The Recipe for an Excuse

 

In a follow-up post to Big Picture Discipline… the lack of motivation is often bordered with a lovely, frilly little doily of… one excuse after another.

Now, I don’t have the market cornered on perfection or how to stop making excuses forever and ever, because lord knows, I don’t have that shit figured out.

I do, however, know how to make an excuse.

In learning how to make an excuse, I have also learned (a lil bit about how) to STOP making excuses.

Because when you learn what the excuses are made of —you also learn how to stop freaking cooking them up.

You learn how to deconstruct the ones you have already made, like a weird Top Chef dish–hit that with some nitrogen, and rid it from your life.

I have learned is that discipline (having some… not even a ton, just some discipline) doesn’t leave much room for any excuses.

And having discipline doesn’t really leave you any extra time to cook them up either, because you’re too busy getting your stuff done…and handled… and not mixing ingredients that later will cause you to fail and hate yourself and fail again.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you’re busy kicking ass, you aren’t busy drowning yourself in the things that are standing precisely in your way.

Sure “LIFE” happens sometimes.  But here’s a question that I began to ask myself…

How much of LIFE is really in my way… or how much am I in my own way?

Also, there is an important distinction between excuses and reasons.

Things like sickness and injuries and job and travel and… and… and… fill in the blanks…  can certainly be reasons that are in our way to getting the workouts done or eating well.  Sure, there is always something.  A list like that–those are reasons, sure–to a degree.  Especially for a short period of time—to take care of what you need to do, to process whatever just happened, to heal etc.

But how long until a reason becomes  part of the recipe for an excuse?

That’s a highly personal question. But it’s one worth asking…

Can I bring my shoes and squeeze in a 20 minute run?  Can I jump rope for 4 minutes at the park with the kids?  Can I chug a big ole glass of water while dinner is cooking?  What can I do right now to help me with my goals–not matter how small…

And the list goes on and on…

Excuses versus reasons?  The line, my friends, so very, very fine between the two. A very fine line.

You CAN do something. ALL the time. Something.

You can do something that is moving you forward… all the time.

You can stand up from your desk and stretch.  You can smile.  You can do something small for your health (sleep more), your nutrition (drink some damn water!), your hygiene (brush your teeth at 2:30pm and you’ll feel like a new person!)… do something constantly.  Let’s all do SOMETHING. Anything that moves us forward.

So what is keeping us from making progress towards our goals?

Is it us?  Are we just busy in our respective kitchens cooking up excuses?  Or have we realized what we want, and we are now spending time deconstructing those excuses–chiseling away at the ingredients for excuses??

I don’t know… I don’t have the answers, but I am working on all these things.

It’s not about perfection.  It’s about doing a little good each day for yourself.  Progress.  A little.  Discipline.  A little.  Kindness to yourself.  A little.

No more excuses. No more mixing up the ingredients either… that’s what I am working on.

#2016 #JustKeepMovingForward