The BS Excuses We Tell Ourselves
“The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we are afraid.” – Richard Bach
Time to sit down, be honest with ourselves, and question those things that we claim we can’t do. For example, I can’t work out, I don’t have the time, I can’t eat healthily, I can’t (fill in the blank).
I was recently listening to an audiobook by Marie Foreleo, “Everything is Figure Outable”, which, side note, is a great way to pass time while commuting instead of mindlessly sitting in traffic. And it’s a great book – I highly recommend. In it, she talks about rewording can’t into won’t and then re-evaluating the previous statements. E.g. I won’t work out. I won’t eat healthy, etc. When we do this, it puts things into perspective. Often, the reason we say we can’t do something isn’t because we can’t, it’s because we choose not to. We simply don’t want to. We don’t want to make ourselves uncomfortable or put in the work.
Now I know that you are going to say, “but I don’t have the time to do x, y, and z.” If it’s truly important to you, you will make the time.
My experience with can’t vs. won’t behavior
Over this last year, I struggled with that exact phrase: I can’t work out, I don’t have the time. It would cause me to get pretty frustrated. I felt like my life was being dictated to me and not led by me. But this was an important change for me to make because I knew that working out helped me not only physically, but mentally as well. I had to figure out a way to make the change.
I knew that I personally workout best in the AM, so I readjusted my day. By waking up at 5 AM and going to the gym or doing a workout at home, I could fit it in before my daughter woke up. Trust me, there have been many, and I mean many, mornings where it takes my entire willpower to get myself out of bed and into a cold shower this early. The snooze button is my enemy on those days, as I end up getting up later than I need to and rushing to get my tasks done.
Now that I’ve adjusted my routine, I get disappointed with myself if I’m not up this early. I’m a convert, I’m addicted to being up before the sun. I love watching the sky change into the morning light and feeling the crispness in the air. Ultimately, we all have the same number of hours in the day. It’s up to us to figure out how to best use them to our advantage.
Can’t vs won’t: the lesson
The lesson here is about evaluating areas of your day that suck up unnecessary time, i.e. social media, scrolling the internet, watching TV, and so on. These are the times that you can start to embed the habits that you want to be doing. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good evening of some vino and trash TV, but I limit those evenings as a treat to myself over the weekends, and I enjoy it even more for doing so. Take the time to look at the BS excuses you tell yourself about why you can’t do something and reframe it as why you won’t do something.
Click here to check out my FREE PDF guide on the Top 3 Reasons Why We Don’t Reach Our Goals.
