Excuses

There is no shortage of excuses in this world. For every task, there is an excuse for not being able to get it done. It is easy to find them and easy to use them in our everyday lives. Excuses are so easy, that for many, they become the first reaction.

We’ve all been in this situation:

You are in a meeting and someone says: “We are going to need each of you to put in X hours to complete project Y.” As you look around the room, you can see the looks on everyone’s face. You can even hear people start to react with words and gestures.
It almost becomes easier to go along with the doubters than it is to try and accomplish the task.

This was a group setting, so it is more obvious when there are others to share in the reaction. What many people don’t realize is that we do this in our own minds too.

Think about this situation:

You wake up in the morning and think about all of the things you would like to accomplish and before you even start planning, you find yourself running through the list of reasons you can’t do them. For example: “I would like to go for a run today…but, I have to go to work, pick up the kids, go to the store”…not to mention all the other things that seem to pop into your mind at this moment.”

Why do we do this? I think we do this because it’s easier than taking the steps to accomplish the goals. You saw how everyone in the room reacted. You also heard all of the thoughts that ran through your head when you decided you wanted to do something. Those voices and words are very loud.

It is easy to listen to them. Why don’t we listen to the voices that say “Yes, I can do that.” Or “This may take some effort, but I think that I can do it.” If we listen to those voices, we can accomplish the goals we set out to accomplish.

Imagine how much better our lives would be if we had that mindset. We would succeed at one thing after another and that would become the habit. When we form habits, things seem easy to us. That is why, mentally, we think it is easier to give up beforehand, but in reality, it’s only easier because we are in the habit of doing it. We don’t have to think about making excuses. It just comes naturally and therefore, we just continue to do it.

As I help people make changes in their lives, excuses become more and more obvious. It has helped me see the situation more clearly. This situation, that we are all dealing with, has caused some major problems in our lives. It has gotten to the point where many people actually spend more time and energy thinking of reasons why they can’t do something than we would spend just doing it.

The key to living a healthy, successful life is to do. If we don’t do, we don’t accomplish. If we don’t accomplish, we don’t succeed. Excused make it easy for us not to do. In our minds, they excuse us from the expectations. The only problem is that we only realize this excuse in the moment that we decide not to move forward. And every time we do this, it becomes more and more acceptable in our minds to keep doing it.

That is the excuse cycle. Health and everything else in life is easier when we are able to do what we want to do. When we let excuses get in the way, we disappoint ourselves and we lose. When we set goals and take action…you guessed it, we win!