00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode seven 30, eight of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Doug North and I'm Carol Pitner. And we're the authors of raising your money savvy family for next generation financial independence. And we challenge you to really focus on becoming my new savvy. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend,
00:00:25 Scott Mader, Simply being more aware can help you begin to change these things because the truth is if you don't reduce the cognitive dissonance, it belief begins to oftentimes, especially in a work environment, it leads to withdraw. It leads to disengagement because a stressed person does it function as well as possible. And they begin to step away from work because that reduces the discomfort.
00:00:59 Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
00:01:29 Okay. In today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time. I talk with you about what cognitive dissonance is. I share why it affects your productivity at work and at home. And I share some tips on what you can do about it as we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long,
00:01:51 it turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon cognitive dissonance. You know, that's one of those terms that you might've heard,
00:02:17 but you may or may not really know what it means or ever really thought of it, but I guarantee you it's something that you've felt probably more often than you even know that the cognitive dissonance is just a fancy term for the discomfort or the uncomfortable feeling when two or more ideas or modes of thought or beliefs contradict each other. It's something about where you,
00:02:44 for instance, believe yourself to be a productive person, but then you notice yourself doing activities or acting in a certain way that contradicts that belief. That's the feeling of cognitive dissonance and your, your action and response to this may go all over the place. Sometimes we simply compartmentalize it or ignore it. Sometimes we rationalize it away. Sometimes we actually change our behavior or change our belief system to eliminate the conflict.
00:03:17 We either stop thinking of ourselves as productive and begin to think of ourselves as someone who procrastinates or we take action to change the way we deal with our time. So using examples that don't have to do with time, if, if you feel like you've been told by your doctor, that you have to change your eating habits, because you're in danger of some sort of health problem,
00:03:42 you could simply ease that feeling by changing your belief that you know, doctors really don't know what they're talking about this as an exaggerated warning, or you could change your belief by beginning to take action. That then aligns with this new belief about changing your eating habits. If you have political beliefs and you learn information, you could change your beliefs, or you can rationalize those beliefs away.
00:04:10 All of these sorts of things, change how we act. You know, if you value your health, you may choose to make an effort to exercise, get nutritious food, eat rights, get enough sleep, but then you spend most of your day sitting at a desk and you say, well, it's okay because I'm taking care of my health. In other ways,
00:04:34 you even joined a gym, but you never actually go. This dissonance will either make you eventually begin to exercise and eat right, and go to the gym, or you'll just feel guilty every time you see it. And that's that feeling of cognitive dissonance, but let's take work and productivity, especially now, when so many of us are working from home,
00:04:56 you're in a situation where there's no one really monitoring what you do. You, you can probably have a second device that you can use that isn't even monitored by your work. You can browse the internet on your phone or on a tablet. And by the way, this was still a problem while people were at work. If you were off at a private cubicle,
00:05:14 how many times have you walked by and seen an employee browsing or even watching TV on their telephone instead of actually being actively engaged in work. And they even rationalize that they say, we'll eventually get our work done in. And in fact, if I take this little break, I'll even be more productive because you know, it's good to work in short bursts and take frequent breaks.
00:05:38 I'm increasing my productivity after all. I rarely take time off and I work hard. So I should get to relax too. You'll all of these are examples of the kind of feelings that we have that is cognitive dissonance. And I am telling you, it affects your at work. It affects your productivity at home because you rationalize various behaviors. And in fact,
00:06:04 cognitive dissonance is not necessarily a bad thing because it can prompt you and nag at you until you make positive changes in your actions. It makes you realize that something about how you believe and you're acting are not in alignment, but it is a problem. If instead of changing your behavior or changing your belief, you simply rationalize it or justify it away. If you get caught up in trying to rationalize the feeling away,
00:06:35 then it's not a good thing. So what can you do instead, when, when you begin to recognize that you have those moments of cognitive dissonance, where your beliefs and your actions are out of alignment, ask yourself a few questions. What are the two beliefs and ideas or actions that aren't fitting together, identify them, call them out by name and then identify what actions can I take that would eliminate this lack of alignment.
00:07:03 What can I change that brings these things into alignment? Are there specific behaviors that I need to change? Or is this a mindset or a belief that I need to change? And how important is it that I resolve the dissonance? Because the truth is sometimes you look at it and it's really not that big of a deal. And other times it is a huge deal.
00:07:28 Simply being more aware can help you begin to change these things because the truth is, if you don't reduce the cognitive dissonance, it believes begins to oftentimes, especially in a work environment, it leads to withdraw. It leads to disengagement because a stressed person doesn't function as well as possible. And they begin to step away from work because that reduces the discomfort.
00:07:53 They can be absent more from work, because again, they're avoiding the stress and then sometimes employees will act out. You are other people will act out in inappropriate ways because that aggression, that sabotage that bad behavior helps reduce the stress. And then of course, it also leads to health problems, which affect you and affect the workplace and affect how much you get done.
00:08:17 So it's this loop of behaviors. And that's why at times cognitive dissonance can be a really bad thing for a person, for an organization and for your productivity. It's usually cause not just by the person, but by the environment that you find yourself in. And this is why it's so important to identify it so that you can change your actions. You can change your beliefs,
00:08:45 or you can change your environment and reduce that feeling of stress. Because now you're living a life that's aligned on Friday. We'll talk some about how cognitive dissonance plays out in our money instead of our time as well. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
00:09:18 but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series, by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting four, four, two, two, two time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time,
00:09:52 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world..