Sometimes, bad things happen. Or annoying things. Or the kind of things that manage to derail your day, ruin your mood, just stop your plans from going smoothly.
This can be something as small as having someone cancel your plans, having your computer stop working, dropping your phone in the toilet (hands up, who hasn't?)...just getting up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe you just slept in, and now you are running late. Sometimes it's not even something really "bad" that happens, just something that isn't great.
No matter what it is, there are a few different ways to deal with it. Pretty much any way is acceptable, in my eyes, from taking out your frustrations on the nearest inanimate object, going for a run, eating all the junk food you can find, having a good vent...whatever. Whatever makes you feel better, gets the frustration out.
There is one reaction, however, that I cannot stand. The excuses. More importantly, the lowered expectations that excuses allow. That excuses create.
If you tell yourself that it's ok that you slept in because you were tired/had a late night/had some drinks/etc etc etc then you aren't going to fix it. You aren't going to change it. You are going to sleep in again, and again, because every morning, you will wake up and come up with a new excuse.
When I'm not losing weight, maybe it isn't that the diet hasn't kicked in, or that I'm on a plateau, or that I'm gaining muscle and it "weighs more than fat". Maybe it's because I need to work out more, and drink less wine.
Excuses may make you feel better, because they are just complicated ways to say "it's not my fault". But that only works in the short term, because by continually telling yourself that it's out of your hands, you never find a way to fix the problem. You never just grab a straw, suck it up, and change it.
Excuses become a habit - when one no longer works to explain a situation, you simply find another one. So at first, the dog is misbehaving because she is a puppy, and then when she is too old for that to fly, she is in adolescence. When you see other dogs the same age that are well-mannered, you blame it on breed, or temperament, or mix, or personality. All that happens in the end, is that you have a crazy dog, and a bushel of "but it isn't me". Where you could just cut all the crap, and admit that your dog is badly behaved because you aren't training it properly. Having admitted that, you can then start to train it properly. Shocking.
So stop it, people. Stop making excuses for yourself. Stop worrying about making yourself feel better right NOW, and starting worrying about actually fixing things so that you get to feel better long past the lifespan of the excuses you are creating.
It sounds harsh, but it's true. There is always an excuse. There is always something going wrong, or something that comes up. So just stop allowing that to get in the way, and take a little control of your life.
You might surprise yourself. If you stop making excuses for everyone and everything in your life, you may actually end up with a life where there is nothing shitty enough to need excusing.
thank you. ♡ it!
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