Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort that arises when your beliefs, values or plans conflict with your behavior or when you hold two inconsistent ideas at once.
This discomfort is a motivational state: people are driven to reduce it, not just to notice it. It grows with the importance of the belief, how freely you chose the action, and how hard you committed to it.

People ease it by changing behavior ("I'll stop checking my phone"), changing beliefs ("Constant responsiveness is productive"), adding justifications, trivializing the conflict or avoiding disconfirming info. Well-known patterns include post-decision rationalization, effort justification and attitude shifts after small, voluntary actions.

In self-management it shows up as valuing health but cutting sleep or aiming for deep work while multitasking. Better reductions align rather than rationalize: write down values and criteria, track actual behavior, use if–then plans for friction points and add light precommitments.