Consumers frequently experience goal conflict, where they have to choose between staying on course to achieve a goal and succumbing to a tempting indulgence that interrupts goal pursuit. This study introduces a novel strategy consumers use to justify the choice of an indulgent (goal‐conflicting) option over a righteous (goal‐aligned) one. In three experimental studies involving real consumption decisions, the authors show that before choosing a goal‐conflicting option over a goal‐aligned one, consumers overstate the severity of their life problems before making their choice to feel more deserving of the indulgence. This justification strategy is apparent when the goal‐conflicting option is chosen over a goal‐aligned option (vs. over another goal‐conflicting option—i.e., no goal conflict), and when the severity of life problems is reported before (vs. after) making the final choice. Furthermore, the findings reveal a positive downstream consequence of the proposed justification strategy on choice satisfaction. These findings contribute to the growing research on consumers' tendency to create reasons to justify indulgences, in this case at the expense of deliberately degrading one's current state to feel more deserving of indulgence.