Transcript
Speaker: Good morning.
Speaker: Welcome to the We Are Driven podcast, episode 135.
Speaker: My name is Arun Kumar, and I am the driver.
Speaker: This is a quick hit, and as usual, keeping it short and sweet today.
Speaker: These episodes come out every Wednesday, and
Speaker: And they just give you a little bit of fire, a quick motivational reminder for you to carry forwards with your motivated, driven mindset for the rest of your day.
Speaker: It's really easy to lie to yourself.
Speaker: In fact, it's easier to lie to yourself than it is to anybody else.
Speaker: Because when you lie to other people, if you lie to other people, which I hope you don't, but if you do, you generally know what the actual truth is and you know that you are lying.
Speaker: You know that you're saying something that is not currently the truth.
Speaker: Now, when you lie to yourself, that may not be the case because another word for lying to yourself is rationalization.
Speaker: And when you are rationalizing something to yourself, you're generally saying that you're telling yourself the truth.
Speaker: You're telling yourself the truth that it's okay to treat yourself to that dessert or that night out where you get wasted.
Speaker: You say it's okay that you put off this activity that you know you need to do.
Speaker: Somehow we can rationalize these sort of things to ourselves.
Speaker: We can rationalize that we're in the right relationship.
Speaker: You've done that for years in the past.
Speaker: I know all of us, generally speaking, have that regretful high school relationship that went on just a little bit too long.
Speaker: You can rationalize that you're in good shape.
Speaker: I thought that I had just 10 pounds to lose until I would get abs, but I ended up losing 50 before I saw them.
Speaker: Yikes.
Speaker: That's rationalization right there.
Speaker: You can rationalize all sorts of things about your life that make you sit in the dumpster fire and pretend that everything is okay.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: In the words of Jordan Peterson, this was his suggestion, a very good way to reveal to yourself a sense of rationalization is to put yourself in an isolated situation.
Speaker: lock yourself in your bedroom or go for a drive and go park somewhere quiet.
Speaker: Do something where you can be alone and then ask yourself this question.
Speaker: What is one thing that I am doing wrong?
Speaker: And then once you have an answer to that question, ask yourself why?
Speaker: Ask yourself why a couple of times.
Speaker: And you know what you will find when you do this?
Speaker: You will find something that you are rationalizing to yourself.
Speaker: Now.
Speaker: In the moment that you do this exercise, I hope that you can go with your gut and you can answer these questions quickly and truthfully, cutting through the bullshit with intention.
Speaker: And because of that, you may think that there is a risk that you're being rash, that you're rushing to a conclusion and that you're deriving actions that you need to take
Speaker: that might be wrong.
Speaker: Well, you know, I would rather you take action and be wrong than continue to take no action.
Speaker: Because there's a chance that that action that you take changes your life for the better forever.
Speaker: And I want that for you.
Speaker: I want that outcome for you.
Speaker: But the only way that you can accomplish that outcome is if you take this first step.
Speaker: Is if you try to uncover what it is you are rationalizing to yourself, where you're lying to yourself.
Speaker: Try to uncover the truth underneath it.
Speaker: What are you doing wrong?
Speaker: And why are you doing it?
Speaker: Eventually, you'll come to an answer that has a very easy solution to it.
Speaker: If you're doing something wrong and you can come up with the reason why, then you can stop doing that thing wrong.
Speaker: You can do it right.
Speaker: You can cease doing it altogether.
Speaker: Those are really your only two options.
Speaker: So with that, I hope you can go out there and stop lying to yourself today.
Speaker: Stay driven.
