terrified of risking social humiliation.
· Intellectually, we may want to start a business, but emotionally, we don’t want to risk failure.
Emotions Trump Logic
Neurologically speaking, emotions specifically exist to guide your behavior. For example, it isn’t a coincidence that most people have a fear of heights — that fear kept your ancestors safe from harm. Similarly, it isn’t a coincidence that sex is extremely pleasurable. If it weren’t, the human species would’ve died out long ago.
Many of our decisions are guided by emotions, even when they make no logical sense. Logically, smoking, giving up on a workout program, or ordering a 1,500-calorie meal at McDonalds are all uniformly bad decisions. Yet, they feel good (if for only a moment), so your brain invents rationalizations to make those decisions seem logical.
For example, we might tell ourselves we’ve had a stressful week, so we deserve to relax with a cigarette. Or, we might tell ourselves that we don’t have time to go to the gym today (even though we have time to play the new God of War game for 4 hours).
Rationalizations are dangerous because they cause us to lose perspective. When we rationalize, we do what feels good in the moment — which often contradicts the decisions that will help us progress towards our long-term goals.
Many of our long-term goals are worth pursuing, yet, we will never accomplish them if we don’t learn to outsmart our rationalization.
So, how do we do this? The trick is to set goals that won’t lead you to rationalize in the first place.
The Solution to Rationalization
Let’s look at two similar goals you might have.
1. To go to the gym and work out for an hour per day.
2. To go to the gym and work out for at least 15 minutes twice per week.
Which of these two goals do you think would get rationalized?
If you’re anything like me, the answer is the first. The idea of working out for an hour is a lot more intimidating than the idea of working out for a minimum of 15 minutes.
If it’s difficult for you to stick to your goals, it might be because your goals are too emotionally taxing.
Your long-term goals should be ambitious, but you can’t expect to radically change your behavior overnight. Whether your goal is to start working out, learn an instrument, or build an online business, it’s important that you change your habits one step at a time.
It’s easy to set unrealistic goals. I’ve been there, trust me. I once had a goal to publish a new article on my website every day, but that was too much, too fast. So, I started to rationalize — and eventually I burned out (I didn’t post a single article for several weeks).
I learned from my mistake. More recently, I set a more realistic goal: to publish one article a week. After a month of posting one article per week, I increased it to twice a week, and now I publish three articles per week on my website consistently, without rationalization.
To reach your long-term goals, it’s important that you make measured short-term goals. Real progress starts slow, but accelerates over time. For example, you might start with a goal to only go to the gym twice a week, then after you’ve done that for a month, you might increase it to three times a week, and so on.
The single biggest reason we rationalize is that we try to make too drastic a change in a short-amount of time. You can make drastic changes in your life, but it’ll happen over the course of months and years, not days and weeks.
I’ve lost over 15 pounds in the last two months by going to the gym twice a week and making some small changes to my diet. In the past, when I tried to go to the gym an hour a day, I would go to the gym for a week or two, but then I’d burn out and stop going to the gym at all.
Think of some examples in your life where you might benefit from setting more incremental goals. If you want to start reading more, maybe start by reading 5 pages a day (at minimum). If you want to study more, maybe just go to the library for 30 minutes, 3 times a week. Then, if it’s working, slowly increase your goals over-time.
Getting this right takes experimentation. You want to find the sweet-spot of goals that are not too overwhelming, but are still substantial enough to help you make progress. But the experimentation is worth it, with some patience, you can reach even the most ambitious goals you can imagine.
