How To Stop Being an Excuse-Making Machine
Psychological Mechanism of Self-Sabotage
You are a meaning-making machine.
Do you know what this means? You are also a justification and excuse-making machine.
When a strong desire or urge exists, it influences the mind to find reasons for its fulfillment. Only they’re not valid reasons but rather pseudoreasons.
This is known as “rationalization” in psychoanalysis.
Once we are aware of this psychological mechanism, we can be on alert for the possibility of the mental and emotional illusions produced by rationalization.
A heightened sexual urge or loneliness might influence you to create an illusion that it would be a good idea to text your ex and try to see them.
A desire to avoid a boring but important task might influence you to come up with a pseudoreason that watching yet another educational YouTube video is helpful.
An urge to eat deep-fried chicken when you’re on a diet might influence you to create a whole life philosophy where discipline around what you eat or drink is considered extreme, boring, or even unhealthy.
This is why (self)awareness is the starting point and the most important step of not being a slave to your urges.
Instead of being ruled by them or fooled into believing they are justified by valid reasons, we can examine these pseudoreasons and decide for ourselves whether or not we want to follow them.
Of course, the question arises, “How to become more aware?”
Pause. Self-reflect. Have honest conversations with yourself. Build a relationship with yourself. Develop the capacity to use your willpower not only for pushing through struggles but also for skillfully navigating internal and external sensations. Devote more time to yourself than you do to YouTubers, celebrities, streamers, or me.
But let me give you a concrete example.
Last Friday, I hosted a workshop on the idea of the Personal Hero’s Journey.
Preparing the workshop required multiple days of effort. Delivering the workshop live to strangers from all over the world is its own challenge.
Throughout the process, I could’ve thought of many “good” reasons to cancel the workshop and spare myself the effort, anticipation, and nervousness. And I would be lying if I said no reasons came up in the days leading up to it.
However, I am able to pause when those ideas arise. Instead of identifying myself with them, I can notice them, even show them respect by acknowledging them, but recognize these ideas are not me, nor are they a reflection of who I’m trying to become. Then, I can ask myself a question:
“Is the idea of backing out from a workshop coming from being genuinely tired and going too hard for too long? Or is it coming from fear of effort, exposure, and potential failure?”
To use another example, if you’re tempted to text your ex, you might ask:
“Is the idea coming from a genuine belief that a constructive conversation is possible and that we could have a healthy relationship? Or am I just looking for a temporary relief from loneliness?”
But there’s more you can do than just ask yourself these questions and answer honestly.
If the answer shows you’re engaging in rationalization, you don’t need to try forcefully suppressing the urge or desire.
To use my example again, I reminded myself of the valid reasons why I wanted to host the workshop in the first place. I thought about the values that motivate me to research, study, write, and teach. Then I tried to visualize what it would feel like if I delivered a workshop that people would find helpful. All of these inner activities spend less energy than trying to fight an all-too-human urge of fear or laziness head-on.
That’s what skillful use of willpower means.
My challenge to you:
-Take a couple of days to make an honest assessment of how often you have honest conversations with yourself.
-The next time you get the opportunity to ask yourself about the real source of your (pseudo)reasons, take on the creative task of using your willpower skillfully instead of forcefully.
P.S. If you’re creative and ambitious but struggle with self-sabotage, procrastination, and loops of distraction, click here for a free consultation to turn you in the right direction.
Thank you for reading.
Showed the mirror.