Why You Justify Bad Behavior and Sabotage Momentum

Why is it that you tend to justify your bad behaviors? Why is it that you can be making a ton of progress in your relationship with quitting pornography, eating healthy, not overspending? You can be making all this progress, right? And you're eating clean, you're working out, you're sticking to your routine and your plan. And then almost out of nowhere and without thinking, you break the trend. You snap at your significant other. You skip the thing that you promised that you were going to do. You kind of, you take a dump on the project at work, not actually, but figuratively and metaphorically. Or you, you know, end the day with eating complete garbage at night, washing away the day's worth of really clean eating. A lot of men will look at this and they will say, "There's something wrong with me." This reinforces that I'm broken, there's something flawed in me, there's some type of weakness, when it's actually not that. There's a very specific psychological phenomenon that is at play that has to do with your self-worth and self-perception. I'm gonna dive into what that is. I'm gonna explain what it is, how it works, the specific cycles of it, and how you can break free from it. So let's dive in. As always, don't forget to hit like, subscribe, and the bell notification, because on platforms like YouTube, they are making it harder and harder. They've changed the algorithm so that if you're not subscribed and you're not, you don't have the notifications turned on, you are not likely to see the content as much anymore. So if you like this, make sure that you subscribe and hit the bell notification. Okay, so what are we talking about here? We are talking about a concept called moral licensing. Moral licensing is at cause or behind pulling the strings this justification of your bad behaviors. Now, what is moral licensing? Well, it's a psychological phenomenon where doing something sort of gives you this unconscious permission to then do something bad later on. And the research on it is actually pretty clear and it's pretty phenomenal. It's pretty weird and, and wild. Here's what the research shows. When people feel like they've established their credentials as an outwardly good person, a good person that does good things, they're more likely to behave in a way that contradicts that perception, that identity, right? So, and we can all see this, right? We sort of act in ways to appear like a good person. In one study, participants who recalled just thought about a past moral, a good moral deed, a good moral action, were then more likely to act selfishly in the not-so-distant future after that, like within the next few hours. Another study showed that men who donated to charity were more likely to express hateful or prejudiced views right afterwards, as if the donation to charity would offset the debt of some negative comment later on. And so why is this? Why does this happen? What is it about our identity or our ego or our sense of self that causes us to build this sort of moral balance sheet where we can neither be all good or all bad? On that note, we are almost never all good or all bad. And so the brain runs on a kind of moral balance sheet. It creates this sort of moral balance sheet. And so as you deposit good deeds, good moral behaviors for yourself, for other people at work or in your relationship, it starts to build up this credit within this balance sheet. Like, oh, I'm doing all of these morally good things. I feel good about what I'm doing. And the balance starts to sort of tip in your favor. And then almost automatically and without you thinking, you start to spend that good moral behavior and you begin to justify negative or bad or immoral behavior, immoral behavior for you, in order to sort of compensate. Because the truth is that for the majority of people, they are doing morally good things to feel good about themselves instead of acting good and acting moral because that's who they actually are. So this is the big difference between performing, performing morality, performing that you are a good person, creating an identity that is a sort of performative version of you that says, "Oh yes, I'm a very good person." Well, what we know about very good people is that not everyone is good all the time. And so the more that you try and present yourself or convince yourself that you are a good person, or the more that you try and do good things in order to feel good about yourself, and this is the really big, important, like fireworks part of it, the more you try and do good things just to feel good about yourself, open the door for the little old lady at the grocery store, oh, that felt good, mm, I wanna drink more of that, you know, give $5 to a homeless person, outside, treat your significant other really well, you know, you have a little bit extra patience, you do good things in order to feel good about yourself, that is a deposit into the moral ledger. That's a deposit into the bank account of morality, when at your core, you still don't actually feel like a good person. You don't actually have values that say, "I am fundamentally a good person." So the difference is, between doing something good to feel good versus acting good because that's inherently who you are. So when you act good or you do well to feel good about yourself, you're building up what psychologists will call the moral credit. And credit by nature is something that you spend. And this behavior usually comes because you feel a deficit as a person. There is a part of you that you don't like. There's a part of you that you don't know how to deal with. And in your core, usually people who are building up moral credit feel internally like they lack self-worth, they lack confidence, they don't like themselves, they sometimes feel broken or weak or flawed in some ways. And so they feel as though, oh, I have to do good things in order to maintain this image of being a good person, all the while inside inside, there's a dissonance because I actually feel broken. I don't like myself. I don't like how I behave behind the scenes, and I don't actually like who I am. But when you act well because that's who you are, when you act good because that is an extension of your values, it's not a transaction. You're not doing something good to feel good about yourself. The ledger and the deficit doesn't build up. You are just acting because that is an extension of who you are. So let's break down the 3 patterns that this moral licensing will show up in. And I'm going to make these patterns specifically specific to you as a man. If you're like so many men right now, you're probably struggling with some form of self-worth and you might not even know where it came from or how it started. The reality is, is that if you're a guy that's harsh with yourself, you're beating yourself up, super critical, super judgmental. Or you just feel deeply insecure, and you're not able to figure out how to get out of the spiral, I want you to know that there is a way out. I've been working with men for over a decade. And I have helped so many men develop a deep foundation of self-trust, self-respect, and ultimately self-worth. And I've packaged it up into a free guide for you. So if you are interested in doing some of that work, having practical tools and direction to build self-worth again with in yourself, then go to mantalksinfo.com/pod. Again, it's mantalksinfo.com/pod to pick up your free guide. There's practical tools in there, questions and prompts for you to answer, and actions that you can take. Enjoy. The first pattern is the compensatory pattern. And this pattern is the sort of classic, "I earned it," right? I earned it. I've worked really hard today. I used to do this all the time, by the way, with like eating junk food at the end of the day. Oh my God. Or watching porn at the end of the day. Like this was my favorite method of deploying moral licensing to completely smash the gains or the progress that I felt like I had made during the day. You know, I trained so hard today, so it's okay for me to smash a gargantuan bowl of popcorn with, you know, half a pound of butter on it or half a tub of, you know, 1 pound of ice cream. You've been faithful, and so you justify infidelity. The flirtation doesn't count. I just flirted with the girl a little bit. It's not really that big of a deal. I've been a good provider, and so the emotional disconnection isn't really that big of a deal. She owes me anyway. It's this type of behavior where you are trying to offset this moral behavior. You're using your moral behavior that you're deploying in order to feel better about yourself as the justification for, well, I've earned it, you know, I earned it. I, I ate well today. I trained really hard today. And so it's all right if I smash this bag of potato chips. The second pattern that this moral licensing will show up as is the identity shield. And the identity shield is a little bit more subtle. It's when you've built an identity around being a man who's kind of self-aware, who's kind of growth-oriented, right? Who's kind of into this type of work, personal development, self-help work, therapeutic work. You've done the therapy, you've done the shadow work, you've done the courses. And so your identity has sort of built up this very strong and robust sort of demeanor and perspective that you are a good man. And it's built up an armor against the perception of weakness, but against also seeing and admitting to your own weakness. And so that work of, "I do good things," is an attempt to get away from the aspects or the elements of yourself that you actually don't like. And so it creates even more dissonance. And in a way, it allows you to repress It allows you to suppress the elements of yourself that are actually, that you believe are unworthy, unlovable. And so the self-image of this, this sort of conscious man that you've created can make you less likely to spot, admit, and own when you are unconscious. So the first one is kind of like stage 1. The second pattern is sort of stage 2. And then we've got pattern number 3. And pattern number 3 is the virtue-to-vice trajectory, okay? You commit to a standard in the morning, you slip by the evening, and you rationalize it by pointing back to the morning, right? This is the pattern that sort of compounds over time, not because you're like, you've failed once, but because every cycle of virtue-to-vice makes the rationalization faster and easier to reach. And it becomes this sort of habituated cycle that plays out on a daily basis. Now, I noticed this in myself for a long time, right? I did my morning routine. I was great with my breathwork and my journaling, and I worked out in the morning. And because of that, later on, it's like, it's all right for me to use my vice. It's okay for me to go and watch my porn. And it would create this sort of moral dissonance inside of me that would reinforce, "I'm broken, something's wrong." So again, all three of these behaviors, all three of these patterns are predicated on one simple fact, that you are trying to do good, you're trying to be good to feel good, not because it's an extension of who you actually are, not because it's an extension of your values. And so what ends up happening is that over time, this behavior becomes embedded into how you perceive yourself. And you start to feel very stuck in this cycle because you don't get the sense at your core of who I am is actually a good person. I have good values. I operate from my values. I operate from my morals and my ethics. You are acting good in order to feel better about actually feeling bad at your core. And this erodes your sense of trust. It erodes your leadership, and a whole bunch of other pieces. If you're like so many men right now, you're probably struggling with some form of self-worth, and you might not even know where it came from or how it started. The reality is, is that if you're a guy that's harsh with yourself, you're beating yourself up, super critical, super judgmental, or you just feel deeply insecure and you're not able to figure out how to get out of the spiral, I want you to know that there is a way out. I've been working with men for over a decade, and I have helped so many men develop a deep foundation of self-trust, self-respect, and ultimately self-worth. And I've packaged it up into a free guide for you. So if you are interested in doing some of that work, having practical tools and direction to build self-worth again within yourself, then go to mantalksinfo.com/pod. Again, it's mantalksinfo.com/pod to pick up your free guide. There's practical tools in there, questions and prompts for you to answer, and actions that you can take. Enjoy. So what the hell do you do? How do you break free from this cycle? Because it's insidious and it's usually the thing that shows up when you have started to make progress as a man in personal development work, in therapy, in self-help work, and you kind of reach this plateau where you are doing these new habits, you're doing these new behaviors, and yet these old vices are still there. Okay? And I wanna make this crystal clear. They're still there because at your core, your foundation of self-worth is still fractured. And so you're doing all of these good behaviors, which on the surface is great, right? You're like, I'm doing my breathwork, I'm taking the cold showers, I'm working out, I'm saving money, I'm way less angry in my relationship, but you're doing all those just to feel better about yourself, and you're still ignoring that your self-worth and the foundation of your identity still feels kind of broken. All right, so how do you break the cycle? Number 1, you shift from moral banking, this sort of credit system— I'm going to do something to feel good, I'm going to do good to feel good— to identity-based values. So you start to operate less from, I'm going to do that because I'll feel I'll feel good after I do it, to I do that because that's who I am. I work out because that's who I am. I treat my wife with respect because that's who I am. Not so that I can feel like a good boy, not so that I can feel like a good man, not so that I can get praise or validation, but because that's who the fuck I am. So you stop asking, what have I done right? And you start asking, who have I been being? Who have I been being? And when your actions are more about these deposits of I'm trying to do something good to feel good about myself, you start to shift them towards what do I actually value? What values do I want to hold and embody as a man? And you start to use a very simple reframe, right? I don't train because I'm trying to be healthy. I train because I'm somebody who takes care of himself. Right. That's an identity. That's a values-based identity statement. The first one, I train in order to be healthy, is an outcome-based, right? I train to feel better about myself versus I train because that's who I am. I train because I'm somebody who takes care of his body. The first one creates that credit score, that moral credit score. The second one is saying, this is just who I am and it's an extension of my values and I operate from my values. The second step that we need to deploy is to close the loop on the rationalization that you will inevitably deploy real time. Okay, so we all know that when we do those unwanted behaviors, we justify them, we rationalize them. Well, you know, it's okay that I'm gonna eat this half a tub of chocolate ice cream. I'm calling my, all these examples are me, by the way. Maybe they resonate with you, but they've all been examples that I've had to contend with in the past. It's like, oh yeah, you know, it's okay for me to eat this tub of ice cream 'cause I went for that 5K run and I lifted some heavy weights. And so it's actually okay that I take in, you know, 200 grams of sugar all in one sitting. At 11 o'clock at night, right before bed. So you have to interrupt the rationalization, the loop of rationalization, you have to close it. So the moment you start to hear yourself say, "I've been good, so," that's when you need to interrupt. The so is a licensing mechanism. It's a justification mechanism, right? And you don't have to shame yourself to interrupt it. You just have to name, oh, I'm about to justify a bad choice because I feel like I've been doing good. And that's the scorekeeping talking, not me. That's not me acting from my values. And a lot of men never really catch it because it kind of happens below the conscious thoughts. It's like this subconscious thought of like, oh, you know, I've been doing really good. I've been doing really good. I've been doing really good with food. And so like, it's okay if I do this right now. So the practice is simply to start to build enough awareness that you can catch the, I've been doing really good, so it's okay that I go and deploy this behavior. And you interrupt it real time. And you say, I'm not going to justify bad actions or behaviors. Number 3 is you build commitments that don't depend on you feeling better about yourself or depend on momentum. Remember, your commitments should simply be an extension of who you are and what you value, period. I do this because that's who I am. I started saying this all the time, right? Somebody was like, man, you work out like 5 days a week. And I'm like, yeah, I work out 5 days a week because that's who I am. I'm a man who values being in good shape, being healthy, and I want to honor that value. Right? So this is the most sort of valuable moment of— valuable and maybe even vulnerable moment of the transition that you will make out of justifying your behavior and into embodying who you are. And by the way, when you embody your values, you reinforce your self-worth. You sort of fill in the cracks of the foundation. When you are operating from a place place of I'm doing this to feel better about myself, you're acknowledging that you feel like your foundation is cracked, but you can't do anything about it. When you say I'm operating from a place of my values, I do this because this is who I am, you are filling in— I was gonna make a caulking joke there, but you're filling in the cracks to your foundation, because you're embodying your values. And that is a reinforcement of your own self-worth. And so in these moments where you want to make a commitment, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna work out, I'm gonna eat healthy so that I can feel better about myself, you want to shift that commitment from so that I can feel better about myself to I'm going to work out 4 days a week because that's who I am. I value, I am a man who values taking care of his body. I am going to eat healthy because I'm a man who values being healthy. I'm going to treat my wife or my girlfriend with love and respect, and I'm not going to yell because that's who I am. I am a man who is respectful and loving and kind and compassionate. So you shift from I'm going to do that so that I can be good, I'm gonna do that so I can feel good, to I'm gonna do that because that's who I am. Now, the last caveat I wanna say is the goal here is not to stop rewarding yourself, okay? A lot of the times guys think, they hear this shift, I've taught this to many clients before, and they're like, okay, so I don't reward myself anymore? And it's like, no, it's not that you don't reward yourself. You should, find time to recover. You do need to find time to rest. You do need to find time to say, that actually genuinely was something that was really good. And what you want to start to do, and this is the last big shift, is that you don't just celebrate yourself for having done a good thing. You don't acknowledge yourself or appreciate yourself for having done something good. You acknowledge yourself for having aligned your actions and your behaviors with who you actually are at your core. That is the ultimate acknowledgement. That's the ultimate reinforcement. That's what builds trust inside of yourself. And that's what fills in the cracks of the foundation. Instead of clapping for yourself for having done a good thing, which is still okay, there's nothing wrong with that, right? Tabooing it or poo-pooing it or shaming it. It's still okay to do that. What we want to start to do, what you want to do is to shift to a place of, wow, I went, I went to the gym 3 times this week and I'm really proud of myself for taking actions that reinforce who I am. I'm really proud of myself for making decisions that allowed me to live my values as a man. Instead of, "I'm really proud of myself because I did something good." So we have to shift out of this patting ourselves on the back for having done something good, because then that reinforces this moral banking system inside of your head, this moral credit system that lives inside of all of us. And it moves us towards reinforcing our self-worth and psychological foundation. I'm— I really am proud of myself for having saved all this money. Because I really value financial stability and I'm proud of myself for aligning myself with my values. So that's the final shift that we want to make. We want to be able to honor ourself and we want to be able to reward ourself. And the reward is your life comes into alignment and you actually respect yourself. The reward is that not only does your life come into alignment and you respect yourself, but you're able to acknowledge your own value. You're able to experience your own sense of worth. Why? Because that's the place that you're living from. You're not living from a place of, I'm doing this to feel good about myself, but in truth, I still feel a little bit morally corrupt. It's, I'm doing this because this is who I am and this is how I operate. All right, don't forget to man it forward. This is a very, very important episode that so many men struggle with. So if you have a men's group, if you know you have a buddy that you see dealing with this and he's like, I can't get out of this cycle and I don't know why I justify this, man it forward, share it with him. And thank you so much for joining. I'll talk to you guys next week.