"You rarely have to sell yourself on a good idea."

A thought by Andy Stanley from his book, Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets (p. 32). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.  (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)

You realize that, don't you?

Andy says, "You rarely have to sell yourself on the right thing to do, the healthy thing to do, the responsible thing to do. You just know. Good ideas rarely need any defense. When you start selling yourself, you need to hit the pause button and ask, 'Am I being completely honest with myself . . . really? If so, why am I selling myself so hard?' The wise thing to do is usually so compelling it doesn’t need selling."

He goes on, "Our hearts get wrapped around something or someone and we experience desire. Want. So the heart sends a message to the brain: 'Hey brain, I want this. Figure out a way to justify it and get it for me.' Now our brains are smart. That’s why we call them brains. And our brains know that whereas it’s difficult to justify a want, it’s not so difficult to justify a need. So the first thing the brain does is upgrade the messaging to something far more sophisticated than want. The brain says: 'You NEED this.'

"Once we’re convinced we NEED something, it’s easy to sell ourselves on it. Before long, we have a list of justifications for buying it, drinking it, staying, leaving, lying, asking it out, or asking it in. But the reasons we use to sell ourselves aren’t really reasons. They’re justifications. Justifications for what we want to do. So, here’s a second version of the same idea I highlighted above.

He continues, "You rarely have to justify a good idea.

"Justifying is akin to just-a-lying. You’re just-a-lying to yourself. And in most instances you know it. But we listen to our convoluted, confused reasoning until we actually believe it. And once that starts, it’s so hard to be honest with ourselves, isn’t it? There’s always an internal conflict between the options we intuitively know we should choose and the options we are tempted to choose, between the options that are best for us and the options we sell ourselves on."

He then says, "Again, when it comes to selling ourselves on bad ideas, we’re amazing, which is so odd, because at the same time, we are all 100 percent committed to what’s best for us. At least in our minds. But not always in our decisions. Do you want to be healthy? Of course you do. We all do. But we all decide to the contrary just about every time we sit down to eat. Do you want to be healthy financially and relationally? Of course you do. Again, we all do. Why, then, are we so prone to decide in the opposite direction?"

Good question, isn't it?

Yes, yes!