Ask yourself what you’ll tell people about this choice in five years. If you’d lie about it, don’t.

Most of the reasoning we talk ourselves across sounds fine in the moment and bad in the retelling. Lying later is a cost you can feel now, and feeling it means some part of you already knows the story will not hold up. Your future account of a choice turns out to be an honest judge of the choice itself.

Next time you are weighing something and your reasons are getting elaborate, say the plain version out loud as if you were telling a friend five years from now. Notice whether you start editing. If you do, the edit is your answer.