Letting Go of the Need to Justify
Now and then, someone will say something that just stops you in your tracks. Many years ago, a mentor of mine said to me, "You don't need to justify, prove or defend the decisions in your life. Your decisions are your decisions. People don't have to approve of them to make them better or worse." It was a revolutionary statement for me. I was practically paralyzed in my life because every decision I made had to be rational and logical. From time to time, I have to remind myself that I don't need to justify, prove or defend why I choose to do something. Fortunately, I have people in my world, like my nearest and dearest, who can lovingly remind me when this old habit comes into play, and I try always to make the "right" decision--when in reality, it doesn't matter.
As I work with clients on decreasing their anxiety, inevitably, this topic comes up. We get in the habit of explaining our lives, explaining our emotions, justifying our decisions, and making them 'ok' to the outside world. When we live our lives in justification mode, it is challenging to make decisions that go against the grain of what others might think is best for us.
A few years ago, I had a client who wanted to leave her job--the same one she had been working at for the past 20 years--and her brothers and sisters kept telling her she was crazy. Her spouse was supportive and gave her a lot of room to explore, and even offered to support her if she needed to go back to school. But she was stuck; she kept going back to her family and trying to justify her decision. Finally, one day, I wrote on a piece of paper, in big lettering, "IT IS YOUR LIFE YOU DO NOT NEED TO JUSTIFY, PROVE OR DEFEND YOUR DECISIONS." She looked at me amazed, and a wave of relief washed over her. I suggested that each time she felt tempted to explain to someone, she could read this sign.
Her homework was to pay attention to how much time she spent in justification mode on a day-to-day basis. At her next appointment, she immediately started talking about how much time she spent explaining her decisions. She started by just reviewing at the end of the day, all the times she could remember that she justified decisions. Gradually as she became more aware of the habit, she started noticing it at the moment. She made a mark on a piece of paper every time she was explaining her thought process. She was amazed at how frequently she felt compelled to justify her life. From the kids' bedtime to what to have for dinner, almost every decision required some logical basis, a defense that wasn't necessary.
She realized that she was, in essence, 'on guard' for all of her thoughts by being in justification mode all the time. She was so exhausted from proving all the small choices in her life; it was impossible to mount a defense for the major life choices. In her case, growing up, her family put a lot of pressure on her to be 'right' to be justified. Regardless of the reason, when we get stuck in the habit of justifying, proving, and defending our decisions, it becomes more and more challenging to make decisions because it takes so much effort to mount a defense. Many of the things that make us happiest in life aren't logical or rational. If we all lived purely logical, rational lives--we would be pretty dull. Some of the most exciting things in life are because we followed our gut. The happiest people I know live from that place of following their gut, going with the flow, and not justifying, proving, or defending every life decision.