This week’s blog is a relatively simple one. The message is tapping on the shoulder of your self-awareness and how conscious you are of your ‘buts’ and it links back to last weeks message and the podcast that I released early in January.
You could probably accuse me of eavesdropping on a conversation in a café the other day. It seemed quite an open conversation and certainly not a quiet one. What caught my attention were the negativity and the amount of ‘buts’ that were being thrown around.
It went something like this:
“I promised myself that I would get up and journal each morning but I just can’t get out of bed”
‘Yeah, I committed to doing 3 days in the gym but I just haven’t had the time.”
‘I also committed to putting my phone down in the evening but I didn’t realise how hard it would be.’
‘Well I promised I’d leave the office by 6 pm each night and not bring work home but that’s not happening either.’
And the competition went on!
Lots more ‘buts’ and excuses and by the time they’d finished justifying themselves, I felt completely demotivated. I can only imagine how they felt!
The reason I am sharing this with you is that you need to be very aware of the language you are using and the excuses you are making. If you hear yourself saying ‘but’ a lot and making excuses for all of the things you want to improve but have been unable to, you need to put the brakes on this immediately.
As Jim Rohn said, “For things to change, you have to change.”
In 99% of situations, what needs to change is your mindset, your beliefs, and your habits. If you keep thinking you can’t, you won’t. If you keep thinking you don’t have the time, you won’t.
To be a better leader, to be a better role model, to get fitter, healthier, more focused, more energized, you need to change something, you need to create better habits and break the cycle of the old habits.
Stop letting your excuses get in the way of your commitments and goals this year. Making excuses to justify all the commitments that you are not doing, isn’t leadership, quite frankly, it’s lazy. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t do what you set your sights on at the start of this year – it’s a choice and it’s within your control.
And furthermore, if you are chatting with someone who is allowing you to constantly make excuses, you might consider changing the people you hang around with. They are not helping you or holding you to a higher standard, they are keeping you in the business of making excuses and that’s not the company you want to be keeping – unless of course, you want to become stagnant.