Here is a fun word: Rationalize. There are a few definitions out there, so here is the one I’m going with:
To attempt to explain or justify (one’s own or another’s behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate
Oxford Languages
Right off the bat, I had a problem with the word “appropriate” because it carries a certain amount of judgement. Yet, at the same time, judgement is a key part of what makes rationalizing so interesting. If judgement wasn’t at play, would there be a need to rationalize? Probably not.
If there was no tension between what we want and what we think we should be doing, there would be no need to rationalize. Sometimes rationalizing happens inside our own head, but it also happens in preparation for the questions that will come to us from the outside world, doesn’t it?
A person who is turned down for a date might rationalize the situation by saying they were not attracted to the other person anyway. A student might blame a poor exam score on the instructor rather than their own lack of preparation.
Kendra Cherry, via Verywellmind
Understanding why we feel the need to rationalize is even more interesting than how we do it. I’ve certainly justified a number of questionable things in my head as a decoy for the real reason I was doing it. What I haven’t always been able to point to is why I felt the need to do that. Seth Godin has a great take on this: “People like us, do things like this“. What a simple way to express the complicated forces that motivate us to do things.
For most of us, from the first day we are able to remember until the last day we breathe, our actions are primarily driven by one question, “Do people like me do things like this?”
Seth Godin, via Seth’s blog
If that’s not brilliant, I don’t know what is. Our whole lives contribute to defining “people like me“. It could be our family, our ethnicity, our nationality, the school we go to, the school we feel we should have gone to, our friends, our faith (or lack thereof), our social standing, our profession, or all of the above, you name it.
Perhaps we rationalize as a way to correct the error that we see when we compare reality to our mental model of what reality should be. Just for fun, here is a comparison between reality, expectation, and rationalization for the 2 examples mentioned earlier. We can’t quite live with the story as we see it, so we make up the difference. Aren’t our brains incredibly resourceful and creative? 🙂
| Situation | Reality | “People like us do things like this” | Rationalization |
|---|---|---|---|
| A person is turned down for a date | The other person was not interested. This hurts | People like me don’t get turned down | Saying they were not attracted to the other person anyway |
| A student gets a poor score | They were not prepared for this exam so they did poorly | People like me do well in school | Blaming the poor exam score on the instructor |
Here is where things get interesting: As innovators, we’re bound to find ourselves in front of decisions that will cause a deviation from the “people like me path”. At this point, the chatter in our minds might go something like this: “People like you DO NOT DO THIS…WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” At this point, we have 3 choices:
- Stay the course with the mind-frame of “people like me” as we know it
- Evolve, redefine “people like me” in a way that allows us to do new “things like this”
- Get stuck for a while, in what one might call an existential crisis
For obvious reasons, I would recommend option 2 above: Evolve! Learning to cycle through these mind states is an important skill set. One example in my experience has been to gently graduate from “People like me…are responsible” to “People like me…take risks” It seems quite simple when it’s put in those terms, but the control loving side of me put up a good fight on this one.
If you are lucky, you’ll have a smooth transition from one mindset to another. Maybe you are part of an organization that promotes innovation, you might have a boss, friends, or colleagues that encourage you to undergo micro transformations until one day, you barely notice that you have internalized a new “people like me”.
If you are not so lucky, you’ll have to do this yourself. Take on the challenging work of excavating the old you out of you in order to transcend your yesterday to reveal a new edge. One practical way to do this, is to stop rationalizing. What if you just did what you felt called to do? What if you leaned towards action even if it doesn’t quite fit your current “people like us”? To the world, you might appear to be all over the place for a while, but you will soon know what you enjoy, what comes easily, and what is hard. This is extraordinarily valuable.
Here is another practical way to do stay in motion:
The 5 Second Rule is simple. If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it.
Mel Robbins via mellrobbins
A final thought:
If Steve Jobs hadn’t taken a calligraphy class in college, we might not have so many font options in our word processing software today, Yet…”people like him” stayed in school and probably did not audit calligraphy classes for no credit. He was willing to explore and evolve.
What do we do with all this?
Think less, do more, and take heart. Get in the habit of calling yourself out when you start coming up with justifications in your head. What would you do, if you didn’t need to rationalize? I’d love to hear it.
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Therese is into creating systems and environments that allow big and small genius ideas to come to life – info@kemuraltd.com
Kemura 