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Well, Excuse Me

I can’t stand it when I make excuses for myself.

It can be the ever present, “I don’t have time”

to the “I have ADHD, of course I’m messy,“

and the ever present, "I'm too tired/old too old to do…”

Each is just an excuse.

Of course, I don’t have the time to exercise when I sit in front of the T. V. night after night munching on Skinny Pop until my eyes glaze over. I’m in a trance of pundits and popcorn and I can’t seem to get myself to do anything else. It works beautifully. How can I do anything else after a hard day’s work? The excuses can keep me feeling justified but not satisfied.

I do have the time and energy for exercise, just not the motivation. I make the excuse that I don’t have the time, when in truth, I don’t make the time. I know that most things in life require commitment and discipline. If I want something to pay off, I actually have to do it. Sitting in front of a computer watching someone do something, does not mean that I am actually are doing it.

Excuses are great, and we tell them to ourselves and others as if they are fact. “I don’t have the time“ becomes the same thing as my hair is blonde or I’m 5’5”. The first part of the statement is an excuse; the second part is a fact. Don’t get confused. Excuses aren’t fact. They are little lies that we tell ourselves.

Excuses are the way that we get out of something that we have to do or need to do. It justifies our laziness, lack of motivation or time management.

I once gave strategies to a client who wanted to lose weight. With every strategy, I was met with a “well, I can’t do that because…” fill in the blank. It was like the excusapooluza. I don’t think I’d ever heard that many excuses out of one person. I told her, in that case, she would never lose weight. She huffed and puffed and never came back.

Look, excuses are our way of justifying why we stay in a rut. We excuse our behavior or the behavior of someone else and continue to stay stuck. Our lives are not where we want them to be because we can’t reach our dream. It’s because every excuse we make is like a Jenga piece that gets pulled- eventually everything falls down.

Excuses keep our lives unhappy or disappointing. Instead of doing what we need to do to get ourselves out of the stink stew, we make excuses and justify our situation. It’s a vicious cycle of wanting, excusing, and then feeling sorry for ourselves. Things never change because we think about them. They change because we take the necessary action to make them change.

Stop with the excuses.

Here’s how:

  1. Start paying attention to how often you justify not making a change.

  2. Why are you making the excuses? Are you afraid, lazy, or unmotivated?

  3. Make a commitment to make one change. Start small. Don’t overwhelm yourself. “Saying I want to lose 100 lbs.“ will just keep you stuck. Saying,”I want to lose 1-2 pounds by next week by doing____________.” Is far more reasonable and sustainable.

  4. Get honest with yourself about your excuses. They aren’t etched in stone. All things are flexible. The excuses aren’t truths - they are just something in your head.

  5. Stop justifying no movement. Look at where you want to create change in your life and get moving, and that could be literally or figuratively. Get yourself in some sort of movement and watch the excuses disappear because you will start to see change.

Got to go….and take a walk. No more excuses for me (at least not today).


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